From a Passion to a Culture

When artists first started creating and mixing beats and vocals together to create an all new genre of music, a revolution began. Hip-Hop was born, and it took off like a rocket due to the fact that artists could easily relate to the real world struggles that much of their audiences were experiencing. Early artists performed at local shows, community events, school dances and many other venues in their communities. They began performing these shows for little to no money, and they did it for the love of the art and the small possibility of becoming rich and famous.

Their passion was their main drive. Their love for rapping and performing was evident once they started doing the community shows and school dances. With little to no money coming in, there were no rewards, other than they were able to perfect their art of performing. Then as music producers starting approaching these artists, the rewards started to grow. Although they weren’t given the rewards they deserved, they were content with this.

This was a perfect reason for many other aspiring artists to begin performing. With the potential of making money to write, sing, and perform there was a bandwagon of artists willing to risk it all to make money. Once this trend became prominent in areas like the Bronx, Southern California, Atlanta, and other cities with more and more passionate hip-hop artists, it transformed into a culture.

People began living the “hip-hop lifestyle.” From how people dressed to how they walked, there was specific persona when it came to hip-hop. Artists would dance a certain way and their fans would want to dance that way. If they talked a certain way, dressed a certain way, or even said a certain word or phrase, fans would follow.

As hip-hop grew to the top ranks of music genres, so did the culture. It soon started becoming more and more popular in areas outside of major cities. Dances were created for hip-hop songs. New lingos were created from the music. Fans even began dressing like their favorite artists.

In a little less than a century after hip-hop was essentially created there was new culture present. Hip-hop grew from artists performing at school shows for free, to artists signing somewhat high-paid contracts. With this success, they created an entire culture that fans were able to relate to and spread throughout the country.