History of Rap Music

This course will trace rap’s history from its roots in Black music of the 1960s and 70s, its beginnings at DJ parties in the South Bronx, its move from the underground into the mainstream, to its impact on popular music across the world in the new millennium. We will examine different rap styles and techniques, such the turntable skills of Grandmaster Flash, the drum-machine-generated beats of Run DMC, Public Enemy’s abrasive layers of sound, “laid back” Los Angeles G-Funk, Biggie’s formidable flow, and Dirty South bouncy bass and hi-hat rattles. We will look at the connections between rap styles and lyrics and social changes and conflicts in US society, such as mass incarceration and the criminalization of Black youth, the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion, and the politics of respectability versus rap’s imperative to always keep it real.

029330