Genre

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a music genre developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans in the 1970s which consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records (or synthesized beats and sounds), and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

Hip Hop music videos typically are associated with crime, money and women as it is the culture and in most cases, it is the reality the artists are exposed to.

In the 1990s, hip hop began to diversify with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap and Atlanta hip hop. At the same time, hip hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music, examples being Neo soul and nu metal. Hip hop became a best-selling pop music genre in the mid-1990s and the top selling music genre by 1999. The popularity of hip hop music continued through the 2000s, with hip hop influences also increasingly finding their way into mainstream pop. The United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasised the beats and music more than the lyrics. Starting in 2005, sales of hip hop music in the United States began to severely wane. During the mid-2000s, alternative hip hop secured a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of artists such as OutKast and Kanye West.