Hip Hop War Report

Archive for December, 2011

I wanted to talk to you about some hip hop dance lessons. This is probably one of the fasted growing forms of dance. People practice this everyday because they want to be able to show it off to others. The problem is that people just try to mimic what they see on television rather than going out and getting the proper methods to follow. You have to watch yourself. With any fast growing thing, there’s always someone looking to sell your something. There are a lot of dance studios that teach you this, but you’ll find that a lot the “teachers” are really just people that have done it for a few months and that’s it. I’m going to show you some of my hip hop dance lessons, so you can learn better.

You have to make sure you have a mirror at home. When you actually go to a dance studio, they’ll have mirrors everywhere, but if you want to be successful at this, you’re going to have to practice at home. A mirror is essential to knowing how well you’re doing. You could be doing the moves horrible, but in your head you think you’re doing them spectacularly. You have to be able to see what others would see when you dance.

My hip hop dance lessons try to stick with the basics. You don’t want to start trying to memorize these long routines of dance. This doesn’t teach you anything. You want to learn basic movements and get them down, so than you can do freestyle much better.

Hip-hop music or rap music is a popular style or genre of music in the USA. This popular music genre is made up of two components, rapping and record scratching. Rapping is also known as MCing and DJing, which is comprised of audio mixing. These two main components along with graffiti and break dancing form the four main elements of hip-hop.

Hip-hop was initiated as a cultural movement by inner-city youth, mostly Latinos and African Americans in New York City in the early seventies. This kind of music consists of a single rapper or a group of rappers who tell semi-autobiographic tales in a deeply rhythmic lyrical form making bountiful use of techniques such as assonance, rhyme, and alliteration. These rappers often relate to a fictionalized counterpart. The DJ performs instrumental tracks that are generally referred to as a “beat.” The producer or one or more instrumentalists create this beat, which accompanies the rapper. The beats for hip-hop music are normally created using a sample or percussion break of another song. They may be funk, rock, or jazz recordings. There are other sounds as well that are often synthesized, performed or sampled. At times, to showcase the skills of a producer or a DJ, the track could be instrumental.

This genre of music originated in New York when DJs began separating the percussion break from disco and funk songs. The role of the MC was to introduce the DJ and the music in order to keep the audience keyed up and eager. MCs started out by speaking (rapping) between songs, greeting the audience with funny quotes, and moved to articulating anecdotes and giving exhortations to dances. This practice eventually became very stylish and came to be known as rapping. In the late seventies, it had become commercially popular and started to enter the mainstream of American music. In the beginning of the 21st century, hip-hop had become a staple of popular music charts and it was performed in different styles around the world.

Artists like Usher, Marshall Matthers (popularly known as Eminem), 50 cent, and Missy Elliot are very well known around the world. Hip-hop music is sold all around the world and enjoyed by many people. Hip-hop music can also be bought or heard online.

Over the last few years the fashion trend of hip hop clothing has grown from an underground street culture into the mainstream fashion world. Urban clothes are now proudly shown at the top fashion shows in Milan, Italy, Paris and New York. Just ten years ago such blatantly flashy and urban clothes would never have seen the light of day at these shows, but now they are proudly displayed. So what is this emerging trend and which consumers are driving the growth of this fashion niche?

The answer can be found in looking at the history of hip hop itself and it’s evolution into the mainstream of music and fashion culture. Hip hop went from being the music of a few skateboarders and corner lyricists to being the predominant musical culture of todays young generation. As more and more people listen to hip hop and urban music, the fashion styles and the clothing these young people were wearing started to reflect the music and artists they were listening to. While most do not remember this now, the first trend to be adopted from urban music were the Adidas shoes which were originally made popular by the hip hop legend Run DMC. After that came the bling bling jewelry and the baggy pants, followed by backward hats and large chains.

The trend was further moved forward when the famous rapper LL Cool J signed on to promote the FUBU clothing line. FUBU stood for “For Us By Us” and was the first urban clothing line to hit the mainstream around the world. After FUBU came Phat Farm which was a trendy line launched by Def Jam president Russell Simmons – a hip hop mogul himself. This line was wildly successful and enjoyed the promotion and patronage of several high profile rappers. After these lines gained steam and saw success, many rappers started catching on to the idea that they could launch their own lines of gear and started to do so. Jay Z came out with Rocawear, a tremendously successful line which he eventually sold for several hundred million dollars. Other rappers followed suit, although not all were as successful. 50 Cent introduced his G Unit clothing line to much acclaim and even partnered with Reebok on a top selling shoe line.

Through the years urban clothes have evolved greatly with many smaller and more unique lines springing up. There are now literally hundreds of lines of hip hop clothes as is evident at the latest Magic Fashion Show in Las Vegas. There are many artistic trends such as t-shirts with hand painted images and drawings, lines by and for women, hats and even hip hop jewelry which imitates the bling bling styles worn by hip hop artists.

Overall the hip hop styles have evolved greatly since the introduction of the first urban gear brand. They are now considered way within the mainstream of clothing and fashion and are also breaking new ground with creativity and designs. Hip hop clothing is here to stay and has now claimed a foothold in the fashion industry as a whole.