A History of Rap Music - Where It All Started

Rap music's foundations lie in the musical influences of African American and Latino styles with a lot of Jamaican folk tales thrown in for good measure. Jamaican folk tales are stories told in rhyme. Later on came hip hop with New York City DJs emphasis on rhythmic drum breaks in the musical genres of funk and disco in the rapidly growing club scene of that city. Such clubs became highly influential and recognizable with major DJs capability of attracting multitudes of the A-list club crowd types. The meteoric rise of some of these DJs go hand in hand with the rise of rap music in the recent past and present.
 
The escalation of rap music also brought about a newly expanded function of the Master of Ceremonies or MC. It is a fact that the most gifted MCs with their charismatic presence became of utmost importance to the growth of hip hop music and to the rap artist. The very best of these MCs successfully entertained audiences before, during and after the performers actually plied their trade. Rap music has actually been referred to as MCing, where artists speak lyrically in rhyme and verse.
 
Break dancers, rap artists and graffiti artists all spread the rap message throughout New York City in the early years of 1970. By the late 70's, rap music started to exhibit its potent commercial attractiveness and began its soaring ride to become a legitimate alternative popular music style in America and then around the globe. Rap music is performed both a cappella and backed by instrumentals or synthesizers. Some rap lyrics are written out and memorized by the artist prior to a performance and some are improvised on the fly during a performance.
 
The Sugar Hill Gang in 1979 had the first commercial success with their rap song “Rapper Delight.” The Gang caught the attention of several major record labels, which furthered the style's popularity with a larger audience.
 
Gangsta rap, a sub-genre of rap, came to be by the 1990's and thrived in the United States with its controversial lyrics speaking about street violence, drugs and sex. This naturally made all the kids parents apoplectic which always serves to make the music more appealing to a nation's youth regardless of their demographics. Gangta rap appealed to all socio-economic groups widening the audience for rap even more.
 
Rap widened it's appeal and fame (or notoriety) and gained a larger share of the audience for popular music with groups like Public Enemy, NWA and Ice-T. After more than two decades, present day rap music and its artists continue to enjoy a massive following across a field of varying demographics.
 
Because of rap's controversial lyrics and original musical style, the genre maintained its meteoric rise into the 21st century. Today, it is the fastest growing and most listened to segment of the music industry in America and across all continents.
 
Currently, rap and its close cousin hip hop are in the very midst of their greatest popularity due to the mainstream acceptance largely brought on by such artists as Kid Rock and Eminem who may have served to reach a “whiter” rap audience, not to mention women of rap like Salt N' Pepa, Li'l Kim and the most versatile of all, Queen Latifah who bring more females into rap's folds.
 
The term rap for this particular musical genre was first coined by Steven Hagar in The Village Voice. Mr. Hagar later authored a history of the hip hop titled The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music and Graffiti. Unfortunately for those serious fans of musical stylistics throughout history, the book is out of print.