argumentative essay on hip hop

133 Hip Hop Topics & Essay Examples

Looking for exciting hip hop topics to write about? This music genre is still very popular and definitely worth exploring!

• 🏆 Best Essay Examples & Topic Ideas

🎧 Interesting Rap Topics for Essays & Research Papers

• 📌 Most Interesting Topics to Write about
• 👍 Good Essay Topics

❓ Questions About Hip Hop

In your hip-hop essay, you might want to make an overview of the genre or talk about its history. Another option for your rap essay is to compare the old school and the new school of hip-hop. One more idea is to discuss the consequences of the genre’s commercialization.

Want more title ideas? Continue reading! We’ve prepared for you a collection of rap topics and questions for essays and research papers. Hip hop essay examples are added for your inspiration!

🏆 Best Hip Hop Essay Examples & Topic Ideas

• Hip-Hop Music Other creations of hip-hop are the components of the hip-hop lifestyle. A number of unacceptable behaviors in the society have been encouraged by hip-hop leading to a conflict between the ambassadors of hip-hop and the […]
• Jazz and Hip Hop: Similarities and Differences Both hip hop and jazz are closely linked and for that matter there are a number of similarities they share prompting some individuals to pronounce that hip hop is ‘the jazz of young individuals in […]
• Hip Hop Dance The TV shows such as the Wild style, Soul Train and Breakin, Beat Street also contributed in showcasing hip hop dance styles during the early periods of hip hop hype.
• Similarities between Ballet and Hip Hop Dance is and always shall be a form of expression where the movements performed speak volumes of the emotions and feelings that the dancer is trying to impart to the audience.
• Hip Hop Influence on Youth: Statistics and Effects Hip hop music is also said to perpetuate the rise in criminal activities among the youth. It is therefore recommendable for the youth to shun away from the vice brought about by hip hop music.
• Hip-Hop and Rap Impact on Social Inequality For instance, Beyonce is one of the most famous artists in the world who have stated her opinion regarding misogyny related to artists and other black women.
• Jay-Z’s Contribution to Hip-Hop and Fight for Social Justice One should admit that the crime rate among black people in some poor areas is really quite high, and that is another problem Jay-Z covers in his music.
• Hip Hop Infiltrates Asian Music Industry Therefore, if American hip hop music genre infiltrated Asian music industry and an Asian hip hop music variety was invented then hurdles in Asian hip hop can be conquered.
• Hip-Hop and the Japanese Culture The prevalence of soul dancing in Japan in the earlier years also formed the basis for the wide acceptance of the hip-hop culture into the Japanese culture because soul dancing was common in the streets […]
• The Impact of Hip-Hop Music Education in Elementary School The theoretical justification of the article is the importance of music, in particular the style of hip-hop, in the formation of the system of interests and career goals of schoolchildren.
• 50 Cent: Hip-Hop Violence in Modern Media At first, society might negatively react to this example because it is associated with the disorder and the desire to break something to deliver the message.
• History of Hip-Hop: Identifying the Organizational Learning Issues The samplers of the 1980s were also more technically limited compared to the artist equipment of the 1990s, which produced a richer and more authentic sound.
• The Hip-Hop Phenomenon of Hyper-Masculinity Sociological Research Question: What lies behind the dominant hyper-masculine paradigm in Hip Hop and Black culture and its various manifestations in lyrics and music videos?
• Hip Hop: Common’s Song “Black America Again” His rap is underground and can be said to be street, as many of the poems cover the theme of the streets and what is happening on them.
• Hip-Hop Culture Breaking Down Racial Barriers The hip-hop culture going mainstream was the event reflecting the societal concerns of the ethnic minorities. It presents an example of sports and the arts breaking down racial barriers as their participants efficiently cooperate.
• Relationship of Hip-Hop With Race and Identity The beefing between the two hip-hop artists, Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks, indicates a misapprehension existing on hip-hop’s history. Due to the competitive nature of the market, artists try to survive by beefing with their […]
• Hip-Hop Music and Its History in the 80s-90s Hip-hop music was on the rise in the late 80s, and influential rap collectives such as Run DMC and the Beastie Boys provided an outlet for the hip-hop culture to acquire national recognition.
• Hip-Hop and Marijuana Use in College Students It has been estimated that over half of the college student population regularly use marijuana, while over 25% used it during past month.
• Hip Hop Evolution and Racial & Political Conditions A significant influence on the emergence of political and conscious hip hop can be attributed to the Civil-Rights Movements and the Black Power Movements of the 60s and 70s in the United States.
• Hip-Hop as a Vehicle for Unification in Beat Street This resistance to the vilification and stigmatization of their neighborhoods as spaces of crime, chaos, and evil is one of the factors that strengthen community bonds and communal identity in the neighborhoods in question. The […]
• Understanding Hip Hop Made by Jay-Z The story of a hustler is a story of the struggle to make a living. I think the “story of a hustler” is like the stories of the Wild West outlaws.
• Seattle Hip-Hop Scene: Michael “The Wanz” Wansley He was born in 1961 and has been a part of the hip-hop and pop scene of Seattle for the most of his life.
• Hip Hop Music and the Protest Tradition of the 1960’s The aim of this essay is to study current forms of Hip Hop music while comparing and contrasting them to the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s/70’s.
• Seattle Hip Hop From an Underground Genre Into Mainstream Music: Songs Examples In the song “Home” by Jake one there is a lot of sentimental waxing which is a recent hip hop feature that was absent in the eighties.
• The History of Hip-Hop Culture in the United States The discography which is represented in the 3rd disc gives a scope of understanding of the main things which worried rappers at the time.
• Analysis of Rap and Hip-Hop Culture: Audience of the Songs and the Purposes of the Singers The same is with the analysis of the songs and music, the critics should be aware of the lived realities of the authors and demographic characteristics of the aimed audience.
• Formation of Non-White Hip-Hop Women Movement Hip-hop culture is one of the music genres which appeared in America in the 1970s. The hip-hop culture increases all the time and the part of women does not reduce, moreover, it increases.
• Hip Hop Culture and Music Scratching is a technique which in hip hop culture is used to gauge the expertise of a DJ, as he is expected to produce new sounds simply by moving a record back and forth while […]
• Gay Culture’s Influence on Hip Hop Fashion Gay men have the influence of female fashion design due to the fact that most of the designers of female clothes are men and most of them are homosexual.
