African American Teenagers

In the late 70s, a new form of songs emerged among African American teenagers in the neighborhoods of the South Bronx. This kind of street art increasingly gained momentum in the United States and culminated in the definition of a new type of music. However, more than a century before it exploded onto the American music scene, West Africans (especially the village of the “Griots”) were telling stories rhythmically with drums, which paved the way for this form of music. This “talking” while music is playing is rap music in its most rudimentary form. In fact, “Rapper’s delight”, a song by The Sugarhill Gang (the first song that had been commercialized) became a hit in 1979 and proved that rap music does no longer concern a small portion of the US population.

Therefore, it was considered as a groundbreaking type of songs in as much as it was utterly inconsistent with other forms of music prevalent at that time such as disco music that was particularly predominant. Some people say that “Rap music” is an oxymoron because of the lack of musicality and the absence of a melody but there is also another group of people who believe that Rap is nothing but “Rhythm And Poetry” insisting on the fact that it is an art. However, even if there is a huge gap between these two visions of rap music, everyone agrees now that it is a way to convey a message and that it stands for a subversive will to make one’s voice heard.