HH: Defining Hip Hop Culture From The 70's

What is Hip Hop Culture?

5 Pointz New York

Too many people are unclear as to what Hip Hop Culture really is and tend to use the term frivolously. Hip Hop Culture is commonly recognized by its main elements: Graffiti, Djing, Breakdancing, Mcing Rapping, and Beatboxing. However, these elements are simply forms of art designed to express a deeper meaning. At its core, Hip Hop is so much more than mere art and entertainment. Hip Hop is the constantly evolving spirit and consciousness of urban youth that keeps recreating itself in a never-ending cycle. It is joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, victory, defeat, anger, happiness, confusion, clarity, humor, intensity, dream, nightmare, life, death, and everything else in between.

Depending on who's telling the creation-story of Hip Hop, the day of its birth ranges.

It is the spirit that connects the past to the present and lays a path towards the future. The spirit of Hip Hop is the same as Jazz, Reggae, Blues, Doo-wop, Be-bop, and a multitude of other types of expressions, be it musical or otherwise, that African people throughout the Diaspora have given birth to and introduced to the world. That very spirit is what breathes life into a simple idea and transforms it into a living cultural movement. Hip Hop Culture cannot be assimilated, integrated, diluted, watered-down, sold for profit, or pimped. It will always exist, in this incarnation or another. What the mainstream promotes as Hip Hop is only a commercial product misleading you into believing that it represents Hip Hop in its totality.

The origins of hip hop music

70s guys with shades Embracing my inner Hip Hop.

Hip Hop Files

Is this not the best? Jumping off balconies onto mattresses…..I want to have a go!

It has its origins in the Bronx, in New York City, during the 1970s, mostly among African Americans but with some influence from the Latin American population of the area as well. The culture has gone from being a relatively underground style to being a major style throughout the world, and it has been commercialized and popularized, especially in the United States.