Cash Money is an American record label founded by two brothers, Bryan "Birdman" Williams and Ronald "Slim" Williams. The label is distributed by Republic, which used to be Universal Republic. The label itself has been home to a roster of hip hop artists, including Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj. This led to Cash Money becoming one of the most successful record labels in hip-hop history.
Hip hop music arrived in Cuba via radio and TV broadcasts from Miami. During the 1980s hip hop culture in Cuba was mainly centered on breakdancing. But by the 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the onset of the Special Period, young raperos, exposed to foreign tourists whose wealth highlighted their struggle, turned to rapping to affirm their cubanidad and advocate for further revolutionary reforms.
Native American Hip Hop is hip-hop culture practiced by people of Native American heritage; this also includes Canadian First Nation hip hop artists. It is not a specific form of hip-hop but varies in style along the lines of hip-hop in general. Native Americans have been present in hip-hop culture since its inception as breakdancers, DJs, rappers, and graffiti artists. The Native American contribution to hip-hop can occasionally be veiled by the ethnic umbrella term of Hispanic or Latino, terms that do not specifically refer to race.
Jay Wayne Jenkins, known professionally as Jeezy, is an American rapper, songwriter, and actor. Signed to Def Jam Recordings since 2004, his major label debut Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 was released the following year and debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, selling 172,000 copies in its first week and was later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Jeezy is credited, along with fellow Atlanta-based rappers T.I. and Gucci Mane, for helping to pioneer and popularize trap music with a mainstream audience.
Lennox Yearwood, Jr. is a minister and community activist who is also an influential member of political hip hop. Yearwood currently serves as President of the Hip Hop Caucus, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers young people to participate in elections, policymaking and service projects. Yearwood has led or been involved in a number of high-profile campaigns to engage young voters, as well as working on human rights issues in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina.
The Hip Hop Caucus (HHC) is a national, non-profit organization in the United States, which aims to promote political activism for young U.S. voters using hip-hop music and culture.
Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. The origin of the name is often disputed. It is also argued as to whether hip hop started in the South or West Bronx. While the term hip hop is often used to refer exclusively to hip hop music, hip hop is characterized by four key elements: "rapping", a rhythmic vocal rhyming style (orality); DJing, which is making music with record players and DJ mixers ; b-boying/b-girling/breakdancing (movement/dance); and graffiti. Other elements are: hip hop culture and historical knowledge of the movement (intellectual/philosophical); beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street entrepreneurship; hip hop language; and hip hop fashion and style, among others. The fifth element, although debated, is commonly considered either street knowledge, hip hop fashion, or beatboxing.
Arabic hip hop is hip hop music and culture originating in the Arabic-speaking world. It is performed in Arabic, English, French, Berber languages (Tamazight), and local Arabic dialects. Like most artists of the genre, the artists from the Arab world are highly influenced by American culture.
Project Blowed is an open-mic workshop, its affiliated underground hip hop crew and record label based in Los Angeles, California at 3333 Leimert. This hip hop function started in 1994 and features many music groups, emcees, dancers, and graffiti artists local to the Southern California area.
Political hip hop is a subgenre of hip hop music that was developed in the 1980s as a way of turning hip hop into a call for political and/or social action and a form of social activism. Inspired by 1970s political preachers such as The Last Poets and musician Gil Scott-Heron, Public Enemy was the first predominately political hip-hop group. It has helped to create a new form of social expression for subordinate groups to speak about their exclusions, injustices and lack of power. Political hip-hop is the use of hip hop music to send political messages to inspire action or social change or to convince the listener of a particular worldview. There is no all-encompassing political hip-hop ideology; rather, there are multiple perspectives that range anywhere from anarchism to Marxism to the values of the Five Percent Nation.
The Good Life Cafe was a health food market and cafe in Los Angeles, California, known for its open mic nights that helped the 1990s Los Angeles alternative hip hop movement flourish. In 2008, director Ava DuVernay, who had performed at the cafe with the Figures of Speech hip hop group, released a documentary about the cafe, This Is The Life. The film featured a number of hip hop artists discussing the importance of the Good Life Cafe to themselves and the hip hop scene. The Cafe was open from 1989 to 1999.
Hip hop music, also known as rap music, is a genre of popular music developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans and Latino Americans in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s. It consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.
4REAL is a reality TV series, whose 8 episodes were broadcast on MTV Canada during 2007-2008. The series' main theme was having celebrity guests visit local communities to discuss local and global challenges, for example, having Joaquin Phoenix visit the Brazilian rainforest to discuss contemporary challenges with a local chieftain. The series was produced by Direct Current Media.
LGBTQ representations in hip hop music have been historically low. Hip hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBTQ-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing homophobic views and anti-gay lyrics. Attitudes towards homosexuality in hip hop culture have historically been negative. Gay slurs like "sus", "no homo", and "pause" can be heard in hip hop lyrics from the industry’s biggest stars. According to the LA Times, these slurs were used to put "queerness as a punchline". However, since the early 2000s there has been a flourishing community of LGBTQ hip hop artists, activists and performers breaking barriers in the mainstream music industry.
Keenon Dequan Ray Jackson, better known by his stage name YG, is an American rapper and actor from Compton, California. In 2010, he released his debut single, "Toot It and Boot It", which peaked at number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single's success resulted in him signing to Def Jam Recordings. In the following years, YG released mixtapes such as The Real 4Fingaz, Just Re'd Up,Just Re'd Up 2, 4 Hunnid Degreez, among others.
Love & Hip Hop is a media franchise that consists of several reality television series broadcast on VH1. The shows document the personal and professional lives of several hip hop and R&B musicians, performers, managers, and record producers residing in various metropolitan areas of the United States. The original franchise version, Love & Hip Hop: New York, premiered on March 6, 2011. Its success resulted in spin-offs based in Atlanta, Hollywood, and Miami.
Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta is the second installment of the Love & Hip Hop reality television franchise. It premiered June 18, 2012 on VH1, and chronicles the lives of several people in Atlanta involved with hip hop music. The show features appearances from notable figures associated with Southern hip hop.
Feminist activism in hip hop is a feminist movement based by hip hop artists. The activism movement involves doing work in graffiti, break dancing, and hip hop music. Hip hop has a history of being a genre that sexually objectifies and disrespects women ranging from the usage of video vixens to explicit rap lyrics. Within the subcultures of graffiti and breakdancing, sexism is more evident through the lack of representation of women participants. In a genre notorious for its sexualization of women, feminist groups and individual artists who identify as feminists have sought to change the perception and commodification of women in hip hop. This is also rooted in cultural implications of misogyny in rap music.
Mona Scott-Young is an American television producer and entrepreneur. She is the CEO of the multi-media entertainment company Monami Productions, best known for producing the VH1 reality television franchise Love & Hip Hop.
Olajide Williams is an American neurologist and the founder of Hip-Hop Public Health. He is Chief of Staff and Professor of Neurology at Columbia University.
