Marlon Lu'Ree Williams, better known by his stage name Marley Marl, is an American DJ, record producer, rapper and record label founder, primarily operating in hip hop music. Marlon grew up in Queensbridge housing projects located in Queens, New York. He performed in local talent shows during the early days of rap music, further fueling his interest.
Rapping is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and [commonly] street vernacular". It is usually performed over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The components of rap include "content", "flow", and "delivery". Rap differs from spoken-word poetry in that it is usually performed off-time to musical accompaniment. It also differs from singing, which varies in pitch and does not always include words. Because they do not rely on pitch inflection, some rap artists may play with timbre or other vocal qualities. Rap is a primary ingredient of hip-hop music, and so commonly associated with the genre that it is sometimes called "rap music".
Trip hop is a musical genre that originated in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic fusion of hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound, often incorporating elements of jazz, soul, funk, reggae, dub, R&B, and other genres, typically of electronic music, as well as sampling from movie soundtracks and other eclectic sources.
The Swiss hip hop culture began in the early 1980s.
Fred Brathwaite, more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American visual artist, filmmaker, and hip hop pioneer. He is considered one of the architects of the street art movement. Freddy emerged in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a graffiti artist. He was the bridge between the burgeoning uptown rap scene and the downtown No Wave art scene. He gained wider recognition in 1981 when Debbie Harry rapped on the Blondie song "Rapture" that "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly." In the late 1980s, Freddy became the first host of the groundbreaking hip-hop music video show Yo! MTV Raps.
Hip hop music has been popular in Africa since the early 1980s due to widespread African American influence. In 1985, hip hop reached Senegal, a French-speaking country in West Africa. Some of the first Senegalese rappers were Munyaradzi Nhidza Lida, M.C. Solaar, and Positive Black Soul.
Miami bass is a subgenre of hip hop music that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. The use of drums from the Roland TR-808, sustained kick drum, heavy bass, raised dance tempos, and frequently sexually explicit lyrical content differentiate it from other hip hop subgenres. Music author Richie Unterberger has characterized Miami bass as using rhythms with a "stop-start flavor" and "hissy" cymbals with lyrics that "reflected the language of the streets, particularly Miami's historically black neighborhoods such as Liberty City, Goulds, and Overtown".
Sylvia Robinson, known mononymously as Sylvia, was an American singer and record producer. Robinson achieved success as a performer on two R&B chart toppers: as half of Mickey & Sylvia with the 1957 single "Love Is Strange", and her solo record "Pillow Talk" in 1973. She later became known for her work as founder and CEO of the pioneering hip hop label Sugar Hill Records.
Richard Colón, better known by his stage name Crazy Legs, is an American b-boy who was featured in the earliest stories on hip hop dancing to appear in mainstream press, and as president of the Rock Steady Crew brought the form to London and Paris in 1983. Today he is also involved in community outreach, dance instruction, and dance theater productions. He has appearanced in fiction films and documentaries. Crazy Legs is current president of the Rock Steady Crew.
Hip hop dance is a range of street dance styles primarily performed to hip hop music or that have evolved as part of hip hop culture. It is influenced by a wide range of styles that were created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop dance mainstream exposure.
Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx.
Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, starting in the Bronx, New York City. Pioneered from Black American street culture, that had been around for years prior to its more mainstream discovery, it later reached other groups such as Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans. Hip-hop culture has historically been shaped and dominated by African American men, though female hip hop artists have contributed to the art form and culture as well. Hip hop culture is characterized by the key elements of rapping, DJing and turntablism, and breakdancing; other elements include graffiti, beatboxing, street entrepreneurship, hip hop language, and hip hop fashion. From hip hop culture emerged a new genre of popular music, hip hop music.
Kenneth James Gabbert, better known by his stage name Ken Swift, is a second generation b-boy, or breakdancer. He was a longtime member and key figure in the Rock Steady Crew, and its former Vice President. He is now President of the Breaklife and VII Gems Hip Hop movement in New York City. Ken Swift began b-boying in 1978, at the age of twelve, when he was inspired by dancers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Widely known in the breakdancing world as "the Epitome of a B-Boy," he is widely considered by b-boys to be the individual who has had the greatest influence on breakdancing. Ken Swift is credited with the creation of many dance moves and terminology. His original footwork and "freeze style" became a foundational part of breaking, which were considered new concepts at the time.
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, 1965, in an effort by the magazine to further expand into the field of rhythm and blues music. It then went through several name changes, being known as Soul LPs in the 1970s and Top Black Albums in the 1980s, before returning to the R&B identification in 1990 and affixing a hip hop designation in 1999 to reflect the latter's growing sales and relationship to R&B during the decade.
Massive Monkees is a 30+ member b-boy & b-girl crew from Seattle, Washington that won the 2004 World B-Boy Championships in London and appeared on season four of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. In 2012 they won the international b-boy competition R-16 Korea and thus became the first American crew to win in the history of the competition.
Hip hop or hip-hop, formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music that originated in the early 1970s from the African American community. Hip-hop music originated as an anti-drug and anti-violence genre consisting of stylized rhythmic music that often accompanies rapping, a rhythmic delivery of poetic speech. In the early 1990s, a professor of African American studies at Temple University said, "Hip-hop is something that blacks can unequivocally claim as their own." By the 21st century, the field of rappers had diversified by both race and gender. The music developed as part of the broader hip-hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, breakdancing, and graffiti art. While often used to refer solely to rapping and rap music, "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 the culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.
Lance Taylor, also known as Afrika Bambaataa, is an American DJ, rapper, and record producer from South Bronx, New York City. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.
Hip-hop theater is a form of theater that presents contemporary stories through the use of one or more of the four elements of hip-hop culture—b-boying, graffiti writing, MCing (rapping), and DJing. Other cultural markers of hip-hop such as spoken word, beatboxing, and hip-hop dance can be included as well although they are not always present. What is most important is the language of the theatrical piece and the plot's relevance to the world. Danny Hoch, the founder of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, further defines it as such: "Hip-hop theatre must fit into the realm of theatrical performance, and it must be by, about and for the hip-hop generation, participants in hip-hop culture, or both."
The history of hip-hop dances encompasses the people and events since the late 1960s that have contributed to the development of early hip-hop dance styles, such as uprock, breaking, locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping. African Americans created uprock and breaking in New York City. African Americans in California created locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping—collectively referred to as the funk styles. All of these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their street origins and in their improvisational nature of hip hop.
Twerking is a type of dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving throwing or thrusting the hips back or shaking the buttocks, often in a low squatting stance. It is individually performed chiefly but not exclusively by women.
