Looking to understand hip hop? It’s way more than just a music style or a genre – hip hop is an entire culture, taking in music, DJ-ing, dance and art. To give you a great overview, we’ll look at the five elements of hip hop, including:
Five Elements of Hip Hop
- B-Boying
- MC-ing
- Beat Boxing
- DJ-ing
- Graffiti
Hip Hop Culture
New York City’s Afrika Bambaataa became known as ‘the Godfather’.
A pioneering DJ and music producer, he organised block parties in the Bronx during the late 1970s. Forming Universal Zulu Nation as a way to keep the city’s youth away from gang life, drugs and violence, it encouraged peace and unity through DJing, breakdancing, rapping and visual art – which Bambaataa categorised as the ‘four elements’ of hip hop.
B-Boying
In hip hop, B-boying – also known as breaking - is dancing. The term was coined by Kool Herc, who was a DJ for Bronx block parties – they used spinning (power) moves, footwork and freeze to dance to the break part of the music.
The style was invented in the early 1970s by African American and Latino Americans in New York’s South Bronx – the five original ‘core’ moves were: top rock, footwork, back rock, freezes and power moves.
90s breaking was brought to the fore by Rock Steady Crew – and as DJs invented new ways to elongate their records’ break beats, the dancers were given more time to invent and experiment – introducing backspins and windmills.
In 1983, the movie Flashdance featured a B-boying and popping sequence, which helped B-boying to cross over and become a global craze, and gave rise to breaking movies such as Breakin’ and Beat Street.
The Best B-Boyers
- Wing
- Menno
- Issei
- Vicious Victor
- Lil Zoo
- Jinjo Crew
Wing
A member of Jinjo Crew, Wing likes to create highly detailed patterns of movement, and incorporate complex combinations and flows – his name was inspired by the lightness of his moves.
Breakdancing has moved into the mainstream in Korea, perhaps because their crews are so expert at it, as Wing notes, ‘Even though break dancing was invented by Western dance crews, Asian B-boys have created a reputation for elevating the level and complexity of the dance moves.
Something about our body type allows us to make for the ideal B-boy dancers.’
Menno
Red Bull BC One All Star Menno Van Gorp has one of the most original styles on the scene, being a master of smooth blow-ups and masses of explosive energy.
Originally inspired by Run DMC’s video for ‘It’s Like That’, he learned his first moves from his cousins.
Issei
In his home town in Kyushu (the most southwestern of Japan’s main islands), Issei was just six years old when he got into breakdancing.
He’s known for his seamless combinations of high-level techniques – and his originality.
Vicious Victor
You could say it’s in the blood: Victor’s father started breaking in his native Mexico in the 80s and taught his son when he was six; Victor gained the confidence to really go for it aged eleven, influenced by New York’s legendary Rock Steady Crew.
He’s still inspired by original old school hip hop – and wants to embrace the whole culture, saying that, ‘nowadays, most people just do one thing.
I feel like going into other stuff lie Djing and MCing really helps your breaking. You get inspired more.’
Lil Zoo
Born and raised in Morocco, Lil Zoo relocated to Innsbruck, aiming to achieve success on the global Bboy scene.
He’s also part of dance crew Lhiba Kingzoo, who have collaborated with artists such as Busta Rhymes and Jennifer Lopez.
Jinjo Crew
Break dancing started to influence South Korean youth in the late ’80s. Korean B-boy pioneers Jinjo Crew were formed in 2001, and became the first Korean act to become world champions.
The crew have won the five largest competitions, including Red Bull BC One in 2008, the Battle of the Year in 2010 and the UK B-Boy Championships in 2012.
MC'ing
MC-ing (which is short for ‘Master of Ceremonies) goes under a few names, from lyricism to rapping.
When hip hop started in the late 1970s, the MCs’ job was to introduce DJs at block parties – and hype up the crowd. They began to talk in time to the beat, and then to bring in rhymes, giving birth to rap.
A Tribe Called Quest explained the background to the term in the liner notes for their 1993 album, Midnight Marauders:
‘The use of the term MC when referring to a rhyming wordsmith originates from the dance halls of Jamaica. At each event, there would be a master of ceremonies, who would introduce the different musical acts and would say a toast in the style of a rhyme… The term MC continued to be used by the children of women who moved to New York City to work as maids in the 1970s. These MCs eventually created a new style of music called hip hop, based on the rhyming they used to do in Jamaica and the breakbeats used in records. MC has also recently been accepted to refer to all who engineer music.’
The Best Hip Hop MCs
Capturing the flow of a rhyme and matching it to the beat is a real art – celebrated by MTV’s ‘Hottest MCs in the Game’ Top 10, which has been compiled since 2007.
Kanye West currently holds the record for most appearances on the list – he’s the only rapper to have appeared every year on the list since its inception.
The list is judged on everything from artistic execution – such as lyrical ability and flow – commercial success, cultural impact, digital metrics (such as Twitter followers) – and the artist must have actively released music that year.
