Help with speech on Impact Of Rap Music in the 90s

NWA is a little later than the real beginnings. Go a little further back young man...here ya go

Kurtis Blow Presents:The History of Rap Vol.1

Kurtis Blow Presents: The History of Rap Vol.2

also:
http://www.seditionists.org/HFh/hiphop/rap_history.html

http://rap.about.com/cs/history/

 

Shouldn't you develop your own ideas as to how it impacted the 90's?

Personally I think it brought a new awareness of the inner city across America and created a bridge between many different cultures that have similar experiences and view points growing up but had trouble expressing themselves through traditional musical means. At the time rap was a fresh sounding, no holds barred, rebel against the system type of music much like rock -n- roll was in it's early stages. You could also go into how it further pushed the limits of our freedom of speech and how it has affected other musical genres.

 

I don't know rap, but couldn't this idea be furthered by using the song "Cop Killer" as an example? Didn't it come out about the right time reference as your report?

 

Behad, yes it did.

Some 90's rap songs/groups off the top of my head that had influence :

Cop Killer - Ice T
Anything by Public Enemy/Chuck D - at one point most of PE's sales went to white America (or so the legend goes).
Anything by NWA who basically introduced the rest of the world to gangsta rap
Consolidated - basically a white Public Enemy pro-Vegetarian group.
Tone Loc - the term "wilding" became so "cool" for people like Ted Koppel to use.
Tupac/Notorious B.I.G. - talk about the East vs. West thing that came into prominence.
Limp Bizkit - um... why is he rapping? Anyway, another crossover angle there as hip-hop streams into rock which then streams into "middle-America"
Eminem - an accepted white rapper vs.
Vanilla Ice - an unaccepted white rapper.
More obscure, underground rappers like Paris, X-Clan, etc. that are in many ways anti-white or pro-black that don't get the airplay that other groups do.
Dance groups like Snap and C&C Music Factory that invaded club scenes with house beats. A sort of drifting away from the 80's style of alternative nu wave music.

So many angles, so many ways to approach this.

 

Hmm... as I sit here thinking.

One of the bigger events of the 90's and rap was MTV's allowance of its airplay. MTV exposed many more youth to rap music.

You can talk about things like the influence of hip-hop culture on fashion. The baggy jeans, braided hair/corn rows, etc. were all influenced by hip hop culture to some extent. Tommy Hilfiger has tapped into this phenomena in the 90's. I remember reading a quote by him stating that the hip-hop culture is something that's embraced by people of all races and backgrounds. Heck, it's gone absolutely nuts in Asian countries.

You can talk about the 90's rap/hip-hop scene giving rise to the woman's voice in rap music (somewhat of a circular reference, but...). Erykah Badu, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte (wherever she may be now), Mia X, etc. all started the elevation of intelligent and powerful black women in America. The thought that a black woman doesn't equate to a beat down woman began picking up steam in the 90's.

 

2Pac vs Biggie was probably the biggest noisemaker in the 90s.

The gangster type rap of talking s#it pretty much cooled off after that.

Also, mention Eazy-E dying.

 

The ghettoization of the middle class is probably a good topic. Hip hop became a trend-setting force in the 90's, and now fashion executives actually intiate most of their new ideas aimed at teenagers in ghettos. The book "No Logo" goes into this in more detail. Would make an excellent source, if you're interest in the socialization of rap culture into the main stream.

 

Rap in video games would be interesting to research.

 

Cop Killer wasn't a rap song.

Rap was like most other once-marginal forms of music. The original street stuff was adopted by less threatening artists (MC Hammer, Will Smith) who popularized the form. Once the original audiences for rap grew up a bit, they demanded music that was tougher and more adult. That's about when gangsta rap really exploded.

I'd like to say that the best elements of rap (clever wordplay, social consciousness) influenced the 90s. Unfortunately, it seems as if the masses only absorbed the clothing and the macho posturing. But I think that's more a damnation of the listeners, not the rappers.

 

Isn't this true for all rap? It seems I've heard that most rap sales come from white kids. Wouldn't sheer population numbers have to make that true?

 

Cop Killer wasn't a rap song, but it was put out by a figure associated with hip hop and rap - Ice T. That in itself may be something to talk about, Rockets R' Us. A rapper doing more of a rock song and appealing to larger audiences.

subtomic,

I think the best elements of rap probably died long ago and you'd have to hunt far and wide to get anything other than commercialization and ignorant "messages" in rap nowadays. I loved Public Enemy, but you don't find groups like that around much anymore. Chuck D's lyrics and voice hit and hit hard with the social awareness you speak of. Even groups like Paris or X-Clan that would get blasted for "reverse racism" were actually talking about something substantive whether you disagreed or not. Will Smith/The Fresh Prince flowed, as did artists like Doug E Fresh, KRS ONE, Chuck D/Public Enemy. Somewhere along the way it turned into a bunch of dimwits rapping about nothing... booty this, coochie that, bling bling, ding a ling, la dee dah... . There are still a few around that are good like Q-Tip/Tribe Called Quest.

Do you really think even pre-NWA, rap contained much "social consciousness" as you put it? I mean, when I think of Sugar Hill Gang, Doug E Fresh, the Fat Boys, Whodini, and later Fresh Prince and MC Hammer, I don't think of too much social consciousness.

What I think we've seen is the commercialization of rap music into a bigger thing called "hip hop culture". I think that's the biggest effect rap's had since the 90's - it's created its own culture. Back in the days of Afrikaa Bambaataa and DJ Herc, it was underground. It was really still underground until the Sugar Hill Gang and RUN DMC. Then came MTV and voila... hip hop was born.

 

I can't say for sure, but in Public Enemy's heyday, they weren't exactly being played that much on predominantly top-40 stations. MTV wasn't really giving them much airplay, either. They were still getting most of their airplay on urban stations and at predominantly black clubs. This is what actually made that stat more amazing.

Nowadays groups like Cypress Hill have crossover audiences, and groups like Limp Bizkit who can't seem to figure out what they are get a lot of the white rap music crowd. It's not so "underground" anymore. Today, the stat wouldn't be so surprising, but back in the mid-to-late 80's and early 90's, to me it was.

Somebody correct any of this if they think I'm wrong...

 

Bah!

Q-tip is a sell-out now. I still enjoy him, but he's nothing like he was in TCQ.

The best now, imo, are Talib Qwelli, Mos Def, and the Roots if you care about socially conscious lyrics. And they also kick ass for other reasons (especially the roots). Dead Prez, too, I suppose... but they're a bit too ahh... black panther-esque for my white ears .

The Roots come out with their 4th studio album in a few days. Woohoo!