Hip hop music has many different roots. Some chroniclers consider the 1960s protest group, the Last Poets, to be the first significant hip hop artist for tracks like "Hustler's Convention." Other writers wait until the 1970s, pointing at the Fatback Band's "King Tim III (Personality Jock)." For the most part, however, hip hop began as a live medium for DJs like Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash--a young electronics enthusiast who built his own stereo system--to strut their skills on the turntables by cutting and cross fading their favorite 30-second snippets. The MC, or vocal front man, remained more of an announcer who talked between records, or chanted slogans to get a crowd warmed up--such as the famous, "Throw your hands up in the air, and wave 'em like you just don't care."
In 1979, the game changed completely when the New Jersey-based Sugarhill Gang scored a breakout hit in "Rapper's Delight," which eventually sold eight million copies worldwide. The 15-minute version tells the story of a ghetto Everyman's life through interwoven rhymes traded between the vocal frontline of "Big Bank Hank", "Master Gee", and "Wonder Mike." The song's success laid the foundations for Sugar Hill Records, the first label dedicated to promoting the music. Kurtis Blow scored in 1980 with "The Breaks," and became the first hip hop artist to sign with a major label. Within a year, the influence on rock 'n' rollers was unmistakable. Blondie earned a #1 US smash for "Rapture," featuring a rap by lead singer Deborah Harry, and Britain's punk survivors, the Clash, were surprised to find their own take on the genre, "The Magnificent Seven," being played on black radio stations in New York.
The Sugarhill Gang's inability to follow "Rapper's Delight" inadvertently benefited the Furious Five, who were already local veterans--having released singles on the N'joy label. Their greatest success came in 1982, when "The Message"--a stark, but highly-charged indictment of ghetto life--became a hit all over the world. Mainstream corporations and media outlets took notice; indeed, "The Paris Review" even reprinted the single's lyric in its scathing entirety. No longer would rap be dismissed as mindless party music, and even more apolitical performers felt the pressure to include a socially-conscious song or two in their repertoire.
By the mid-1980s, all the familiar trademarks of the genre--the extended rhyming format, the idea of MCs battling each other for supremacy, and the borrowing of other popular records' vocal or instrumental lines--were firmly in place. One important point to note is that, although hip hop and rap are often used interchangeably, a more purist fan would refer to hip hop as the cultural framework from which the style--or "rappin'"--takes place. Before long, a new wave of faster-paced, more confrontational acts--such as KRS-One, Public Enemy and Run-DMC--began to overtake the pioneers, who were now dismissed as "old school." A host of independent labels sprung up to record them, notably Def Jam, initially run by founder-president Rick Rubin from his college dorm room.
Never a style that sits still for long, hip-hop took yet another dramatic turn during the late 1980s, with the emergence of "gangsta rap"--distinguished by its emphasis on gritty, profane tales of crime, street life and survival, often laced with politically incorrect imagery, and sexual innuendo. Whereas hip hop had been an East Coast phenomenon, gangsta rap marked the West Coast's entry as a player in the genre--spearheaded by NWA, whose platinum-selling debut album, "Straight Out Of Compton," laid down the blueprint for countless acts to follow. NWA would issue one more album in 1992, before breaking up acrimoniously amid financial and personal issues. However, artists like Ice-T took NWA's formula and--if anything--cranked its offensive propensities up several notches.
Two major trends characterized hip hop's turn during the 2000s. The arrival of Hispanic-Americans as a significant demographic opened the genre up to Latin influences, while the popularity of reggae and reggaeton in Jamaica led to these genres gaining renewed attention from longtime favorites like Heavy D. Other artists--particularly those of the "conscious" hip hop school, represented by acts like A Tribe Called Quest--experimented with live rhythm sections, or even full bands. The genre's unabashed affection or capitalism remains ever-present, too, as most hip hop artists have their own clothing lines, music venues and record labels--the logical conclusion that began thirty years ago,when records were frequently sold out of car trunks.