History of Rap

[sonic1988]

I had to do a 6 page midterm for my college writing class. So, I decided to do it on Rap music. It got a grade of 96 on it :D which I'm real proud of, and since I know that some people may not know a lot about rap's history, or some people may just wanna read something. So you can downlod this if you would like to. I don't want to post it, since its 6 pages, with an additional two pages of citations. I hope you enjoy reading it. And kudos to Tim for having Big willie Style info on the site, I need that :2thumbs:

http://download.yousendit.com/E166CBCB5AB4EB81

http://rapidshare.com/files/2578334/History_of_Rap.doc.html

Hope you enjoy it.

P.S. I use the MLA (Modern Language Association) format at my colege, this requires the pages to be numbered with my name next to it. Also, you may see odd parts in the paper, those are just citations for my sources. For example you may see this:

(Chang, Jeff)

if you go to the end of the paper where the works are cited, you can find where it says (Chang, Jeff) and see where I got that particular information from.

Edited November 9, 2006 by sonic1988

[bart5]

:thumbsup: :interesting: Great paper dude. I really liked the order of the paper, and how you gave props to JJFP. Thanks for sharing dude, I think a lot of people need to learn about Rap's history to truely understand what the hip hop culture is all about.

[WesSyde]

wow i use MLA formatting too but we dont get breaks like you do, first off the name at the top of the page has to be in the header/footer so u cant waste 2 lines like that and you dont get to put all of those spaces between the title and intro paragraph. basically, if i formatted that essay the way my teachers make me do it, it would be 6 pages (not 7) and the works cited would be a little over a page.

but anyways that was a good essay and i learned some stuff about Wild Style which i have not seen. the only thing that i would point out since i wrote a 29 page paper last year about parental advisory in music, is that the whole "gangsta" image started out with Ice-T, NWA, The Geto Boys, etc. sure Dre popularized it like it hadnt been done before, but Ice-T and NWA were selling mad records back in 87 talkin about gangsta stuff even before Dre came out with the Chronic. and back in 87 gangsta rap was given a bad name by Tipper Gore and the PMRC (parents music resource center), it wasnt like there was bad imagery and critical media when 2pac got killed in 96, it started way before then believe it or not. and if u watch 2Pac ressurrection he pretty much tells it like it is, about how there was always controversey over his lyrics since he came out, cuz the controversey really started before he came out in 91, its just that it wasnt a big deal to people until suge, pac, biggie, puffy, snoop, & dre all started beefin with each other i guess

im sure u might know all of that already and just didnt wanna be specific about it in your paper since you were covering a broad topic, but i thought i would point that out to anyone who needed to be educated on that.

[cristigolo]

god paper sonic but if i were you i would remove the last name from it

[bigted]

You did a great job with that, btw like Wes said gangsta rap started in the mid-80s, not early 90s, LL Cool J was actually the first rapper to say the term "hip-hop gangsta" in a song on "I Can't Live Without My Radio':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangsta_rap

Early gangsta rap (1986-1990)

LL Cool J can probably be credited as the first rapper to use the word "gangsta" in one of his songs. In "I Can't Live Without My Radio", from his 1985 album Radio, he mentions it twice with "i'm a hip-hop gangsta" and "and a gangsta rock". Philadelphia MC Schoolly D released the 12" single "P.S.K." (short for Park Side Killers) in 1986. In this song Schoolly D makes direct references to his crew or gang (PSK) as well as describing putting his pistol against another rapper's head[1].

[edit] Ice-T

In the same year, Los Angeles-based rapper Ice-T released "6 n the Mornin", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song. Ice-T had been MCing since the early '80s; his first song, "The Coldest Rap", was the first hiphop song to use the words ho and nigga, and included references to guns and pimping.

