Rap or Hip-Hop music is truly an American minority artist creation of which African Americans need to be proud of. In the early years rap music was primarily African American and a small amount of it was from the Latino community. Hip hop music changed the way many African American’s were viewed in society. Unfortunately, rap music is not perceived by many Americans as an art form, but as a fad which they hope will soon fade away. Rap music is more of an art form and a culture that has existed for more than 20 years in this country. The foundation of the five fundamentals of hip hop which include the knowledge of MCing or Rapping, Djing, Beat boxing, graffiti, and dancing have have been the backbone of the evolving genre for the past 20 years.
Hip-Hop music not only changed the way African American’s were viewed in society, it also had a major role on how they treated themselves and most importantly their women. Society has played a major part in changing the way that men treat and talk to women. There have been times where male hip-hop artist would do things to women and allow them to talk about these women in their songs. A lot of the talk in these songs about women would spread across the nation were not only just about African American’s but with other races as well. The songs even though they may seem good, would surprisingly be about degrading and taking advantage of the misogynistic treatment of women and calling them vulgar names like “w’s and b’s’’. These songs had a huge effect on women who listen to hip-hop as well as the men who listen to hip-hop and felt that they could treat their women like the artists’ in the song said they treat the women they are with. Since then women became more involved into listening to hip-hop just as much as men did.
As we listen to hip-hop music though good or bad we should still be proud of the evolution and process that has been made from hip-hop. Since the creation of hip-hop many different cultures and races have been united as well as divided. The purpose for hip-hop was and sometimes still is to send positive messages out to listeners that regardless of what someone goes through, they can still succeed and be better than the struggle.