The best MCs according to the MTV list include Nicki Minaj, the first and only female rapper on the list, together with Eminem, Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar – who were all named ‘Hottest MC’ the first time they appeared on the list.
Billboard.com’s list of premier MCs includes The Fugees’ Lauryn Hill and Outkast’s Andre 3000, together with Nas and Rakim.
The 10 Best Hip Hop MCs:
- Kendrick Lamar
- J. Cole
- Juice Wrld
- Travis Scott
- DaBaby
- Drake
- Pusha T
- Logic
- Joyner Lucas
- Tory Lanez
Beat Boxing
Beat boxing may have taken a bit of a back seat to rapping, but it was a crucial part of the early hip hop scene – in the early 80s, beatboxers would back up rappers when drum machines were unaffordable.
It’s a form of vocal percussion, where you create sounds with your mouth, tongue, lips, nose and throat: you’re essentially a musical instrument.
Who was the original beatbox pioneer? The artist most frequently cited is Doug E. Fresh, whose mid-80s single ‘The Show/La Di Da Di’ showcased his skills and introduced a mass of showmanship, especially for his stage shows.
For beatboxing, the main percussion sounds you need to be able to finesse are a kick-drum ( a ‘p’ sound), high-that (a ‘th’ sound) and the small snare drum (a ‘kuh’ sound). ‘New school beatboxing’ includes more musicality – bringing in elements such as dubstep, and with a focus on flow and speed.
The Best Beatboxers
- Doug E Fresh
- Biz Markie
- Rahzel
- Kenny Muhammad
- Kid Lucky
Doug E. Fresh
The man dubbed ‘the Original Human Beatbox’ has had a career spanning over 30 years, appearing as a mentor on American Idol, setting up a restaurant in New York City and making his mark as a lifelong activist.
His instant classics, ‘The Show’ and ‘La Di Da Di’, recorded with Slick Rick and the Get Fresh Crew, led to the latter becoming the fifth most sampled song in music’s history.
Plus, he was the first rapper to perform at the United Nations and joined forces with Michelle Obama on her ‘Let’s Move’ campaign, aiming to promote better health for children, through his Hip Hop Public Health nonprofit.
Not to mention the fact that he’s averaged 200 live performances a year for the past two decades. Fresh by name, fresh by nature.
Want a deep dive on ‘La Di Da Di’? Watch Mark Ronson’s TED Talk on how sampling transformed music and the ways in which Doug E. Fresh’s track has been reimagined for every generation since its release.
Biz Markie
beatboxer, rapper, DJ, actor, comedian, TV personality and spokesperson, Biz Markie has done it all.
He released his debut album, Goin’ Off, in 1988 and his most successful single, ‘Just a Friend’, on which he raps and sings, came from his second album in 1989.
As well as his talent for beatboxing, he also performed funny raps, leading to his nickname ‘the clown prince of hip hop’.
Rahzel
Known as the ‘Godfather of Noise’, Rahzel declared, ‘you’ve gotta feel the soul of the music, it’s not just about the beat and the bass.’
The New Yorker, a onetime member of The Roots, has worked with a range of artists including Erykah Badu, Ben Harper, Common, Rakim and Sean Paul.
Kenny Muhammad
AKA The Human Orchestra, has inspiration as varied as beatboxing’s own roots.
He revealed that, ‘My mother played a lot of James Brown, Earth Wind and Fire. I tried to find a way to duplicate sound; I heard the Fat Boys when they came out, and that blew me away. All these artists who did something percussive, harmonic with their vocals, they inspired me to take it to another level.’
Kid Lucky
Kid Lucky was ‘instrumental in bringing together the country’s East coast and West coast beatboxers.’
He coined his own term, Beatrhyming, which was a mix of singing, rapping and beatboxing and holds yearly events in NYC including the ‘American Human Beatbox Festival’.
DJing
The original form of Djing was done to loop drum breaks using turntables to make the ‘break’ last longer. This changed music drastically as it gave B-boys the beats to break to, and for MCs to rap to.
Rappers may have taken the more front and centre place in hip hop, but the innovators of scratching, cutting, backspins and needle drops provided the foundations for them to build on.
Pioneers included Grandmaster Flash and mixtape king DJ Clue, but it was DJ Kool Herc who got there first, hosting a Back to School Jam with his sister in 1973. At the party, Herc unveiled a technique called ‘The Merry Go Round’, playing breaks back to back.
The Best Hip Hop DJs
- Grandmaster Flash
- DJ Premier
- Lil John
- Jam Master Jay
Grandmaster Flash
The first DJ to become a superstar – and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a result.
DJ Premier
DJ Premiere produced The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and Gang Starr, but is also an iconic turntablist.
Lil John
Lil John was at the forefront of the Atlanta scene of the 90s. From playing house parties and clubs, he was recruited as So So Def’s Executive Vice President of A&R, but kept his ear to the ground as a DJ on local station V-103.
