Hip Hop: From the Margins to Mainstream

Hi, I’m Tamara! Welcome to my Hip Hop Culture Blog. Even though I am very eclectic and love listening and dancing to every style of music, including Hip-Hop, I do not know much about it. Here I will have a weekly blog where I’ll post what I learned in class and share my feelings and thoughts about it.

In today’s class we talked about how Hip Hop started in the margins and how it came to be part of the mainstream culture. What started as a form of entertainment in the streets of the Bronx, now is seen by the eyes of people from all over the world. Hip Hop has changed as much and as fast as culture has. Rappers, who would rhyme about rapping, now rap about how glorious and successful their lives are. When in the past they would rap about their marginalized lives, now rap about an “Empire State of Mind”.

By the way, the song “Empire State of Mind” was originally written by people from Brooklyn, who were feeling homesick while on an overseas trip. Isn’t it ironic? Voices from the margins who would rap about their inner-city marginalized lives are now mainstream artists rapping about how glorious their lives are, while having a good time abroad.

We saw two music videos examples in class in which we can clearly see the difference in the lyrics of both music. The rappers of Grandmaster Flash with The Message (Beat Streets) from 1982, representing rap in the margins, complained about the environment they were living in: “Broken glass everywhere, People pissing on the stairs, I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise. Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice. Rats in the front room, roaches in the back Junkies in the alley with the baseball bat. I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get far. Cause a man with a tow-truck repossessed my car”

Nowadays,  the mainstream rappers rap about the so missed environment they come from and about how proud they are of  having succeeded in their life: “since I made it here I can make it anywhere, yeah, they love me everywhere” and talk about a “concerete jungle where dreams are made”, expensive cars and a New York City that will make you feel “brand new” in which “big lights will inspire you”.

From the Margins to the Mainstream big time!!

Toasting for subalterns and  Rapping for dominance I finish today’s post.