hip hop

Where it started...

Rap and hip hop

Hip Hop uses several different instruments, especially electronic ones,to produce the very famous beats and bases, but of course the voice of the rapper plays the most important role, even if the use of autotune it's very common

Hip Hop finds its roots in the african american community, in the early 70s. It was born in the Harlem or Bronx's block parties, where black people met and played this music, rapping on the first beats. During the years these musical genre evolved in many others...

TRAP

90s Hip Hop

Drill

emo rap

MORE INFO

more info

Hip Hop finds its stylistic origins in the R&B, disco, funk and reggae genres. In its first ages DJs used to play percussive breaks to accompany MCs, the ones who rapped over these beats. Rapping is essentially "speaking" following the rythm often made by the DJ or with beatboxing. During the 80s hip hop became more popular, reaching his golden age during the 90s. In these decade the best american rappers came to success, making hip hop famous all over the country and later the world. We are talking about Tupac, Notorious BIG, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nas and many other famous names. In the first 2000s rap music became more popular, thanks to Eminem, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Drake. Later, after 2010 hip hop and rap music evolved in this new subgenre, trap, with the rose of new names, like Lil Uzi Vert, Travis Scott, Young Thug, Future and the group Migos.

The instruments used in rap songs are usually electronic ones, like the turntable, DJ mixer, drum machine, like the iconic LA Roland TR-808, the sampler, synthesizer or the music sequencer, the delayer and other musical softwares like Autotune. It's less common but sometimes we can also hear guitar or piano parts in the musical bases.

In the 90s the term "Trap House", in the southern Usa slang, meant the place where drugs dealing took place. In the 2000s the term was used to indicate this new musical genre. Trap music usually has more aggressive and dark rithms and beats, depending o the artist of course. In trap songs there is a massive use of autotune usually to create special atmospheres, or effects to the songs. The main themes are drugs, alcohol, prostituion, richness and the streets life. Usually artist try to show their success talking about how far are they have come from their poor and emarginated life. The main artists are Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Lil Pump, Trippie Redd, Travis Scott, the group Migos (Quavo,Takeoff andOffset) and many others.

The Golden Age Hip Hop, from 1986 to 1997, is the hip hop that made this genre famous all over the world. The lyrics often spoke about streetlife, violence, drugs and alcohol problems, and the life that poor people had to live, speaking also about political and social themes. The 90s Hip Hop scene was dominated by the dualism, and strong rivality, that there was between the West Coast rappers and the East Cost ones, and respectively, between the two discographic labels, "Death Row Records" based in Los Angeles and the "Bad Boy Records" based in New York. Between the western rappers we can find Tupac Shakur, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg while the most famous East Cost rapper is The Notorious B.I.G (Biggie). Unfortunately these rivality and all the Golden Age Era ended with the violent death of its best rappers, Tupac and Biggie. Snoop Dogg in the next years became extremely famous bringing hip hop to all the world charts, even with his controversial lifestyle, with his well-known abuse of weed.

Drill was born around 2010 in the South Side of Chicago and it takes inspiration from Gangsta Rap and Southwest Hip Hop. Its lyrics usually are violent and aggressive, talking about drugs, weapons and criminal life, usually the conflicts between gangs, like Bloods and Crips. Drill developed also in Europe, with good results in the UK where it has become very popular. The best drill rappers in the USA are Chief Keef, considered the father of drill, Lil Durk or Pop Smoke, while in Europe we can find Central Cee, or the italian Rondodasosa

Emo rap is a subgenre of hip hop with big influences of emo music. The songs are usually more emotive, sad and melancholy, while the lyrics usually focus on the artist's feelings. The main themes are depression, loneliness, sadness, anxiety, suicide, drugs abuse and hearthbreak. The most famous artist were Lil Peep and Juice WRLD, who both died very young by drugs overdose, XXXTentacion, who was killed at age of 20 during a robbery, and Lil Uzi Vert.