• Poverty and Hip-Hop: Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” Notorious B.I.G.’s music video for the song “Juicy” was chosen for the analysis because the rapper explored the theme of poverty that deeply affected his life.
• Jazz and Hip Hop Concerts in Comparison Two pieces in the second performance, In Germany Before the War and Mysterious Barricades, were well performed during the concert. There was a deejay on the deck and background dancers to back up the performance […]
• Social Inequality: Hip-Hop Culture and Movement When it comes to defining the term ‘social movement’, it is important to understand that the process of a particular group of people striving to have their voice heard in the public sphere, must be […]
• Social Constructions and Hip Hop Music This process involved the description of the things that I saw at the concert. I described the tone, tempo, and style of music that they sang.
• Pan-Ethnic Hip-Hop in Afro-American History 1 In the introduction, the author makes a profound comparison and contrast between the treatment of colored people in different historical periods, which helps the audience to realize the importance of the subject.
• Hip-Hop Theory and Culture in the Discography G explains the changes in day-to-day living within the ghettos between the artist’s childhood and the present. Most of the lines from the song praise the person that the song is dedicated to.
• Literature Study on the Hip-Hop Concept: A Social Movement and Part of the Industry Hip-hop is a genre that does not obey the taboos but creates new stereotypes, allowing itself to use risky language to convey the text of the songs in a much recognizable and provocative manner.
• Hip Hop Culture in “The Otherside” Documentary Regardless numerous discussions about Hip Hop, this culture remains to be a considerable part of human life that helps to understand that such issue as racial profiling is not only something that is required by […]
• Hip Hop Duo: Kung Foo Grip Though the history of this duo is neither too complicated nor full of some unpredictable and fatal decisions events, it can be used to explain how the lives of two fans of Hip Hop can […]
• Planet B-Girl: Community Building and Feminism in Hip-Hop The main idea of the article under analysis is the intentions of female hip-hop artists to prove their choices and demonstrate their abilities by using the same rights male hip-hop artists have already got.
• The Documentary “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes” Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is a documentary movie that helps not only to understand the nature of hip hop but to connect a single style of music with the necessity of such crucial issues […]
• Hip Hop Definition In fact, many authors underline the fact that commercialization of hip-hop has changed its essence considerably and deprived modern people of the possibility to understand the essence of hip-hop and true reasons for its appearance. […]
• Old School Hip Hop Versus New Hip Hop Music However, although today’s hip hop music does share some similarities with old school hip hop, it is much more superficial and generic, compared to the timeless music of the old school hip hop.
• Hip-Hop and Politics Correlation in the USA The author outlines the life and the creative process of Clive Campbell or otherwise known as DJ Kook Herc, one of the most influential figures in the early history of the hip-hop genre.
• Blacks’ Prison Experiences in Hip Hop Culture Though considering the controversy that has been the “elephant in the room” for quite a time, Dyson clearly takes his argument to an admittedly high level of convincingness, it is not only the consideration of […]
• Hip-Hop Subculture as Answer to Social Inequality One of the most notable aspects of a contemporary living in America is the fact that, as of today, the sub-culture of Hip-Hop had ceased being considered in terms of a largely marginalized socio-cultural phenomenon.
• “Reflections on Hip Hop” by Eric Dyson In the first place, it is necessary to note that prison is seen as the most important factor affecting development of black males’ identity and three types of experiences are singled out.
• Hip Hop Music as Media Influence on the Youth Personally, I love listening to rap music, which many people claim that it has led to the spread of violence among young people.
• Hip-Hop Music and the Role of Women in It: Fight for Women’s Rights in Society While looking at the various roles of women in hip hop and rap, it is also important to note that the way women are presented has various effects on society.
• Women in Hip-Hop Music: A Provocative and Objectified Gender Roles It is one thing that men want women to be in music videos and play a particular role, but women are willing to participate in the videos.
• R&B and Hip-Hop Effect Western Music The music that Michael Jackson released was not based on gender but was based on truth and hope to the people and this gave him a lot of influence in the community reason being that […]
• Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation The book Ca not Stop Wo not Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation brings out the history of the United States from the eyes of a person who would have been considered a loser […]
• Hip-Hop: News From a Ghetto’s Point of View Youths living in the ghettos have had Hip Hop as one of the most effectual means to voice the social injustice that they experience.
• “Hip Hop“ Subculture: Music, Vocabulary, and Roots Based on an interview with a member of the subculture, the paper will discuss some of the terms used in the subculture, how its members dress and look, as well as how they act.
• Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap This will be addressed in this book review as we look at how the author represents his views, interpretations and research about the hip-hop culture2 In this book, Ogbar explores the lyrical world of rap […]
• Fashion Controversies about Hip Hop Garments The paper will look into controversy that arose over hip hop garment design with the aim of identifying the source of the controversy, key players in the controversy as well as political, social and economic […]
• The Beginnings of Hip-Hop Within the course of three decades, hip-hop has become a part of the mainstream culture. This is one of the details that should be considered.
• The Hip-Hop Genre Origin and Influence Hess, in addition, notes that from 1970s, the development of Hip-hop as a culture has been very complex due to immigrants from different parts of the world, who in one way or another equally contributed […]
• Hip Hop Dancing: The Remarkable Black Beat Because the drum beats was the most danceable segment of the hip hop music, the hip hop musicians increased their focus on the quality of drum beat sequence.
• Socio-Political Foundations of Hip-Hop This presentation is connected to a state of exploitation that continues in the world that has deprived people so much, yet the struggle continues.’The sociology and history of African American’ brings out the theme of […]
• Hip-Hop in Japan However, this was not the case, most of the artists focused on refining their music in the Japanese languages to give it a Japanese flavor.

