It was all a dream, I used to read Word-Up magazines- Biggie Smalls.

Members of the hip-hop discourse community know that this is a line from Biggie
Smalls song Notorious. He is one of the most known rappers to this day even though he
is deceased. Knowing those lyrics is one of the requirements to being in the hip-hop
community along with many others.
Without rhythm and beats, its only so far you can go as far as hip-hop is
concerned. Beats are one of the top priorities when it comes to hip-hop from making the
song all the way to dancing. Of course with a song you have lyrics that are catchy but its
really the beat that get listeners to actually remember the song. Through out the years of
hip-hop beats have been made and mostly originate from jazz but are then passed on
through artist and sometimes exactly reused which is called sampling. For example, a
current hip-hop artist by the name of J.Cole has a song called Can I holla at ya. The
beginning of this song has a sample from Lauryn Hills Zion that plays her exactly
song for the beginning and then the instrumental of it for the rest of the song. Not saying
all beats arent original but a lot in new hip-hop are from samples. An actual example of a
beat name though that is so commonly used is 808. This beat is one thats almost
recognizable in every song if you play close attention and even one of the most versatile
artist ; Kanye West has an album 808s and Heartbreaks named after the beat. Now
moving from the beat you have rhythm, which allows you to go along with the beat in a
smooth transitional way. Rhythm within this generation really refers to whether you can
feel the beat enough to dance to it and be on rhythm. A popular song called the Nae
Nae is a dance where you move your body back and forth along with your hand in the
air. If you dont have rhythm, your most likely going to be off beat and as a whole be a

fail to the hip-hop community and members would suggest you not do it. Now dont get
me wrong, rhythm is not something that everybody does get and its not strictly limited to
the hip-hop community to get and understand but its something thats heavily known in
the hip-hop community that its almost second nature to its members.
Right along with rhythms and beats come dances like already mentioned
previously. Dances like doing the butt, tootsie roll, butterfly, hammer time,
running man eventually turned into 2 steps, jerking, dougie,catdaddy and then
the nae nae. All the dances mentioned are hip-hop dances that have in another way
brought the hip-hop community together. Dancing of course has changed over time with
hip-hop and has gotten a little more pointless and it seems like something small as using a
vacuum cleaner will eventually become a dance. Not only is the newer generation of
dances seem to be more pointless theyve also become more difficult to do versus the
self-explanatory dances that were created back in the older days of hip-hop. All in all
though every hip-hop dance goal is to bring everyone together regardless of whether they
know how to do it or not and for everyone to have a good time. Hip-hop dancing allows
for such diverse moves to be created between everyone all while everyone is still doing
the same thing. The diversity in the moves is what sets hip-hop apart from other styles of
dance and everything doesnt seem exactly like an 8- count or a classical line dance. Now
even though any and everyone can and try to dance there are some popular dancers out
there that everyone within the hip-hop community should know and everyone outside of
it should make sure that they know. Kid-N-Play and Chris Brown would definitely be
two major hip-hop artist that have heavily influenced the dancing aspect of hip-hop and
they are extremely well-known within the community. Dancing goes so far back into hip-

hop and its just being remolded by the younger generation of hip-hop but as far as
someone who doesnt know hip-hop, they should know that dancing of some kind will
always be present when it comes to hip-hop.
Now even though the hip-hop community all has the same goal different regions
and their style of hip-hop causes variation as to what they are trying to get their point
across and say within their music. Hip-hop is primarily broken down between up north,
and the east and west coast.Up north hip-hop is more hard core and street style of music
and a lot of artist such as Jay-Z, Tupac, and Biggie Smalls are well known for
representing that region. Next you have the east coast, which brings more hip-hop music
that you can dance to and its not as hard-core as up north. Artist such as Chris Brown
and J.Cole are both from this region. The east coast also has a tendency to mellow things
out and the dancing music can be mixed in with go-go music such as DC go-go music
and Baltimore club music. Lastly the west coast brings two different sides, with one
being more mainstream and the other more gang-related side of hip-hop out. Majority of
the music comes from California, especially out of L.A. L.A has Hollywood which
automatically makes everything more mainstream and thats where several artist reside to
start off with, but then you also have cities like Compton where the rapper Kendrick
Lamar comes from. Compton is one of the most dangerous cities in America where you
have to fear for your life even when you go outside. Regions play an effect on the style
the most versus vice versa because rappers usually rap about their life growing up and
what they had to go through and that all depended on where they lived and how much
better or worse their situation could have been if they had been from a different area. But
having the different regions and styles of hip-hop comes in a major benefit becomes that

