History Rapping

Rapping can be delivered over a beat or without accompaniment. Stylistically, rap occupies a gray area among speech, prose, poetry, and song.
Rapping developed both inside and outside of hip hop culture, and began with the street parties thrown in the Bronx neighborhood of New York in the 70s by Jamaican expatriate Kool Herc and others. The parties introduced dancehall and the practice of having a "Master of Ceremonies," or MC, get up on stage with the DJ and shout encouragements to the crowd in a practice known as 'toasting'. Over time, those shouts of encouragement became longer and more complex and cross-pollinated with the spoken-word poetry scene to evolve into rap. It's believed that the first rapper to actually call himself an MC was Melle Mel from Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. He is also credited as being the first Hip Hop MC to rap in a traditional verse/chorus format. From the beginning hip hop culture has been syncretic, incorporating sounds and elements from radically divergent sources. While Funk breaks formed the backbone of early hip hop, Kraftwerk and other early techno artists were widely sampled as well.

Roots
Rapping hip hop music can be traced back in many ways to its African roots. Centuries before the United States existed, the griots of West Africa were delivering stories rhythmically, over drums and sparse instrumentation. Because of the time that has passed since the griots of old, the connections between rap and the African griots are widely established, but not clear-cut. However, such connections have been acknowledged by rappers, modern day "griots", spoken word artists, mainstream news sources, and academics.
Blues music, rooted in the work songs and spirituals of slavery and influenced greatly by West African musical traditions, was first played by blacks (and some whites) in the Mississippi Delta region of the United States around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. Grammy-winning blues musician/historian Elijah Wald and others have argued that the blues were being rapped as early as the 1920s.Wald went so far as to call hip hop "the living blues."
The Memphis Jug Band, an early blues group, whose lyrical content and rhythmic singing predated rapping.
The Memphis Jug Band, an early blues group, whose lyrical content and rhythmic singing predated rapping.

Jazz, which developed from the blues and other African-American and European musical traditions and originated around the beginning of the 20th century, has also influenced Hip hop and has been cited as a precursor of Hip hop. Not just jazz music and lyrics but also Jazz poetry. According to John Sobol, the jazz musician and poet who wrote Digitopia Blues, rap "bears a striking resemblance to the evolution of jazz both stylistically and formally."

Thse lyrics from an early jazz performer Buddy Bolden bear a striking resemblance to much later Hip hop lyrics, down to the references to "hoes" and imploring "bitches" to "shake their asses":

 

"Way down, way down low
So I can hear them whores
Drag their feet across the floor!"
"Oh, you bitches, shake your asses.
Funky butt, funky butt
Take it away!"

During the mid-20th century, the musical culture of the Caribbean was constantly influenced by the concurrent changes in American music. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the descendants of Caribbean slaves in Jamaica were mixing their traditional folk music styles of mento music with the jazz, soul, rock and blues of America. In Jamaica, this influenced the creation of reggae music (and later dancehall). As early as 1956, deejays were toasting (an African tradition of "rapped out" tales of heroism) over dubbed Jamaican beats. It was called "rap", expanding the word's earlier meaning in the African-American community—"to discuss or debate informally."

1970s
The dubbed dancehall toasts of Jamaica, as well as the disco-rapping and jazz-based spoken word beat poetry of the United States was a predecessor for the rapping in hip hop music. Gil Scott-Heron, a jazz poet/musician who wrote and released such seminal songs as The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, H2OGate Blues Part 2: We Beg Your Pardon America and Johannesberg, has been cited as an influence on many rappers. He released his first album in 1970. Similar in style, the Last Poets who formed in 1969 recited political poetry over drum beats and other instrumentation were another predecessor for rap music. They released their debut album in 1970 reaching the top ten on the Billboard charts. One of the first rappers in the beginning of the Hip Hop period, in the end of '70s, was also hip hop's first DJ; Kool Herc. Herc, a Jamaican immigrant, started delivering simple raps at his parties. As Herc would explain in a 1989 interview,
“ the whole chemistry came from Jamaica. I was listening to American music in Jamaica, and my favorite artist was James Brown. When I came over here I just had to put it in the American style. ”

Although rapping in hip hop began with the DJs, most rappers today don't DJ or produce on a regular basis; Coke La Rock is cited by Kool Herc as the first example of such a rapper. By the end of the 1979, hip hop had spread throughout New York, and was getting some radio play. Rappers were increasingly writing songs that fit pop music structures and featured continuous rhymes. Melle Mel (of The Furious Five) stands out as one of the earliest rap innovators. Two raps songs recorded in 1979 by separate artists were perhaps the first raps recorded at the beginning of the period where the Hip hop movement began. The first, "King Tim III," was recoded by the funk group Fatback Band (later simply "Fatback"). A week later Hip Hop/Funk group the Sugarhill Gang released Rapper's Delight which charted #36 on the U.S. pop chart.