📌 Most Interesting Hip Hop Topics to Write about

• Copula Variation Across Two Decades Of Hip Hop Nation Language
• How Hip Hop Affect The Way People Think About Politics
• An Overview of the Talk by Tupac Shakur, an American Hip Hop Artist
• Bad Influence Of Hip Hop On Youth
• African American Hip Hop and its Influence
• Hip Hop Music is More Than a Couple of Words
• Codes and Abstraction in Hip Hop Culture
• Black Women’s Role in Popular Culture: An Analysis of The Venus Hip Hop
• Argumentative Essay On Hip Hop Culture
• A Comparison of Classical Ballet and Modern Dance – Hip Hop and Jazz Style
• Should We Accept The Hip Hop Industry Negative Images
• Hip Hop And Politics: Attacking The Political Powers Of Government
• Comparison Of Yorkville Crossing : White Teens, Hip Hop
• Effects Of Hip Hop And Country Music On Society
• A Description of the Image of Hip Hop/Rap Music
• Racial Stereotypes Associated With Rap And Hip Hop Music
• Does Hip Hop Influence Other Parts of the World
• Music Videos Involving Women And The Hip Hop Industry
• Hip Hop : The Commodification Of African American Women
• Hip Hop Culture And Its Impact On The American Society
• The Assault Of Women In The Hip Hop Community

👍 Good Hip Hop Essay Topics

• An Analysis of the Performance of American Hip Hop Group, Travis Porter
• Hip Hop : Beyond Beats And Rhymes By Byron Hurt
• Gender In Black Media Hip Hop Culture
• Positive Women in Hip Hop: Feminism in a Patriarchal Society
• Hip Hop And Rap Has Been The Mainstay For Youth
• Influences of Hip Hop on Today’s Generation: Rising Deviance
• Hip Hop’s Influence on Popular Culture: Expression or Oppression
• An Analysis of Hip Hop and Its Influence on Listeners
• Essay Hip Hop Music and Music Technology
• Existentialism Case – Tupac Shakur: Existentialist Hip Hop Artist
• An Overview of the Rapping and the Hip Hop Culture in the Music of the United States
• Harlem Renaissance & the Hip Hop Movement
• An Analysis of the Elements of Hip Hop Culture
• Contemporary Urban Music: Controversial Messages in Hip Hop and Rap Lyrics
• Compare and Contrast the Subcultures of Hip Hop
• Differing Mentalities In Hip Hop And Rock
• An Analysis of the Music of Talib Kweli, a Hip Hop Artist
• Hip Hop And Its Effects On African Society
• Black Films and Hip Hop Music Videos: Race Representation
• Does Hip Hop Influence Violent Behavior
• Hip Hop And The Birth Of African American Poetry
• American History of Hip Hop Culture
• Does Hip Hop Culture Influence Youth Gangs?
• Who Does Hip Hop Belong?
• Does Hip Hop Harm Black Americans?
• Does Hip Hop Have a Place in the Church?
• What Is the Hip Hop Style of Music?
• Does Hip Hop Influence Other Parts of the World?
• Does Hip Hop Provoke Drug Use and Misogyny?
• How Does Hip Hop Effect Teenagers?
• How Does Hip Hop Affects Society?
• How Does Hip Hop Affect the Way People Think About Politics?
• How Does Hip Hop Connect With Many Different Real-World Problems?
• Is Hip Hop Black Culture?
• How Did Hip Hop Culture Develop During the Seventies?
• How Hip Hop Culture Remains Superfluous With Overspending?
• How Hip Hop Music Is a Culture of Resistance?
• Who Invented Hip Hop?
• How Hip Hop Negatively Affects Society?
• How Hip Hop Negatively Influences Today’s Teen?
• Does Hip Hop Influence Violent Behavior?
• How Does Hip Hop Promotes Violence?
• How Does Hip Hop Start?
• What Has Hip Hop Ever Done?
• How Have Race and Gender Shown Within the Genres of Hip Hop and Rap?
• How Did the Backout 1977 Affect Hip Hop?
• How Are Women Represented in Hip Hop Videos?
• What Are Different Styles of Hip Hop?
• Why Do White Kids Love Hip Hop?
• What Does Hip Hop Stand For?
• How Has Technology Influenced Hip Hop?
• Are Hip Hop and Rap the Same?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Chapter 5: African American English and the communities it influences

5.4.3 The way rap and hip-hop have influenced today’s African American youth (research essay)

Amiri Austin

English 102, November 2020

Today I believe young people not just limited to African American’s find themselves being in a situation in which they have turned to their favorite rapper for motivation, a voice to listen to, or even just background music. Since I started this topic, I’ve been intrigued to find out just how big of an impact Rap and Hip-Hop have had on African American youth in areas of high income along with impoverished areas. Music has helped many of these kids get through tough situations and help escape their reality of gang violence and perhaps not the best circumstances. Rap and Hip-Hop music have also helped influence this generations views on certain topics and helped create opportunities young men and women of color otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to experience.

