Abstract
Hip-hop has been an essential part of popular culture for a long time. While many consider it to be a lifestyle or genre of music, others view it as a tool for resisting discrimination and conformity. Using music as a form of art, many performers choose to convey meaningful messages and connect with their audiences. The aim of the paper is to examine hip-hop as an element of culture, focusing on its significant impact and its origins in the 1970s. In terms of methods, a review of peer-reviewed articles was involved to delve into the intricacies of the music genre.
Overall, it was found that hip-hop as a movement is essential to popular culture and is unique due to its emphasis on self-exploration and reflection on one’s hardships and experiences. Thus, encompassing various styles and artists, hip-hop remains a symbol of going against oppression and gaining one’s identity.
Annotated Bibliography
Anyiwo, N., Watkins, D. C., & Rowley, S. J. (2022). “They can’t take away the light”: Hip-hop culture and black youth’s racial resistance. Youth & Society, 54(4), 611-634. Web.
The 2022 article by Anyiwo and colleagues focuses on hip-hop as an instrument for cultural opposition and perseverance in the face of prejudice and economic hardship, especially by people of color. As the authors discuss, it enables them to articulate themselves genuinely, foster cultural pride, and criticize the societal effects of structural injustice. This study looked at the connections between Black youth’s sociopolitical development (SPD) and their exposure to hip-hop culture. Results showed that hip-hop and rap media had different effects on young people’s SPD. Rap media included songs as well as music videos. Black teenagers reported participating in more racial justice action and having more agency to confront racism when they consumed more hip-hop media and associated with musicians on the internet. Rap media consumption among young people was not always correlated with their SPD. These results are crucial to the project since they shed light on the possible impact of hip-hop culture outside of music on young people’s attitudes and deeds related to racial justice, meaning that hip-hop has an impact on culture.
Benvenga L. (2022). Hip-hop, identity, and conflict: Practices and transformations of a metropolitan culture. Frontiers in Sociology, 7, 1-11. Web.
The 2022 article by Benvenga focuses on the historical development and shifts in hip-hop. The analysis concentrates on early American hip-hop from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, but it also considers how it has spread and been reimagined, paying special attention to how it has interacted with globalization and how modern cities have changed. In this way, taking into account hip-hop as a subculture in the article, the author explores the beginnings of rap music, its relationship to Afro-American culture, and the idea of blackness that it expresses. Using Cohen’s three levels of examination, the writer has successfully compared the socio-anthropological complexity of contemporary hip-hoppers’ artistic creations because of the socio-historical backgrounds and hip-hop culture practices. Overall, the effectiveness of the article is in its emphasis on the influence and role of hip-hop in modern culture. Its importance is a focus on how self-expression has been a part of the genre since its establishment.
Harrison, A. K., & Arthur, C. E. (2019). Hip-hop ethos. Humanities, 8(1), 1-14. Web.
The 2019 article by Harrison and Arthur explores the ethos encompassing hip-hop, beginning with the claim that the genre is a unique but ubiquitous expression of modern black subjectivity. The material delves deeper into the origins of the genre and its growth as a subculture. This idea crystallized in New York City during the 1970s and has since spread around the world, becoming a powerful ethos of the subaltern, which is adopted by youth groups that are disadvantaged by society. Moreover, the authors concentrate on the fact that hip-hop’s defining characteristics are inevitably nuanced. The importance of the research findings lies in the argument that hip hop’s dual status as a late-modern and post-modern artistic expression creates paradoxes regarding the genre’s relationships to late capitalism and its claims about what can and cannot be real. In other words, the findings highlight elements of devotion, genuineness, and self-reflection in the genre.
Tan, H., & Maneewattana, C. (2022). Research on cultural identities of hip-hop music groups in China inland cities. Journal of Positive School Psychology, 6(4), 11598-11612. Web.
The 2022 publication by Tan and Maneewattana focuses not only on the role of hip-hop as a genre and subculture but its connection to identity theory and sociological concepts. The authors begin their discussion by illuminating how African Americans in the Bronx ghettos started the hip-hop movement in the 1960s, using urban art forms, including dance and music, to express their disapproval of discrimination based on race and society at large, as well as their desire for a sense of national identity. It is evident that the hip-hop culture likes to create online personas and seek recognition in the virtual world. This study is helpful in the field that explores hip-hop since it describes the objective characteristics of texts that are emblematic of hip-hop music. The study is crucial because it examines how hip-hoppers develop their cultural uniqueness and strive for social acceptance through the production and dissemination of hip-hop music.
Xiao, T. (2022). The research on the influence of North American hip-hop culture on Chinese high school students. In 2022 4th International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (pp. 694-701). Atlantis Press.
In the 2022 study, Xiao explores the variations of hip-hop and its functions in popular culture. The author stresses that hip-hop encompasses a lot more than music; it is not simply about rap, DJ, graffiti, and hip-hop in the strict sense. Urban culture in general, including activities like cycling, skateboarding, beatbox, motorcycle, and street basket. The contribution of the author is finding that the primary demographic of hip-hop culture comprises male youths, who are encouraged to exhibit a confident and carefree lifestyle. The study found that eighty-five percent of high school pupils have a favorable opinion of hip-hop and its culture. Gender differences do exist, though, with boys being more accepting than females. Through the efforts, Xiao determined that traditional hip-hop is less popular than New School and Extreme hip-hop.