Hip hop music or hip-hop music, also known as rap music, is a genre of popular music developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans, Puertorican and Jamaicans in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s. It consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records (or synthesized beats and sounds), and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, “hip hop” more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.
Hip hop as both a musical genre and a culture was formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx. At block parties DJs played percussive breaks of popular songs using two turntables and a DJ mixer to be able to play breaks from two copies of the same record, alternating from one to the other and extending the “break”. Hip hop’s early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became widely available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks and Jamaican toasting, a chanting vocal style, was used over the beats. Rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat.
Hip hop music was not officially recorded for play on radio or television until 1979, largely due to poverty during the genre’s birth and lack of acceptance outside ghetto neighborhoods. Old school hip hop was the first mainstream wave of the genre, marked by its disco influence and party-oriented lyrics. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles and spread around the world. New school hip hop was the genre’s second wave, marked by its electro sound, and led into Golden age hip hop, an innovative period between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s that also developed hip hop’s own album era. The gangsta rap subgenre, focused on the violent lifestyles and impoverished conditions of inner-city African-American youth, gained popularity at this time. West Coast hip hop was dominated by G-funk in the early-mid 1990s, while East Coast hip hop was dominated by jazz rap, alternative hip hop, and hardcore rap. Hip hop continued to diversify at this time with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap and Atlanta hip hop. Hip hop became a best-selling genre in the mid-1990s and the top-selling music genre by 1999.
The popularity of hip hop music continued through the late 1990s to mid-2000s “bling era” with hip hop influences increasingly finding their way into other genres of popular music, such as neo soul, nu metal, and R&B. The United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics, and alternative hip hop began to secure a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of its artists. During the late 2000s and early 2010s “blog era”, rappers were able to build up a following through online methods of music distribution, such as social media and blogs, and mainstream hip hop took on a more melodic, sensitive direction following the commercial decline of gangsta rap. The trap and mumble rap subgenres have become the most popular form of hip hop during the mid-late 2010s and early 2020s. In 2017, rock music was usurped by hip hop as the most popular genre in the United States.
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Snotty Nose Rez Kids
Snotty Nose Rez Kids are a First Nations hip hop duo composed of Haisla rappers Darren “Young D” Metz and Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce. They are originally from Kitamaat Village, British Columbia, and currently based in Vancouver. Their 2017 album The Average Savage was shortlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize, and for the Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2019. In 2018, the duo received nominations for Best Hip Hop Album at the Indigenous Music Awards, and for Indigenous Artist of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. Their third album TRAPLINE was released on May 10, 2019 and was later shortlisted for the 2019 Polaris Music Prize.
Metz & Nyce first connected as writers during high school – Metz wrote poetry and Nyce was a storyteller – realizing they both had a love of hip-hop. The two started recording together under the name Minay Music for a project Metz was assigned during his audio engineering program at Harbourside Institute of Technology.
The duo released their self-titled debut album in January 2017, and followed up with The Average Savage in September. Their single “Skoden” was playlisted on CBC Music’s Reclaimed, and was named one of the year’s 100 best songs by the network. The song received renewed attention in 2018 when a graffiti artist spraypainted “Skoden” on the water tower in downtown Sudbury. The word “Skoden” is a phrase that means “let’s go then”, and has been a long standing popular phrase in Indigenous circles.
In May 2018, they released the new single “The Warriors”, a protest song opposing the Trans Mountain Pipeline, and signed to Jarrett Martineau’s RPM Records. After a brief stint with RPM, Snotty Nose Rez Kids decided to part ways and release their next album independently. Their third album, TRAPLINE, was released on May 10, 2019. In June 2019, TRAPLINE was shortlisted for the 2019 Polaris Music Prize. Exclaim! named the album the 7th best hip hop album of the year.
In 2020, the duo announced that they would releasing the EP Born Deadly on April 3. The EP was preceded by two singles: “Real Deadly” and “Cops with Guns Are the Worst!!!”.
Frank Waln
Frank Waln or Oyate Teca Obmani (“Walks With Young People”) is a Sicangu Lakota rapper. His first solo album, Born Ready, was released in 2017, followed by The Bridge the same year. He has been awarded three Native American Music Awards and received five nominations, both individually and with his group Nake Nula Waun.