Now you may be wondering how exactly music can help African American communities. To start I will introduce you to a study used and created by counselors to better help them understand their clients of color. In the article titled “Using Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences.”, the authors start off by describing Hip-Hop as more than just a culture you can adopt by buying certain clothes or going to see a few concerts. Hip-Hop is described as more of a dream or an emotional outlet or a way to build relationships and to help young people network their way to a career or profession to get out of the projects or another tough living situation. The authors went about this study by using a content analysis design and chose a genre known as conscious rap, featuring multiple artists and 10 different songs. The songs included were NWA-F**K The Police, 2Pac-rapped, Killer Mike- Don’t Die, Rage Against the Machine-Killing the Name, MainSource- Just a Friendly Game of Baseball, Dead Prez-Cop Shot, Gil Scott Heron- No Knock, Ice-T – Cop Killer, KRS-One-Sound of Da Police, and UGK-Protect and Serve.(7) Each of the researchers listened to the songs in 30 second intervals and then wrote down their thoughts/decoded versions.  Time was taken to relisten and truly feel what the artist was trying to describe to its listeners. The authors found that these songs were more than just lyrics for people to memorize and recite at concerts, they were words used to help these artists get out of their struggle and help their family members out, they were words used to inspire other youth and let them know that even in the worst situations you can achieve the biggest of dreams. This advancement of understanding the lyrics and usage of certain verbiage in songs helped counselors become more culturally competent and helped them institute encouraging activities and helped bring out locked up stories from clients of color. It also helped them understand their social identity and made them feel more wanted even in a world of privilege and oppression. This study is important to the climate of today’s world because I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of Rap and Hip-Hop music and how it can be used to help. Counseling especially is now more important than ever with the increased awareness of mental illness in the United States and around the world. Suicide rates are at the highest they’ve been in a long time especially in teens and youth and a lot of these kids talk about artists like Juice Wrld or Lil Peep who helped them get through rough times in their life where they thought the only way out was suicide. My next topic will be moving from a health perspective in counseling to ways in which rap and hip-hop have helped African American youth from an education perspective.

From my education experience I never really was forced to have music as a class until 5th grade when I had a required recorder class and we learned how to read basic sheets of music and perform songs in front of our peers. In a scholarly article titled “Connecting Black Youth to Critical Media Literacy Through Hip-Hop Making in the Music Classroom” a program called Foundations of Music encouraged participants to increase their effort and maximize their abilities in the classroom through making music of the hip-hop genre. The Foundation of Music program introduces students to both the process of writing lyrics of a rap song and the technology used to produce rap songs in a classroom. Each day the authors would record observations like the concept’s kids learned every day, reactions from student-to-student and student-to-teacher, along with informal conversations between the students. It was discovered that having the same group of kids come in every day and work on a new hobby built a sense of belonging among them that replicated what it felt like to be a part of a team. A common goal of bettering themselves every day and a sense of having an actual end goal of creating a song or producing a song helped them create a work ethic they weren’t otherwise used to or aware of. Many kids were also able to express their emotions and real-life experiences and let their stories be heard in their communities without being harassed by their normal teachers for talking during a lesson or being off topic. One of my research questions I’d like to answer with this topic would be just “How effective are these literacy practices involving rap music” and “How do African-Americans benefit as a whole from literacy teaching practices involving rap or hip-hop music.” In the article titled “Toward a Critical Pedagogy of popular Culture: Literacy Development Among Urban Youth”, the author talks about how educators have wanted to use new strategies and approaches to teach literacy to urban youth. It can be argued that hip-hop music is the representative voice of urban youth because it was created by and for urban youth, in addition to acting as voices in their urban communities’ rappers consider themselves educators and see at least a portion of their goal as raising consciousness of their communities. The author and his colleague in this article first designed a unit in their curriculum that incorporated hip-hop music and culture into a traditional senior English poetry unit. The major portion of the unit was a group presentation of a poem and a rap song from a historical period that was discussed in the class. The groups were asked to prepare a justifiable interpretation of their poem and song with relation to their specific historical and literary periods and analyze the links between the two. The students generated quality interpretations and made interesting connections between the poems and the rap songs. Their critical investigations of popular texts brought about oral and written critiques like those in college preparatory English classrooms. The students moved beyond critical reading of literary texts to become cultural producers themselves, creating and presenting poems that provided crucial commentary and encouraged action for social justice. Another area used by this study was teaching with popular film. The notion of films as visual texts worthy of academic study has been growing within the postsecondary academy for some time. The critical studies field has grown in prominence, and there are now academics who use critical theory to study film at nearly every major university in the U.S. During the units, the students watched the films in class while reading the accompanying texts at home. By combining popular film with canonical texts, the students were able to hone their critical and analytical skills and use them in interpretations. They were also able to understand the connection between literature, popular culture, and their everyday lives. Further they were able to translate their analyses into quality oral debates and expository pieces. While working with urban youth in Los Angeles, the author coordinated a group of research seminars that brought high school students to the local university to study access to corporate media and the corporate media’s portrayal of urban youth. The students read literature relating to critical media literacy and the sociology of education, designed a study, conducted interviews, analyzed countless hours of news coverage, and performed a content analysis of major U.S. daily newspapers. The author noticed that through the teens research process they were increasingly able to meaningfully draw upon personal experiences during the reading of texts concerning critical media literacy or during interviews they conducted with members of the mainstream media. Motivated and empowered by the prospect of addressing a real problem in their community, the students learned the tools of research, read difficult texts, and produced their own text of high academic merit.

