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The First Popular Rap/Hip-Hop Song
The first popular rap song was Rapper's Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang. This song was a nonsense rap which basically means that it wasn't a song that was serious, it was just for fun. Even though that rap originated from the streets, this track was designed to sell to white people and not people on the streets. But, even the people on the streets listened to this song. This song was not only bought and played in one community but everyone enjoyed listening to it. -
Rap/Hip-Hop Groups and Politically Charged Music
Many rap groups such as N.W.A or Public Enemy, wrote some of their songs about different problems going on in America relating to race and other things. Many other groups talked about these racial conflicts and other topics also. But N.W.A and Public Enemy had a very positive affect on the community. Their music started making people stand up to unfair treatment. -
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The Biggest Rappers
There have been many extremely talented rappers in the genre who have made it big, but 2pac and The Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls) were arguably the best rappers of all time. People think that these two were the best rappers ever to live because what they said in their songs were extraordinarily original. They would tell stories about their life and what they have gone through. Why this was so great was they did this with passion and people on the streets could relate to their music. -
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Rapper's in the 2000's
Some rapper's in the early 2000's started to go away from telling stories in their songs but some of them stayed true to those songs. Many of them would rap about a lot of things that just came in their mind but there was still many artists that had meaning with their songs. For example, lyrical artists such as Eminem, Jay-Z, Nas, etc. all told different stories and some of their songs were very powerful. -
Eminem's Most Popular Song
Eminem is arguably the most famous white rapper. Many people didn't like the idea of white rappers because after all rap did originate on the streets and has been predominately made by African-Americans. However, Eminem has made most likely one of the most popular rap songs ever created. The song was called Lose Yourself and told a story about his come up into rap music and what is going on in his own life. This song soon became one of the most played tracks that year and is still being played. -
YouTube's Affect On Rap
YouTube is a social media platform where many people put videos to entertain others. But, this platform also affected rap drastically. It allowed people to put out their music videos and/or the audio of their songs on the website so that it could be viewed by more people and gain publicity. As the website started to become more popular, more music videos and audios were being put on there so they would gain a lot of views. YouTube is a very big part in why rap is a very popular genre today. -
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Mainstream Rap Music
Most rappers have gone from story tellers to mumbling words in their songs. In the current rap genre mumble rap, exactly what it sounds like, is taking over the culture. Many rappers now have gone to the path of mumbling in their songs, and not talking about anything that important. However, there are still many rappers who have stayed true and haven't followed down this. These rappers talk about everything from drugs to police brutality to the hood. -
Rap of Today
In rap today, you don't need to be extremely skilled to make a popular song. It is extremely easy to put out your music with all of the free music streaming sites such as Apple Music, Spotify, Soundcloud, just to name a few. Rap is also very different from other genres because you can talk about anything on a song by just speaking over a good beat and rhyming your words. But one thing that is becoming very important in the genre is talking about racial discrimination in the country.
