Hip Hop, which originally emerged in largely African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latino communities of the Bronx, is now one of the most popular and influential genres of music amongst all people today. Not only is a popular music genre but it has become a culture as well. Rap music is the most popular aspect that has emerged from Hip Hop. Rap music is defined as a popular African American dance musical style usually featuring an MC, who recites rhymed verses over an accompaniment created by a DJ or pre-recorded tracks. Though rap, like many music genres, started off as an African American style, it has become extremely mainstream and has reached a variety of different audiences of different races, ethnicities, and ages. There are 8 different subgenres of rap:
Classic Rap:
Classic Rap is rap with elements of hardcore and pop-rap affirmed by the cord hip-hop audience and the mainstream.
Hardcore Rap:
Hardcore Rap is a controversial hip-hip style characterized by hyper masculine images, exaggerated street themes, aggressive delivery, and often explicit languages.
Pop-rap:
Pop-rap is rap characterized by humorous, catchy, and upbeat lyrics with little controversial subject matter, which targets a mainstream audience.
Alternative rap:
Alternative rap is hip-hop music that does not conform to commercial forms of rap, such as gangsta, hardcore, and pop-rap. Instead, alternative rap freely draws from other genres, uses a loose interpretation of the rhymed couplet tradition, and/or includes themes that are more blatantly political than those of commercial rap.
Gangsta Rap:
Gangsta rap is a hardcore style popularized on the West Coast, beginning in the late 1980s, with street-oriented lyrics and delivery associated with gang culture.
R&B Rap:
R&B Rap is a Hip-hop/R&B hybrid considered middle ground between hardcore and pop-rap; characterized by rapped verses, sung refrains, and harmonized choruses.
Old School Rap:
Old School Rap is early hip-hop that emerged during the 1970s, featuring DJs, a crew or posse of rappers, break dancers, and graffiti artists. Lyrics follow the AABB rhymed couplet format.
New School Rap:
New School Rap is post-1985 technology-driven hip hop that spotlight MCs whose raps are stylistically and lyrically diverse.The rhyme scheme departs somewhat from the AABB couplet format.