The next topic I will move on to is the “healing power of hip-hop” as stated in an article written by authors Alexander Crooke and Raphael Travis Jr on theconversation.com. Hip-hop and rap culture alike have been criticized as a criminal threat and numerous studies have been undertaken on the harmful influence of hip-hop on kids. While there’s no denying that the lyrical content of hip-hop can be confrontational and many rappers do glorify violence and drugs if you look past certain artists and certain situations you find the “hidden gem” that everyone loves and enjoys. Hip-hop at its core is built on the values of social justice, peace, respect, self-worth, community, and having fun. That is why it is so increasingly popular to youth all around the world and why many kids alike idolize these artists and truly believe they are a therapeutic tool. At its simplest you can make a beat with your mouth or by using a pencil on a school desk or just recite lyrics about anything and with cost-friendly music creating software, young kids are able to take their talents to new levels and pathways to entrepreneurship. Aside from assisting African American youth in urban areas in career options, hip-hop music can also just be a way to cope with problems in their life. I know at least for me that in my first semester in college 10 hours away from home I have definitely used music as an outlet in many situations. In fact for the first week or two my roommates and I would come back from lacrosse practice, sit on the couch and listen to music or “vibe” as we call it. Each day we played different music depending on our mood and just talked about our problems or just listened to the music and relaxed. It was the only time we really interacted to be honest but after two or three days it was what I looked forward to the most in my day, just listening to music and screaming lyrics with my friends. In his U.S. based research Dr. Travis found that those who listen to hip-hop have strong benefits to individual mental health, in areas of coping, emotions, identity and personal growth, can help promote resilience in communities.  Marginalized urban communities around the world share the feeling of resisting exclusion or discrimination and fighting for equity and justice and the rappers that come from these areas have a certain sound that echoes this feeling. Hip hop is not a cure or antidote and it isn’t perfect, but its promise is undeniable. It is a culture with complicated social and historical roots. Its complicated history enables us to critically reflect on our society, and forces us to face issues of race, privilege, class, and cultural appropriation.

I’d like to discuss a very controversial topic in today’s society for many reasons but the main one is that this topic often intertwines with African American youth today and I believe Rap and Hip-Hop music play a very big part in this. That topic would be Police brutality and the way in which Rap lyrics are used as a political force against it. In the scholarly article titled “Rap Music as a Positive Influence on Black Youth and American Politics” the author Natalie Wilson discusses lyrics from an artist named Ice-T in his song titled “Squeeze the Trigger”. He raps “Cops hate kids, kids hate cops. Cops kill kids with warnin’ shots. What is Crime and what is not? What is justice? I think I forgot.” The lyrics in this song are quite blunt but I do believe he is stating true information and addresses the grey area of our justice system. African-American youth are constantly the victims of homicide by cops in most cases they are unarmed and in most cases cops are let off with no charges. I believe a lot negativity in rap songs comes from the artist just speaking on the climate they were raised in whether it be around gang violence and drugs or living in harsh situations where their parents couldn’t provide them with certain necessities. Many young black men are in a situation in which they get a sudden sense of discomfort around police wondering of they’ll be the next hashtag or next face on a t-shirt that people are purchasing in order to support my family. I do understand that in some situations the teens or people are in the wrong and the media takes some stories are out of context but like Ice-T said cops kill kids with warning shots and certain precautions are not taken. I also understand that it can be out of self-defense but in cases in which the civilian is unarmed how are they supposed to protect themselves or even attack without a weapon. There is no question that black youth are unproportionally racially profiled and stooped and questioned simply because of their skin color. I will now discus an artist named Kendrick Lamar who is a positive role model to black youth across the U.S. as he persevered as a good kid and escaped the dangerous streets of Compton. In one of his songs titled “good kid” he shares his experience of gang violence while never being affiliated with one himself. He depicts memories of being jumped by gang members despite his disaffiliation, he is self-described as a good kid who stays out of trouble and attends bible studies regularly. When recognized by the wrong person he is a victim of conflict simply because he associates with friends who are gang members, he then recognizes he is a good kid trapped in a mad city, alluding to the title of this song being good kid and the title of the album m.A.A.d. city. I believe many young African American kids struggle with this situation and often turn to music as a way to escape their city and live a better life away from conflict.

In the next article I will be introducing titled “Hip-Hop & the Global Imprint of a Black Cultural Form” helps me take a slightly odd view on my thesis but nonetheless it states that hip-hop is one of the most popular genres’ in America and that it is really becoming the lingua franca for popular and political youth culture around the world. As hip-hop has skyrocketed in global popularity, its defiant and self-defining voices have been both multiplied and amplified as they challenge conventional concepts of identity and nationhood. Global hip-hop has emerged as a culture that encourages and integrates innovative practices of artistic expression, knowledge production, social identification, and political mobilization. The hip-hop nation is an international, transnational, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual community made up of individuals with diverse class, gender, and sexual identities. While hip-hop heads come from all age groups, hip-hop culture is primarily youth driven. The global influence of hip-hop directly relates to its popularity as a major music source among youth in the United States. According to the national Gallup poll of adolescents between the ages of thirteen and seventeen in 1992, hip-hop music had become the preferred music of youth (26 percent). Along with hip-hop’s cultural norm of inclusion, global hip-hop remains symbolically associated with African Americans. It has incorporated many aspects of African American language ideology. Hip-hop presents African American English (AAE) as a symbolic and politicized dialect where speakers are aware of complex and contradictory processes of stigmatization, valorization, and social control. The hip-hop speech community is not necessarily linguistically and physically located but rather bound by this shared language ideology as part of politics, culture, social conditions, and norms, values, and attitude.