In an interview with PROPS magazine Ice-T said: "Here's the exact chronological order of what really went down: The first record that came out along those lines was Schoolly D's 'P.S.K.' Then the syncopation of that rap was used by me when I made Six In The Morning. The vocal delivery was the same: '...P.S.K. is makin' that green', '...six in the morning, police at my door'. When I heard that record I was like "Oh ****!" and call it a bite or what you will but I dug that record. My record didn't sound like P.S.K., but I liked the way he was flowing with it. P.S.K. was talking about Park Side Killers but it was very vague. That was the only difference, when Schoolly did it, it was "...one by one, I'm knockin' em out". All he did was represent a gang on his record. I took that and wrote a record about guns, beating people down, and all that with Six In The Morning. At the same time my single came out, Boogie Down Productions hit with Criminal Minded, which was a gangster-based album. It wasn't about messages or "You Must Learn", it was about gangsterism."[2]

Ice-T continued to release gangsta albums for the remainder of the decade: Rhyme Pays in 1987, Power in 1988 and The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say in 1989. Ice-T's lyrics also contained strong political commentary, and often played the line between glorifying the gangsta lifestyle and criticizing it as a no-win situation.

[edit] Further violence

Boogie Down Productions released their first single, "Say No Brother (Crack Attack Don't Do It)", in 1986. It was followed by "South-Bronx/P is Free" and "9mm Goes Bang" in the same year. The latter is the most gangsta-themed song of the three; in it KRS-1 describes shooting rival weed-dealers after they try to kill him in his home[3]. The album Criminal Minded followed in 1987. Shortly after the release of the album, BDP's DJ Scott LaRock was shot and killed. After this BDP's subsequent records focused on conscious lyrics instead.

N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton.N.W.A. released their first single in 1986. They were crucial to the foundations of the genre for introducing more violent lyrics over much rougher beats. The first blockbuster gangsta album was N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton first released in 1988. Straight Outta Compton also established West Coast hip hop as a vital genre, and a rival of hip hop's long-time capital, New York City. Straight Outta Compton sparked the first major controversy regarding hip hop lyrics when their song "**** Tha Police" earned a letter from the FBI strongly expressing law enforcement's resentment of the song. Due to the influence of Ice T and N.W.A., gangsta rap is often credited as being an originally West Coast phenomenon.

Aside from N.W.A. and Ice T, early West Coast rappers include Too $hort (from Oakland, California), Kid Frost (who was an important Latin MC), and others from Compton, Watts, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco. On the East Coast, New York's Kool G Rap began to use more and more crime-related themes in his lyrics towards the end of the decade.

[sonic1988]

wow i use MLA formatting too but we dont get breaks like you do, first off the name at the top of the page has to be in the header/footer so u cant waste 2 lines like that and you dont get to put all of those spaces between the title and intro paragraph. basically, if i formatted that essay the way my teachers make me do it, it would be 6 pages (not 7) and the works cited would be a little over a page.

but anyways that was a good essay and i learned some stuff about Wild Style which i have not seen. the only thing that i would point out since i wrote a 29 page paper last year about parental advisory in music, is that the whole "gangsta" image started out with Ice-T, NWA, The Geto Boys, etc. sure Dre popularized it like it hadnt been done before, but Ice-T and NWA were selling mad records back in 87 talkin about gangsta stuff even before Dre came out with the Chronic. and back in 87 gangsta rap was given a bad name by Tipper Gore and the PMRC (parents music resource center), it wasnt like there was bad imagery and critical media when 2pac got killed in 96, it started way before then believe it or not. and if u watch 2Pac ressurrection he pretty much tells it like it is, about how there was always controversey over his lyrics since he came out, cuz the controversey really started before he came out in 91, its just that it wasnt a big deal to people until suge, pac, biggie, puffy, snoop, & dre all started beefin with each other i guess

im sure u might know all of that already and just didnt wanna be specific about it in your paper since you were covering a broad topic, but i thought i would point that out to anyone who needed to be educated on that.

I actually didn't know that much about it. Thanks for the information. I had to stick to the 6 pages, I wanted to go over, but I couldn't. But after gangsta rap starts, I just wanted to keep everything at its most popular, hence the limp bizkit and rage against the machine being mentioned in the rapcore section.

god paper sonic but if i were you i would remove the last name from it

that's true, I tried and the entire essay got screwed up, so whatever.

[Luigie]

Thats was a cool read man, cheers for that