Defining Hip Hop

As a musical genre hip-hop is a very beat driven style of music. It often consists of the sounds of drums of all sorts, turn-table scratching, DJ sample looping and just about any other instrument or sound you can imagine. The prominent vocal style of hip-hop is rapping which is often combined with smooth and soulful singing. The genre is found widely in clubs of all types throughout the world.

Hip-hop has an emphasis on bass beats and high energy vocals that makes it popular dance music. It is not, however, restricted to these specific parameters. Hip-hop music contains the elements that any good music genre should, showing both love and hate, joy and anger, as well as suffering and success through its lyrics and sounds. In the past hip-hop was often performed on the streets and in small venues where prerecorded samples or beat-boxers would provide the music for the artist to sing or rap over but now it is more common that the performers music is orchestrated by live performers and DJs. Beat-boxing, which is making bass noises and pops with your mouth, is common even now as an easy way to provide a beat or rhythm for hip-hop free-styling.

Free-styling is a celebrated tradition from hip-hop's origins in which the singer or rapper will perform on the spot without pre-written lyrics, just saying what comes off the top of the artists mind. This is often used to battle other hip-hop artists and rappers as a way to test the artist's skill of tongue and wit. Among the musical genres of today's world, hip-hop easily stands on the top of the list when it comes to widespread popularity. There are more major record labels that support hip-hop artists today than just about any other music genre.