It would be unfair if after discussing all the positive effects and influence rap and hip-hop has on African American youth I didn’t discuss the negative effects. I will be doing so with the help of an article titled “How Hip-Hop holds Blacks Back” and it is by John H. McWhorter who’s podcast we listened to earlier this year in class. He believed that encouraging rap culture reinforced stereotypes that long hindered people of color, and by teaching young African Americans that a thuggish appearance or dialect is the “authentic” response to a presumptively racist society impedes future black success. Of course, not all hip-hop is belligerent or profane, entire CDs of gang-banging, police-baiting, and woman-bashing would get old fast to most listeners, but it’s the nastiest rap that sells the best, and the nastiest cuts that make a career. The top ten best-selling hip-hop recordings all celebrate the ghetto as “where it’s at”. Keeping the thug front and center has become the quickest and most likely way to become a star. So much so that many artists nowadays try to cultivate a gangsta image, even if they aren’t actually from an area they claim to be or if they never struggle like they say they do. Many fans, rappers, producers, and intellectuals defend hip-hop’s violence, both real and imagined as a revolutionary cry of frustration from disempowered youth. While I do agree with McWhorter on some of his stances about hip-hop, not all rappers or hip-hop artists preach violence and negative energy. I do believe there was a time period where there was a lot of civil unrest and racial tension where artists did just seem like their music was just angry rants about rival gangs or police or certain events but I believe that rap and hip-hop, like all things evolve and grow and we have a new generation of artists who are trying to turn the views of rap and hip-hop around. There will always be some artists that just rap to rap and say what they want to say but if you’re really looking for someone speaking real lyrics you can find it. That’s another great part of music that I enjoy, you can really find anything you want for your mood and it doesn’t always have to be someone speaking deeply about their story, you can just listen to someone mumbling over a cool beat if you want.

To conclude my paper, I will discuss my final thoughts on how rap and hip-hop influence African American youth. As I’ve stated many times above, music can be used in many ways to help people get through their days whether it’s playing music in the car or listening to a playlist while working out. So, music isn’t just tailored to those who are in tough times or those who need it to get out of a certain situation. I just believe that rap and hip-hop have had an extremely significant impact on African-American youth because to some of those kids it’s all they have, and even for me some days this semester when I missed home or just didn’t feel like doing anything, turning on some music was always my go-to. For some African American youth music is what drives them to do well in school, as you saw in the studies above adding music to a curriculum helped students stay engaged longer and helped them learn multiple advanced techniques just by creating what they thought was a silly rap. The study of rap and hip-hop songs helped counselors better understand their clients of color just by hearing what the artists had to say, it helped them come to a better understanding of possibly what some of their clients were going through and they were able to better connect with clients and truly fulfill their task of helping people feel better. Many artists are telling their stories of their youth through their songs and you really get a look into the good, bad, and the ugly. I believe that rap and hip-hop both get a bad reputation for being all about drugs, violence, or disrespecting women but maybe it’s just what these artists saw growing up and at that moment they weren’t able to tell right from wrong. I bring this up to say that we must come together as a society and understand the cries out for help and instead of just letting songs go by without any action we must get out and help these people and save them from their struggles and help break this everlasting cycle of poverty and recession in black communities. Especially with the political climate of the United States right now, there’s riots in the streets over a black man being killed by the police and there were protests in all 50 states at one point. It’s more important than ever to understand what is going on with African American youth and I believe that rap and hip-hop music are a good gateway to an inside look on their lives, of course their stories don’t represent all of the youth but there is a fairly good representation of different cities that rappers are from and each of their stories relate in some way or another. This topic has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me, from being confused at the start of what I really wanted to write about but I did enjoy truly understanding stories and seeing interpretations of a hobby so simple as listening to music because I do it just about every day.

Works Cited

Brooks, Michael. “Using Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences.”  Taylor & Francis , 26 Feb. 2020, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15401383.2020.1732251.

Evans, Jabari. “Connecting Black Youth to Critical Media Literacy through Hip Hop Making in the Music Classroom.”  Latest TOC RSS , Intellect, 1 July 2020, www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jpme/pre-prints/content-intellect_jpme_00020.

Morrell, Ernest. “Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Popular Culture: Literacy Development among Urban Youth.”  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , vol. 46, no. 1, 2002, pp. 72–77.  JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/40017507. Accessed 4 Nov. 2020.

Powell, Catherine Tabb. “Rap Music: An Education with a Beat from the Street.”  The Journal of Negro Education , vol. 60, no. 3, 1991, pp. 245–259.  JSTOR ,  www.jstor.org/stable/2295480. Accessed 4 Nov. 2020 .

Wilson, Natalie, “Rap Music as a Positive Influence on Black Youth and American Politics” (2018).  Pop Culture Intersections . 21. https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/engl_176/21

McWhorter, John H., et al. “How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back.”  City Journal , City Journal, 18 June 2019, www.city-journal.org/html/how-hip-hop-holds-blacks-back-12442.html.

Crooke Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Music Therapy, Alexander, and Raphael Travis Jr. Associate Professor of Social Work. “The Healing Power of Hip Hop.”  The Conversation , 18 May 2019, theconversation.com/the-healing-power-of-hip-hop-81556.

“Positive Impacts.”  Impacts of Rap Music on Youths , impactofrapmusiconyouths.weebly.com/positive-impacts.html.