allows for more people to relate that are already within the community and the
prospective members.
Of course being apart of a community you tend to change your behavior and
personality for the time being as far as the discourse is concerned. With hip-hop,
behaviors can tend to go from the worst and to the best. With some hip-hop being
extremely hard-core and gang and drug related some of its members tend to lean towards
that side just because thats what their favorite rapper is rapping about. Once exposed to
hearing about different drugs and not exactly knowing what rappers are saying,
individuals tend to become curious and thats how the exposure to these bad lifestyles can
end up changing their current behavior. For example, the drug molly and the drink lean is
talked about heavily in a lot of rap songs, and many teenagers are trying it just because
they heard about it first in a hip-hop song. Now Im not saying that hip-hop has nothing
but a negative effect on behavior and personalities because it definitely has its positives.
Just like any other genre of music, its an outlet to express what your feeling but the
difference dealing with hip-hop is that, the outlet really allows for a change of lifestyle
for the better. Members of the hip-hop community know that majority of hip-hop songs
relate to that artist getting out of the hood and changing their life for the better,
especially for their mother. So rapping usually allows for rappers to not have that primary
focus on drugs and other bad habits, but actually doing something with their talent of
rapping and expressing themselves by telling a story. Artist that are known for telling
about their lifestyle that their story is almost second nature if you know the hip-hop
community well would be J.Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Meek Mills,
and Drake.

Hip-hop wouldnt be possible with all the components I have already previously
mentioned but all those components would be pointless if you didnt have legends and
artist to make hip-hop music. It may be difficult to catch on to certain dances and learn
the process of making hip-hop music but its a necessary component to know some of the
key legends of hip-hops history. The difference between legends and current rappers is
that legends have been around for longer and have made such a great impact that a
reference is made about them at least once by current rappers. They are like the kings and
queens of hip-hop and set a high pedestal that everyone wants to have the admiration that
they once and currently still have. Their name will also live forever on in the hip-hop
community. Current rappers dont necessarily last a long time and they usually are just
making a temporary impact. While some are better than others, its come to a point where
almost anybody can rap and nobody really has a purpose but rather just want to make a
quick hit to become famous. Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Eazy-E, Run-DMC, P-Diddy, Doug E
Fresh, and MC Lyte just to name a few. If not knowing at least 75% of these artist and
you claim you are part of the hip-hop community, this might be the time to refresh your
memory and learn history.
Another goal of hip-hop is to continue and make sure hip-hop stays current and
alive and isnt a genre of music that washes away over time. With that being said of
course things from the 80s are completely different from todays hip-hop. One of the
two main changes would have to be how the message in the song is directed. Messages in
songs back in the day werent as vulgar and hip-hop was brought across in a respectable
manner and women werent if barely degraded. Currently though women are always
some how degraded and the diction of songs are completely vulgar with no remorse as to

whats said and how its said. Not only is this one of the primary differences that has
occurred in hip-hop but the difference between underground and mainstream music is
another one. For members not in the hip-hop community understanding this difference
might be a tad bit difficult. Underground music can consist of so many unknown rappers
and isnt in the typical style of hip-hop. Underground rappers also tend to have a heavy
view of a certain topic causing them to a advocate of that topic and the music can come
across very angry like. But underground also has its fair share of having what society
would consider weird and different music. Now as far as mainstream is concerned,
thats the music thats accepted by society and played on the radio. Mainstream is what
brings in the sells because its music that artist make that they know majority of their
listeners will like enough to buy. Mainstream though typically ends up getting played out
quickly because that song is constantly being played on the radio and everyone knows it.
Artist that are considered on the come up of mainstream but carry a underground vibe
would be A$AP Rocky, Childish Gambino, Tyler the Creator, The Weeknd, and
Partynextdoor.
Hip-hop has come a far way and will continue to evolve with the help of its
discourse community being active within it. Theres so much more that can be explained
to someone that doesnt know much about hip-hop but that list would go on for days. It
would certainly take a while for everything to be learned or even close to what an
amateur of the hip-hop community knows. But as long as its known that the common
goal of the hip-hop discourse community is to all be able to relate in the aspect of hiphop, knowing the logistics of it, and spreading hip-hop with others so they can be

knowledgeable about the current and past of hip-hop all while enjoying what hip-hop
itself has to offer.