What does hip hop mean to you?

my life is all about music and hip hop has affected me in more ways than i could ever express. to me, hip hop is an art form. its like poetry by way of music and thats what i love about it. artists like tupac, rakim, nas, and many others are lyrical geniuses and are icons in the hip hop world.





so i just want to know what you guys think about hip hop music and what it means to you...

What does hip hop mean to you?
I like hip hop. Most hip hop isn't cursing. Some singers like Mary J. Blige don't curse a lot. You act like you have never ever said a curse word in your life. I don't care if you insult me. I am unique and like hip hop and I am fine just the way I am.
Reply:I feel Hip Hop is a way of life. I know that might sound cliche but it really is. So many people have forgotten the true definition of Hip Hop. For example...there is 4 elements that make Hip Hop what it is. break dancing, MC'ing, Graffiti, and DJing. Rappers who call themselves Hip Hop are not Hip Hop. Like my man, NM says "You can't say your the best baseball player ever. You might be the best Pitcher but you ain't the best baseball playa!"
Reply:I understand how you feel and everything but I don't agree. I don't think there are enough rappers like Tupac,rakim,Nas, etc anymore. Hip Hop has become so commercialized and superficial now. Everything seems to be about more money,rims,grills,sex and hoes. It can be so disrespectful to women and that just doesn't fly with me anymore. That's just how I feel.
Reply:To me hip hop is important becuz it represents the black culture and i love to sing.
Reply:i think that hip hop is the culture that rap emerges from.
Reply:rap is my mentality filled with alot of tragedy,


go crazy if i cant have it B, im infected like cavities,


when the blacks can make a masterpeice


instead of pulling out they peice


its feeling like im hustling gettin money really quick


hear alot saying they the truth but da boi aint feeling it


i been out here in the booth trynna cop me a coop


person that wrote this flow is who myspace.com/young_truth


i been that fire i cant deny aint nobody to even tie


no i want take a break until all the fakes retire


or even die thats same reason that i keep the fire


the only way for me to go is if i commit suicide


that want happen cuz im still here no i want disappear


we running trains on hip hop from the front and the rear


yes my vision really clear they know what i got in store


and yahoo can steal this rap cuz i got plenty more


im just showing that im real i aint trynna talk it out


if u aint talking money do like unk and walk it out


so much money over here thats all that i see


made music my girlfriend and ya know she gone take the D (d*ck)





myspace.com/young_Truth





watch out for the young joc dunks remix...BLACK COLLAR ENT....we in here.....
Reply:I think that RAP is somethink you blast through the speakers at a party and HIP HOP is something you can just chill to and listen to the words. if you want to truly expess your feelings then you do it through the only way many people will hear you, through hip hop. in my opion i grew up and still live in a poor neiborhood where whenever u look out your windows you see shootings, drug deals, fights, and stuff most americans don't understand. when u listen to a hip hop song like 2pacs "changes" you understand exactly what he is talking about. hip hop is more than lyrics, its a way of life.
Reply:crap a waste of money
Reply:Hip Hop is a culture, and anyone outside that culture is a vulture - KRS-One.





He said it best, I grew up in that culture, it's DJs, M.C.s, graffiti artists, breakin, style, attitude, being original and loving who you are.
Reply:i think it,s party dance music.
Reply:Hip hop to me is everything, from the clothing culture to music to the dancing to the cars everything! Its like I live it breathe it everyday. Anybody who is truley apart of the hip hop culture knows what I mean. Hip hop to me, is my life. Also just to make another point. It hurts me that people are saying that hip hop is dead. Hip hop can never be dead because, it evolves from the people who create it. Its just right now not a lot of people can relate to it because it is currently mostly a product of the street culture. People who grow up in the street and write about it, are apart of hip hop. Violence, drugs, etc. is apart of the struggle of minorities. So hip hop is not dead the streats have just gotten meaner and glamorized by mainstream america. Hip-hop/ rap is a living breathing growing entity that should not be criticized just because people cant relate. I luv it!!!
Reply:it's basically crap, and the music in almost any hip hop song sounds exactly like the music in any other hip hop song. these guys aren't geniuses by any stretch of the imagination. it doesn't take a lot of brain power to put together a song about killing cops and then just keep repeating the same sh*t over and over.
Reply:I kinda like hip-hop. I don't like that most hip-hop artits don't write their own songs, and pretty much anyone can sing (if you call it singing, its more like talking) that kind of music. It takes talkent to write it. I really like hip-hop dance though (not the wild exotic kind, though).
Reply:to me hip-hop is a way of life and you can really relate and it shows how strong you are and how to deal with problems that occur during life. i also think that if it was not for hiphop the world would not be the same and those eho think it is a waste of time are totally wrong they dont take the tim to listen to the lyrics and try to see where the artist is coming from.I grew up on hip hop its always been around me.I LUV HIPHOP
Reply:i bet your from the bay...





hiphops the **** i like the early 90s nas,gangstarr,big eastcoastmusic.I think its taking a big nosedive right now .im liking joell ortiz now though
Reply:HIP HOP MEAN LIKEPEOPLE WHO LIKE TO PARTY ALL NIGHT NEVER STOPING AN DTHEY ARE FROM PEOPLE LIKE 50 CENTS AND LUDACRIS AND MUCH MORE?
Reply:It means that people are feeling free to express what they're feeling. They're showing the world all the racism and violence. They're showing them how to stop it.
Reply:Hip hop make me think right now about Nas, and for me he's a genius !!
Reply:to bob hip hops just being original, everything about the culture revolves around originality





if you bite somebodys tag or style, you aint a real writer





if you bite somebodys line, you aint a real emcee





if you bite somebodys moves ands style, you aint a real b boy





everything everybody makes is original, they made hip hop at a time where everybody was dressing the same, talking the same and doing the same ****. The music was all the same, teh dancing was the same, the art was your same old picasso bullshit, was bout time somebody came in and showed that generation what being original and yourself looked like.


