Considering a Course in Hip Hop?
If you enjoy dancing and listening to upbeat, catchy music, a course in hip hop may be ideal for you. A hip hop course will teach you all you need to know about the genre of music that is hip hop. This can be a really fun course to do that enables you to escape your mind, relieve stress, meet new people and make friends. The good news is there are tons of courses in hip hop currently available and they are available in part-time options, making it easy to fit this dream course into your busy schedule.
About Hip Hop
If we were to pick a music genre expressed through oral tradition, which best represents the Afro-American community and culture, it is definitely hip hop. Nowadays, when people think about hip hop, they generally associate it with rap music, without thinking about its poignant history and how it developed. The limited view of hip hop is the product of mainstream media. It results in inadequate understanding and teaching of hip hop – a kind of musical expression that has empowered and enhanced the lives of many people. Hip hop first formed in the late 1970s by a Jamaican DJ known as Kool Herc, who was trying to introduce the Jamaican style of DJing over the dub versions of his reggae records.
However, New Yorkers were not big fans of reggae at the time. Therefore, along with other hip hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore and Afrika Bambaataa, Kool here began organising block parties in the Bronx area. This was the humble beginning of hip hop. It was the fruit of overflowing creativity and a shortage of available outlets for African American teens and adolescents in some of the poorest areas of New York City to release their suppressed energy. There are two core components of hip hop that are accepted universally: DJing (the mixing, cutting and scratching of recorded materials) and MCing (rap). Today’s hip hop music is a combination of both of these.
From the mid 1980s, a new wave of rappers came onto the scene. LL Cool J introduced hip hop singles with catchy melodic hooks. The Beastie Boys, a punk rock trio of white men, began shouting raps rather than singing, which spread the genre to a wider audience. In the late 80s, groups such as Public Enemy fuelled a new type of hip hop that was based on social consciousness, an end to racism and injustice and demanding political change. Similarly, female rappers such as Salt-n-Pepa and Queen Latifah entered the predominantly male hip hop scene, offering a change from the misogynistic point of views of their male counterparts.
In the 90s, hip hop artists from places other than New York City became prominent. Successful styles during this period were Los Angeles’s gangsta rap and New York’s hardcore rap and G-Funk. Among those, ‘Straight Outta Compton’ by N.W.A was a significant album, which gave rise to gangsta rap, which consists of a ton of explicit, honest language about police violence and injustice. Today, hip hop has become one of the world’s most popular genres, with albums and singles topping the music charts. Hip hop continues to influence and attract many urban youths for the same reasons it did in the early days. It allows the artist to freely express their desire to be seen and heard and their personality. Also, it is a way to reflect the social, economic and political conditions of the time.
What Will I Learn?
The history of hip hop and the many interpretations of hip hop songs will be explored. Students will learn hip hop dance routines and popular moves too.
If you’re serious about doing a course in hip hop, check out courses near you in the Nightcourses.co.uk national course finder.
