A Brief History of Rap
Rap has taken the world be a storm, but where did this popular music genre come from? The word rap is an old word that means to strike or hit. You can still see some examples of the word used like this in books. You may have read something akin to ‘she rapped loudly on the door’ The word dates back to the 15th and 16 centuries in Britain.
In most nowadays cases rapping is defined as speaking or chanting to a beat. While it was popularized in America in the 1960’s and 1970’s as a street art among African American teenagers there have been stories of people describing people rapping many years prior from both Africa and the Caribbean. This set the stage for rap in America.
Rapping was used as a way to tell stories and pass information and current events in Africa thousands of years ago. This tradition and method of storytelling carried over when Africans were forcibly taken to America to work as slaves. One of the many ways slaves would cope with the harshness of the situations, conditions, and labor was to sing.
In 1973 DJ Kool Herc and his sister would host parties. Essentially what Herc would do is use two turntables, when one turntable played to a certain section he would switch turntables and play the same section over again. In this way, he extended the length of the song. During the parties, DJ Kool Herc recognized that speaking into the mic was important as well for keeping the crowd engaged.
Rap started off as a street art in America it wasn’t long before was recognized as an official music genre in 1979. Songs such as ‘Rappers Delight’ released by the Sugarhill Gang and King Tim III (Personality Jock) by the Fatback Band helped popularize the genre.
While many record companies likely mistook rap for a fad in its infancy it quickly blossomed into one of the most recognizable and popular music genres to date.