Urban culture today is formed through the unifying voice of hip-hop music. Hip-hop can be defined through the vernacular of its p.Shot of KRS-ONE, prominent hip-hop lyricist and authorpoetic lyrics. Modern hip-hop is a versatile form of music that embraces the creativity of jazz and Afrocentric folk music, and is an "offshoot of black masculine toasts, the revolutionary poetry of Gil Scott Heron, The Lost Poets, and American soul-funk" (Hill, 1998 p. 1363).
Hip-hop tells the stories of the multiethnic urban youth and the communities they live in, though the lives of inner-city African- Americans take center stage. Hip-hop is about inner-city and lower-class life. It's about trying to live out the American dream from the bottom up. It's about trying to make something out of nothing.
Hip-hop is about the youth culture of New York City taking over the world.
Hip-hop is about dance, art, expression, pain, love, racism, sexism, broken families, hard times, overcoming adversity, and the search for God. Anyone who looks at hip-hop and just sees rap music doesn't truly understand the history and the current influence hip-hop has on the whole youth culture.
Hip hop is a subculture, which is said to have begun with the work of DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, and Afrika Bambaattaa.
The four main aspects, or "elements", of hip hop culture are MCing (rapping), DJing, urban inspired art/tagging (graffiti), and b-boying (or breakdancing). The most known "extended" elements are beatboxing, hip hop fashion, hip hop slang.
