Gangsta rap or gangster rap is a style of hip hop characterized by themes and lyrics that generally emphasize the "gangsta" lifestyle. The genre evolved from hardcore rap into a distinct form, pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Ice-T, and popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups like N.W.A. After the national attention that Ice-T and N.W.A attracted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop. Many gangsta rap artists openly boast of their associations with various active street gangs as part of their artistic image, with the Crips and Bloods being the most commonly represented. Gangsta rap parallels other indigenous gang and crime-oriented forms of music, such as the narcocorrido genre of northern Mexico.
German hip hop refers to hip-hop music produced in Germany. Elements of American hip-hop culture, such as graffiti art and breakdancing, diffused into Western Europe in the early 1980s.
Turkish hip hop refers to hip hop music produced by members of the Turkish minority in Germany, and to a lesser degree by hip hop artists in Turkey. The Turkish minority, called the Turks, first drew inspiration from the discrimination and racism they received while living as migrant workers in Germany in the 1960s. Turkish hip hop uses Arabesk music, a folk style that finds its roots in Turkey during the 1960s, and is influenced by the hip hop music of America and Germany. Album artwork, lyrical content, and the Turkish language are used by hip hop artists to express their uniquely Turkish identity.
West Coast hip hop is a regional genre of hip hop music that encompasses any artists or music that originate in the West Coast region of the United States. The gangsta rap subgenre of West Coast hip hop began to dominate from a radio play and sales standpoint during the early 1990s with the birth of G-funk and the emergence of Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's Death Row Records.
Claude M'BaraliMC Solaar (French pronunciation: [ɛm si sɔˈlaʁ] is a French rapper of Senegalese and Chadian origin. He is one of France's most famous and influential hip hop artists. Some even consider him as the best French rapper of all time.
Hip hop music has been popular in Africa since the early 1980s due to widespread American influence. In 1985 hip hop reached Senegal, a French-speaking country in West Africa. Some of the first Senegalese rappers were M.C. Lida, M.C. Solaar, and Positive Black Soul, who mixed rap with Mbalax, a type of West African pop music. An early South African group was Black Noise. They began as a graffiti and breakdance crew in Cape Town until they started emceeing in 1989.
Freundeskreis also known as FK, were a German hip hop group from Stuttgart. They performed songs in German, English, French and Esperanto. The members were Max Herre, Don Philippe and DJ Friction.
Filipino hip-hop or Pinoy hip hop is hip hop music performed by musicians of Filipino descent, both in the Philippines and overseas, especially by Filipino-Americans.
Da Beatminerz are a hip-hop production crew from Bushwick, Brooklyn, and are known for their dark, gritty sound that is very popular with the underground hip-hop scene.
Massive Töne is one of the oldest German hip hop groups, founded 1991 in Stuttgart.
Mobb Deep was an American hip hop duo from Queensbridge, Queens, New York. The group consisted of Havoc and Prodigy, and were a hardcore East Coast hip hop group. They were known for their dark, hardcore delivery as exemplified in "Shook Ones ." Mobb Deep became one of the most successful rap duos in hip hop, having sold over 3 million records. Three of their notable albums were The Infamous (1995), Hell On Earth (1996) and Murda Muzik (1999), and their top hits include "Shook Ones, Pt. II", "Survival of the Fittest" and "Hell on Earth".
Political hip hop is a subgenre of hip hop music that was developed in the 1980s as a way of turning rap music into a call for 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 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 Marxism to the values of the Five Percent Nation.
European hip hop is hip hop music created by European musicians. Hip hop is a style of music developed by African American and Caribbean communities in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. Due to this success, it has gained worldwide popularity, especially in Europe where many diverse and unique styles of hip hop have been created. This diversity is especially apparent in the forms of hip hop music and culture emanating from settler communities from Europe's former colonies and peripheries.
Asian hip hop is a heterogeneous musical genre that covers all hip hop music as recorded and produced by artists of Asian origin.
Islamic Force is an Oriental hip hop group, originally from Berlin, who ultimately began the Oriental hip-hop movement as a way of creating an identity for minorities in Germany. The group was founded in the late 1980s during a time of growth for hip-hop in Germany and was made up of members of different ethnicities, including lyric writer and rapper, Boe-B, vocalist Killa Hakan, whose families originally were from Turkey, DJ Derezon, whose ancestry was Spanish and German, and vocalist Nelie whose family hailed from Germany and Albania. Originally, their focus was on American hip-hop, and the group felt a strong connection to African American hip-hop, but they soon began experimenting with Turkish music and were the first group to combine computer drum rhythms with Arabesque breaks.
Cartel is a German hip hop album released in 1995 featuring various artists of Turkish descent. The compilation contains five tracks by Nuremberg artist Karakan, three songs from the Kiel group Da Crime Posse, three songs by Erci E. from West Berlin and a communal recording by all of the artists entitled Cartel.
King Size Terror is a German hip hop group of Turkish, Peruvian, and Afro-American origin.
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a music genre developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans in the late 1970s which 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.
