Hip-Hop vs Rap

Before I get to my next few rounds of advice, I’d like to drop a post about my thoughts between the breakdown of Hip-hop and Rap. There is a distinct way to identify the two and I thought I would share that.

Hip-hop, first of all, is a CULTURE, emanating from The East Coast in the mid-late 1970s, specifically Brooklyn, New York. Themes of hip-hop can be seen in artwork/murals/graffiti, clothing, and even literature/spoken word. When you delve into the actual music genre, hip-hop can be described as smooth, youthful, and energetic, with jazz or funk or even blues inspiration. Real hip-hop features talented singers, (John Legend, Kid Cudi ex.) and covers subjects such as love, partying, urban culture, or personal expression/experience. The more Old-School styles of hip-hop include MC-ing, sampling and turntables.

Now—though that is not mutually exclusive or debarred from rap, rap is a TECHNIQUE. When you speak with a flowing chant at a relatively quick rhythm with rhyme, that’s rap. Rap music, very broadly speaking, is what I like to call The All-Encompassing Genre. Because rap is a TECHNIQUE, and only provides the lyrics, that still leaves the music unaccounted for.  Now you do have specifically Gangster Rap, defined by heavy bass, “clap-and-snare” percussions, and synthesizers, and outside of that you do have East Coast and West Coast Rap, alternative, etc. But keep in mind all across the board, you can have a Rap song accompanied by instrumentals with the sounds of: “Pop, Techno/Electronic (Flo-Rida, B.o.B), Rock/Metal (Hollywood Undead, Rage Against the Machine), R&B/Jazz (Common) Ethnic/World (Lupe Fiasco’s American Terrorist) even Country (Dub Pistols’ Everyday Strangers) and then of course, Hip-Hop (Mos Def, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Nas, Game, Common etc.)  Now, like I said earlier, rap would be considered hip-hop, if it sounded influenced by the actual music genre, its inspirations, or something close to it. So the latter half of the examples/styles (except Country) would more align with hip-hop than the first half. And there's my two cents on the two genres.

So with plenty of artists referenced there, what are you waiting for? Youtube and Last.fm are great sites to keep streaming music, and Google searching info about these genres is a great way to follow up learning more about them!