Only question is, whos gonna show our generation what being original looks like, kinda lost it a long the way from glorifying gang violence, drugs and biting other peoples ****.





thank god for





Super kool 223


Krs-One


Run-DMC


Kool Herc


Sugar Hill


Boogaloo Sam


Haze


Taki 183


The Juice Crew


The Rock Steady Crew





and all the other pioneers who pioneered this ****, too bad all the god damn kids for example Dunn spitting on the face of hip hop.
Reply:a rabbit is going through my garden.?
Reply:wuz up w these people...if u dont like hip hop/rap get out of the category...dont down something u know nothing bout...
Reply:This aint brown sugar! LOL On a serious note I love Mary J Blige she is the bomb. What I enjoy about hip hop is the fact that their lyrics are about real life sh!t. That stuff does happen
Reply:lack of production values and streamlined record release dates for people who don't have a very good sense of exactly how brainless it is to make a Hip hop song in a loop program.
Reply:It means hip-hopping bunny rabbits!
Reply:hip hop is all about the lyrics and the message. It tells about the real stuff happening in the world and in peoples lives. immortal technique and binary star are at the top of my list for hip hop artists
Reply:Hip hop (also spelled hip-hop or hiphop) is both a music genre and a cultural movement developed in urban communities starting in the 1970s, predominantly by African Americans.[1] Coinage of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash %26amp; the Furious Five. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was known as disco rap, it is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.[2] Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly copied by other artists; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang.[2] Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture that hip hop music belongs to, although it is also suggested that the term was originally derisively used against the new type of music.[3]





Since first emerging in New York City in the 1970s, hip hop has grown to encompass an entire lifestyle that consistently incorporates diverse elements of ethnicity, technology, art and urban life. There are four fundamental elements in hip hop:





Hip hop dance: Breakdance and various forms of street dance;


Hip hop art: Urban inspired art, often as graffiti;


Hip hop music: DJing, beats and beatmaking, and hip hop production;


Rapping: MCing and urban inspired poetry.


Early hip hop has often been credited with helping to reduce inner-city gang violence by replacing physical violence with hip hop battles. With the emergence of commercial and crime-related rap during the early 1990s, an emphasis on violence was incorporated, with many rappers boasting about drugs, weapons, mysogyny, and violence. While hip hop music now appeals to a broader demographic, media critics argue that socially and politically conscious hip hop has long been disregarded by mainstream America in favor of its media-baiting sibling, gangsta rap.[5]








A breakdancer performing a one-handed freeze also known as a forearm freeze in Ljubljana, SloveniaMany artists are now considered to be alternative/underground hip hop when they attempt to reflect what they believe to be the original elements of the culture. Artists/groups such as Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dilated Peoples, Dead Prez, Blackalicious, and Jurassic 5 may emphasize messages of verbal skill, unity, or activism instead of messages of violence, material wealth, and misogyny.





Though born in the United States, the reach of hip hop is global. Youth culture and opinion is meted out in both Israeli hip hop and Palestinian hip hop, while France, the U.K., Africa and the Caribbean have long-established hip hop followings. According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world," that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines.[6] National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."[7]
Reply:im white and listen to it and am not a wanna be... all you haters that say it is bad dont know what you talkin bout, it is just a style of music until the kids in the ghetto take the lyrics too seriously and ......... yes i wish they wouldnt use bad words as much sometimes it ruins the songs
Reply:i think it is a bunch of crap and a waste or money. they are making millions off of crap. with the curse words and the way the call women b..... and h... and everything else.
Reply:To me, hip hop music usually has amazing beats that make me wanna get up and dance. When I think of hip hop I think of rap or r%26amp;b-like songs. Artists I consider to be part of the hip hop genre include, but are no limited to, Usher, The Black Eyed Peas, Dr. Dre, Missy Elliott, etc. I hope that helps.





God Bless!
Reply:Hip Hop means some guy grabbing his self in a video surrounded by half naked and/or black girls singing about his ride and how he's gonna get some tonight or how he's gonna bust a cap in yo ****. Yeah, that's an art form alright. Poetry in motion. Hip hop would be dead by now, but outlets like MTV won't let it die because they have the younger generation suckered into believing that's it's cool. Icons? If you worship guys like Tupac who get shot 10 times and then finally get dead then you are only asking for trouble.
Reply:commercialism


ignorance


glorification of criminal behavior


hate speech











A force for change for the worse





Yo!


Sellin all my drugs


Shoot at the police


Smackin my beotch


Up and down the street


(f bomb, n bomb, n bomb, f bomb) repeat 8x


Word.