Jam Master Jay
Jam Master Jay helped to put rap on the radar during the 80s as the DJ for Run-DMC. And, having launched his own record label, Jam Master Jay Records, in the 90s, he discovered and mentored 50 Cent.
Hip Hop Graffiti
As hip hop was all about making a new type of music expressing messages about everyday life, graffiti was the extension of that through art. Hip hop graffiti started with tags – making your presence felt in the city and stamping your individuality on it, and first emerged in the late 60s in New York and Philadelphia.
One of its early big names, Cameron ‘Grandmaster’ Flowers, who was also making music, described the earliest incarnations of graffiti as, ‘just, “Here’s my name. Look at how many times I’ve written it. Look at how many places you might see me from one end of town to the other”’. Graffiti artists would spray their name, and perhaps a street number – fast, to avoid the police.
The 70s saw more media attention and more competition, with ever-increasing and more complex tags – and in the 80s, graffiti stepped into the fine art work with the landmark MoMA show, ‘New York/New Wave’ placing works by Warhol and Mapplethorpe alongside up-and-coming Jean-Michel Basquiat.
But at heart, it remained an underground art form, as British photographer Janette Beckman, whose portraits of hip hop stars have graced album covers and magazines, remembers: ‘We would be having parties at my studio and the artists would tell stories about how they would go in a hardware store wearing a big coat to steal paint during the day. Then, at night, they would sneak out of the window so their parents wouldn’t hear them and go to a yard to paint a train.’
‘There were guard dogs and rival gangs, and you could be mugged, robbed, shot, or arrested. But they would sneak back into their bedrooms and still go to school. There is something about the struggle and the passion it takes to make art like that.’
The Most Influential Graffiti Artists:
- Lee Quinoñes
- Lady Pink
- Zephyr
- John 'Crash' Matos
- Keith Haring
Lee Quinoñes
An American-Puerto Rican artist known for his New York subway graffiti during the 70s and 80s, which addressed political and cultural issues.
He later collaborated on graphics for brands such as Adidas and Supreme.
Lady Pink
Born in Ecuador and raised in New York City, Pink began her graffiti career in 1979, painting subway trains until 1985.
Her work now features in the Whitney Museum, New York’s MET, and the Groningen Museum in Holland.
Zephyr
Zephyr also began painting his moniker on subway cars, and became part of the first wave of graffiti artists to make the transition to galleries.
In 1983, he was hired by director Charlie Ahearn to design and art direct the title sequence for the first hip hop film, Wild Style.
John ‘Crash’ Matos
Matos picked up his first can of spray paint when he was just thirteen. His energetic, colourful designs allude to celebrity and comic book culture, much like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
He came to the critics’ attention when he curated ‘Graffiti Art Success for America’ at the Fashion Moda in 1980 and his work appears in collections at the Brooklyn Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, amongst others.
Keith Haring
Haring became possibly the best known graffiti artist of all, painting murals all over New York as a way to give back to his community, and to raise awareness for health-related issues, particularly AIDS.
You can still see his work for free at Brooklyn’s Woodhull Medical Center and his last artwork, a cast bronze triptych at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.
Audio Network's Hip Hop Beats
When it comes to hip hop, we have one of the biggest collections for licensing.
Whether you’re looking for tracks for sport or drama, documentaries or ads, our Beats series has you covered. And because we’re all about offering you the best quality original music, we’ve just added 300 additional hip hop tracks to our catalogue.
Our clients are using hip hop and trap instrumental cues to soundtrack everything from funny, awkward situations to sad, emotive moments, and from serious topics to mystery.
From cloud rap to old school instrumentals, tension trap to comedic cuts, we’ve got the perfect hip hop beat for your brief.
To make it even easier to find your ideal track, we’ve created dedicated hip hop playlists:
- Comedy – Playfully quirky, these are light-hearted beats for comedy or dramedy
- Upbeat – Bring the party and lift the mood with bright, optimistic hip hop
- Motivational – Uplifting, determined and confident – inspire with swagger
- Emotional – Create a reflective mood with emotive hip hop
- Light Tension – From sneaky and suspicious to all-out suspense, select these tension-building beats
- Heavy Tension – Need more drama? Choose our horror-ready beats
- Tasking – Looking for kinetic hip hop? This playlist delivers
- Energetic – Hip hop to accelerate the pace…
- Ambient – …Or chill out with minimalist, textured beats
- Transitions – Dynamic scene openers, bumpers and stings, all with a hip hop flavour
So, whether you’re after trap or 90s, lo-fi, EDM, Jazz or Gangsta, dive into our brand new collection, and find the perfect hip hop for TV, digital content or corporate videos, featuring artists including Skripture, viral superstar Youngr, Jonathan Clark and Matt Goodman.
Want more music? Check out The Collections – from Classical to World Music, Latin genres to creating Maximum Impact for trailers, these tracks have been hand-picked by our in-house experts.
This page was updated 20/04/2021 and 24/11/2022.
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