Waln grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and first began listening to hip-hop as a teenager. He later graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a B.A. in Audio Arts and Acoustics, and also received a Gates Millennium Scholarship.
Waln grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was first exposed to hip-hop after finding an Eminem CD on the side of the road. As a teenager he began listening to the genre extensively, connecting his experiences as a Native American dealing with the consequences of colonialism and genocide to the oppression suffered by African Americans. In the early 2000s he began recording with friends and family, eventually saving enough money to build a recording studio in his basement.
A Millennium Scholar, Waln studied pre-med at Creighton University for two years, with the goal of becoming a doctor. After burning out, he realized that music, rather than medicine, was how he would choose to make a difference and a living. He then moved to Chicago, studying audio design at Columbia College Chicago, and graduated in 2014.
In 2010 Waln formed the group Nake Nula Waun (I am always ready, at all times, for anything), with Thomas Schmidt, Andre Easter, and Kodi DeNoyer. They released the album Scars and Bars that year, with Waln receiving the Best Producer award at the 2010 Native American Music Awards. The band receiving the Best Hip-Hop Recording award in 2011 for the same album. Their follow-up, The Definition, was released in 2013 and was again nominated for Best Hip-Hop Recording.
Alongside his work with Nake Nula Waun, Waln also has a solo career. His single Hear My Cry, a collaboration with Cody Blackbird, was nominated for two Nammy awards in 2013 after its release, winning one; Oil 4 Blood, a 2013 song about the Keystone XL pipeline, was singled out by Policymic.com, who identified him as one of ‘7 First Nation Rappers Crushing Stereotypes of Indigenous People Through Music’. Along with Nataani Means, Mike “Witko” Cliff, and Inez Jasper, Waln was featured in the MTV documentary Rebel Music.
Waln released his first solo album, The Bridge, in 2017. and went on to release ‘Born Ready’ in 2020.
Noted for his work in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, Waln contributes to the Dream Warriors scholarships, a project founded by Tanaya Winder (who manages Waln, Tall Paul and Mic Jordan) to provide scholarships to Native Americans looking to study and perform music.
DJ Kookum
Cheyanna Kootenhayoo also known as DJ Kookum is a Dene/Cree Filmmaker and DJ. She is a member of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, originally from Cold Lake First Nations and is based out of Vancouver, BC. This hip hop, rap, trap, r&b, edm DJ is blowing up.
This past year Kookum has opened for Princess Nokia. Threw down a back-to-back set with Dj Shub at the celebration of lights festival. Held it down on the decks at the first Vancouver Indigenous Fashion week and at the 18th Annual ImagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto.
She is also a resident DJ at the Biltmore Cabaret Friday nights and was nominated for break out DJ of the year at the Golden Owl Awards. Between DJing and Filmmaking, she will be working on cooking em beats in music production, stay tuned!
Mob Bounce
MOB BOUNCE is Craig Frank Edes aka The Northwest Kid (Gitxsan) and Travis Hebert aka EarthChild (Cree/Metis). They grew up in Northern BC and bonded over their love of hip hop. Mob Bounce was officially born with the release of their Mixed Blood Mixtape and since then, they’ve collected three nominations at the Indigenous Music Awards and shared stage with Buffy Sainte-Marie, A Tribe Called Red, Jeremy Dutcher, Lido Pimienta, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, and July Talk. Rooted in their cultures, ceremonies, and connections to place, Mob Bounce brings lyricism and power to hip-hop culture from a contemporary Indigenous perspective.
Ms. PAN!K
Award-nominated Haida loop-poet philosopher Ms.PAN!K singer/songwriter/sound creator/storyteller & artist creates experimental loop-pedal-driven soundscapes, indie Indigenous soul, and soul full acoustic melodies. Ms.PAN!K’s live performance blends elements of her singer/songwriter indie-folk roots with improvised experimental loop compositions that merge and mix vocal elements, traditional drum, guitar, and percussion fused with emotion & soul.
PAN!K’s verses are a socio-political exploration shaped by the enigmatic human experience & her love of prose, spoken word poets, hip hop philosophers, experimental electronic and soul-legends.