Blog Post #8

Hip Hop in the 1990s

The article highlights a recount of the history of hip hop from the 1990s and the decade moving forward. For example, it discusses how 2 Live Crew was the first musical group to have its music be declared as obscene through legal means. It will be helpful in categorizing certain musicians into the subgenre of alternative hip hop, also finding its emergence and the founders of the subgenre.

Hip Hop in the 2000s

Much like the previous article, this one recounts the history of hip hop picking up from the new millennium. It goes into detail about the explicit nature behind hip hop culture and its influence. This can be used with the wiki article in that it talks about the culture that hip hop of the 2000s spawned and the outrage that it created for the various factors that were seen as a negativity on society, such as lyrics about things that were considered “ignorant”.

Kanye West

Kanye West’s biography quite simply highlights aspects of his life and career, starting from childhood born to an English professor mother and an award-winning photographer father to his come up and success as a rapper. I chose this article and Kanye West specifically because I believe he had a significant impact on hip hop and influenced many artists today. West’s music also is vastly considered as alternative hip hop, the prime example of this being shown in the album, Yeezus.

Turntablism

The article discusses the history of the turntable as it was used in music, namely in hip hop. It goes into detail about how the practice gave birth to the modern concept of DJing, and the influence scratching records had on music to this day. This is a helpful article to the wiki because the subgenre of alternative hip hop heavily used DJs in the 1980s-2000s, and the impact they had on the music was not to be overlooked.

Beastie Boys

Much like the Kanye West biography, this article recounted the history of the music group and their career in hip hop starting in 1979. The article discusses their fusion of various genres with hip hop, which is essentially the birth of alternative hip hop -using genres such as punk and rock integrated with hip hop in order to create new genres.