Some music during this period also contained fragmented spoken-word sections on top of standard group instrumentation. Gil Scott Heron and the Last Poets were part of a poetry-influenced genre, however R&B singers like Oscar Brown simply weaved rap-style speaking into their studio albums and live routines.

1980s
From the 1970s to the early 1980s, Melle Mel set the way for future rappers through his sociopolitical content and creative wordplay. Hip hop lyricism saw its biggest change with the popularity of Run-D.M.C.'s Raising Hell in the mid-1980s, known especially for the rap/rock collaboration with rock band Aerosmith in the song "Walk This Way". This album helped set the tone of toughness and lyrical prowess in hip hop; Run-D.M.C. were almost yelling their aggressive lyrics.

The 1980s saw a huge wave of commercialized rap music, that with it brought success and international popularity. Rap music transcended its original demographic and passed on to the suburbs. The first rap hit of the 80s was Blondie's "Rapture", following on from "Rapper's Delight" in 1979 from The Sugarhill Gang. Rap music in this time kept its original fan base in the "ghetto" while attracting interest from mainstream consumers. This decade also saw the emergence of what we now know as old school hip hop, artists such as Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys. This decade is also referred to as the golden age of hip hop by modern music historians. Rap in the early 1980s centered mostly around self promotion e.g., the amount of gold one wears or one's prowess with females. However, in 1987 Public Enemy introduced a more sociopolitical edge, with their debut album Yo! Bum Rush the Show. Other artists such as the Jungle Brothers looked to Africa for inspiration. In 1987 the rap group N.W.A released their first album entitled N.W.A and the Posse, and included rap stars Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and MC Ren. This release marked the first shift from the golden age to the ensuing ages of gangsta rap and G-funk.

1990s
Rap in the 1990s saw a substantial change in direction of the style of rapping. While the 1980s were characterized by verses mostly constrained to straightforward structures and rhyme schemes, rappers in the 1990s explored deviations from those basic forms, freeing up the lyrical flow and switching up the patterns to create a much more fluid and complex style. The style on the East Coast became more aggressive, pioneered by artists like the Wu-Tang Clan and Notorious B.I.G., while West Coast hip hop became more laid-back and smooth, as made popular by Dr. Dre and 2Pac.

In terms of subject matter, the 1990s saw a shift from personal promotion and glorification to narratives of street experience and darker social observation, although this shift was more pronounced on the East Coast than the West.

The 1990s were also marked by a tense rivalry between MCs of the East and West Coast, including a feud between Sean "Puffy" Combs' (Bad Boy Records) in the East, including the Notorious B.I.G., and Dr. Dre and Suge Knight's Death Row Records (including 2pac and Snoop Dogg). Freestyling became a skill that demonstrates an MC's versatility and creativity, but also as a verbal duel or spar. The mid 1990s were marked by the violent deaths of Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., Freaky Tah, and Big L, among others. By the end of the 1990s, hip hop became widely accepted in mainstream music.

The stereotypical image of male rappers in the 1990s often depicted someone wearing the Rastafari colors (red, yellow, and green), oversize jeans worn below the waist that commonly exposed the underwear, and oversize shirts and jackets. These fashions were then imitated by youngsters and created a separation beyond the rappers' circle by dividing economic classes in the public eye, meaning that lower-class youth dressing in this manner stuck out among the middle to upper-class youth. This image, idealized by urban youth, was further supported by the lyrics of rap underground. The lyrics often reflect the culture and lifestyles of urban and gang violence, drugs, corruption, and sexuality. The expansion of rap across cultures and borders allowed for expansion and transformation of the music and the image of what rap was.

 

2000s
Hip hop in its modern iteration has been increasingly influenced by other musical forms. Notably, remixes of existing hits with current notable rappers has become an increasing trend. The influence of rap has increased internationally with independent styles, such as grime, trip hop, and hyphy. Southern, Northern, and Midwestern, and even Native American rap have also gained increasing popularity, and penetrated the coastal markets on a large scale for the first time[citation needed]

Alongside the increasing commercialization of rap and hip hop culture, some artists such as Nas have claimed that "hip hop is dead".