Morgan, Marcyliena, and Dionne Bennett. “Hip-Hop & the Global Imprint of a Black Cultural Form.”  Daedalus , vol. 140, no. 2, 2011, pp. 176–196.  JSTOR ,  www.jstor.org/stable/23047460. Accessed 5 Nov. 2020 .

D’Amico, Francesca. “Welcome to the Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995.”  YorkSpace Home , 11 May 2020, yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/37409.

Understanding Literacy in Our Lives by Amiri Austin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Hip-Hop Digital Essay: The Evolution of Hip-Hop into the Modern Era- By Matt Scott

Trinity College

Digital Essay: The Evolution of Hip-Hop into the Modern Era (Essay #2)

Matt Scott FYSM 212: Introduction to Hip-Hop Professor Markle Due: 12/15/19

Looking back at the history of hip-hop, and the rich culture surrounding the art form, it’s clear that the roots of the genre have been stripped down to almost nothing over the years. I believe hip-hop is an art form, a mix of breaking, DJing, and MCing all coming together under one roof with emphasis on the sound and rhythm of the music, created in black communities as an outlet. In its early days, hip-hop lyrics weren’t preaching any particular message, but the movement and its impact on communities sent a powerful message. The movement was about bringing together communities, stopping violence, and inspiring a generation of youth – and its impact on black culture was positive and powerful. Today we see the art form being used to promote violence, the disrespect of women, drug abuse, and other negative messages that are at odds with hip-hop’s origins. It is now about making money, selling records, and gaining popularity at all costs. The popularity of hip-hop opened the door for many talented black artists and created new opportunities for a community of people who have been mistreated at every turn throughout history. I think the new era of hip-hop has had a negative impact on the art form itself, and it puts a bad label on the community. Without its core principles, hip-hop loses what made it special. When all the lyrics are just hollow and meaningless words, it leaves you with something that’s not hip-hop at all, but just a way to make money. In this essay I’m going to be looking at five hit songs from top artists from each decade, starting with Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rappers Delight” and ending with Migos’s “Bad and Boujee”. The purpose of this essay is to show the evolution of hip-hop from its roots in the Bronx through the present day by exploring the lyrics and message behind each song.

Hip-hop without the other forms of creative expression tied to it is a way of mixing lyrics and beats to convey a meaningful message about the culture and community from which it emerged. If you take away the powerful message of justice and equality that many true hip-hop songs convey, you’re left with a money hungry industry doing whatever it takes to sell records. When hip-hop is being fueled by money, and not by meaning, we see the most damage being done to the community of people the art form represents. This era of hip-hop is hurting the image and meaning that hip-hop once stood for, but there’s still hope for hip-hop moving forward. If we can go back its roots, to some of those early songs from the 80s, 90s and into the early 2000s that represent the true ideals behind hip-hop, there is a chance for the industry and genre to regrow with its strong roots back in place.

Work Cited “Song Lyrics & Knowledge.” Genius, https://genius.com/. Chang, Jeff, and DJ Kool Herc. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a History of the Hip-Hop Generation. St.Martins Press, 2008.

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While studying in college, you will inevitably have to write a lot of Argumentative Essays on Rap. Lucky you if linking words together and transforming them into meaningful content comes easy to you; if it's not the case, you can save the day by finding an already written Rap Argumentative Essay example and using it as a model to follow.

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Drake and Kendrick Lamar battle for the soul of hip-hop

If your Wi-Fi wasn’t out this weekend, then you probably know that it’s been a busy few days for two of the biggest stars in rap music. The back-and-forth rap battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake got even more intense than it had already been as they made insidious accusations about each other. Lamar and Drake accused one another of illegal and immoral behavior and dipped into the well of rumors to try to humiliate and shame one another.

Kendrick Lamar and Drake have accused one another of illegal and immoral behavior and have dipped into the well of rumors to try to humiliate and shame one another.

The rapid-fire battle crossed the line into the personal many tracks ago. And even though many have found the substance of each emcee’s lyrics to be beyond the pale, the battle itself is bigger than the two of them, and is, instead, a part of a much bigger fight for the soul of hip-hop. It’s the fight between authenticity and commercialism, between the most artfully made hip-hop and the hip-hop that flies off the shelves .

Drake has an entire catalog of hit records. His rhymes are catchy and it’s unlikely that a party, club, wedding or bar/bat mitzvah won’t feature at least a few of his songs. At the same time, perhaps because the biracial Drake is Canadian-born with suburban roots seeped in above-average levels of privilege, he has struggled to be considered authentically hip-hop.

Months ago, when Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), a hip-hop purist, was asked, “Is Drake hip-hop?” he said, “ Drake is pop to me . In the sense that if I was in Target in Houston and I heard a Drake song … It feels like a lot of his music is compatible with — shopping.”

That hilarious characterization of Drake’s music gets at the heart of what many people in hip-hop culture have always felt: that he and his music are inauthentic. While in the middle of this rap babble with Lamar, he helped fuel the accusations that he’s not authentic when he used artificial intelligence-generated voices of the late Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg on his song “ Taylor Made Freestyle .”

That song, which Drake removed from the internet after Tupac’s estate threatened him with legal action and praised Lamar as " a good friend to the Estate ," was largely seen as creative, but also tone deaf.

On the other end sits Kendrick Lamar. Whereas Drake’s commercial-friendly style and sing-songy lyrics have been the lifeblood of popular consumption, Lamar has built his brand of music as a purist, focusing on complex rhyme schemes, themes ringing of pro-Blackness and putting attention to detail and lyrics over party jams. The respective success of each of these artists illustrates this fairly plainly: Lamar has repeatedly garnered more critical acclaim. He’s won more than three times the number of Grammys Drake has — 17 to 5 — and he even won a Pulitzer Prize for his album “Damn.”

That album, the first hip-hop album to ever win a Pulitzer, was lauded by the selection committee as a "virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life."

But when we’re counting rap stars' sales, there’s simply no comparison.  Drake has outsold everybody . Just like in every genre — books, movies, even TV — there are camps that favor works that considered more layered, genuine and artistic over the bestsellers. It’s just as true in hip-hop.

But when we’re counting sales, there’s simply no comparison. Drake has outsold everybody.

We’ve seen this movie before. In the early 2000’s, Jay-Z and Nas were two of rap’s biggest titans. They, too, clashed in a series of diss records when Nas was largely considered the people’s champ, a commercial underdog whose calling card was complex lyricism and an adherence to hip-hop’s most authentic elements.

Jay Z, on the other hand, although he had come from Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects and had real-life street cred , had nevertheless ascended to a level of commercial success that Nas hadn't. (Eventually, Jay-Z's commercial success would lead to him serving as pitchman of his own signature Reebok sneakers and inking a deal with Samsung that provided an advance copy of his album "Magna Carta Holy Grail" via an app available to Galaxy phone users .) It was a battle that pitted hip-hop’s evolution into a global and commercial force against the music’s roots as an authentic sub-culture of urban America.

Their backgrounds should make it clear that Drake is no Jay-Z. However, at its core, his battle with Kendrick Lamar is a similar struggle — because of hip-hop’s continued growth and evolution.

Authenticity, being true to oneself and one’s neighborhood is (or at least was) an ethos in hip-hop. But the commercial success of rap music has attracted culture vultures and allowed many to pillage, pilfer and profit from a space that isn’t inherently theirs. Rap has always struggled to police itself and set its own barriers around who profits, but as he promotes himself as a champion of the culture, his recent recordings make clear that Lamar doesn’t just think Drake makes weak music; he thinks Drake doesn’t belong , that he is bad for hip-hop culture. Making himself the gatekeeper, he’s essentially telling one of the biggest stars in the industry that “on behalf of the culture, you’ve worn out your welcome."

In some ways, Lamar’s callout may also be instructive for everyone from Logic to Machine Gun Kelly to G Eazy. Many of us may have forgotten the cautionary tale that was Vanilla Ice and his song “Ice, Ice, Baby,” which, frustratingly, was the first rap single to ever reach the top of the pop charts . The song did enjoy some initial acceptance from Black listeners, but Vanilla Ice finding success without paying his dues and the inaccuracies and omissions in stories meant to burnish his street cred caused him to be sidelined and eventually disregarded by the culture.

This should not be construed to be based in race. Rap has always embraced even non-Black artists who have understood their place in the culture and acted accordingly. Eminem, the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass all come to mind. Even so, Lamar is arguing that Drake — not just because of his background but also because of the music he makes — has an elevated place that he doesn't have. The idea that the culture needs defending against one of the most commercially popular artists of our day is hugely significant.

For many people who like the way the music has evolved, that element of the pair's beef may seem tired and overblown. Lamar’s penchant for rhyme schemes, allegory and metaphors makes him a relic to many of today’s listeners. They may also ask: Why shouldn’t the expansion of hip-hop as a global economic and cultural force invite voices like Drake who speak to audiences who just want to have fun and enjoy a good time over dance beats?

The story here isn’t that rappers are making diss records about each other. That’s always been the case. The competitive sport of the emcee is not a bad thing. In fact, it's always been a part of what makes hip-hop so engrossing. The story is that the fight is much bigger than Kendrick Lamar and Drake. They’re fighting about what hip-hop is, where it is, and where it should go in the future.

Charles F. Coleman Jr. is a civil rights attorney and a former Brooklyn, New York, prosecutor. He is an MSNBC legal analyst. Follow him on Twitter @CFColemanJr.

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Argumentative Essay Sample

Do white performers (eg. Eminem, Vanilla Ice) have a moral right to perform hip-hop? The question of who to perform which music is a form of control of who and how best to give to the audience the best of the art form giving them (the audience) a heart thrilling and mind blowing treat. But the question of who has the right to perform which music (hip-hop for instance) is a sensitive issue that could ignite an unending debate of who should be considered the founders or who has the monopoly of a universally accepted and performed art, music.

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Since Rancière, critical, cultural and social theorists have broadly accepted that aesthetics are inherently political. For instance, while the normalization of certain marginal voices can be understood as a distinguishing of signal and noise, the way in which aesthetic homogenization can become compulsory within certain communities is often cited as a mode by which accepted aesthetic paradigms can enforce social or ideological positions. As such, it would seem that the ability to broadcast/popularize minority or radical aesthetic paradigms would be a potent way to normalize those voices and forward alternative ideological agendas. However, the Situationists noted that aesthetics are also easily co-opted by the hegemony and can thus be stripped of their revolutionary potential; they dubbed this process, " recuperation. " Illustrating this co-optive process, this paper identifies the aesthetic norms of hip-hop culture through the application of Rancière's " distribution of the sensible " and then traces how those norms have been co-opted, ultimately undermining hip-hop's aesthetics-based revolutionary potential. However, and in order to suggest an alternative mode of radicalism, we combine Rancière's aesthetic taxonomy with Attali's, proposing a shift in focus away from " pure aesthetics " as a mode of radicalism and towards distribution as a future potential mode of revolutionary cultural production.

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No other cultural practitioner values authenticity, or “keeping it real,” more than rappers and hip hop musicians. Debates regarding what “real” hip hop is, however, remain contentious. This chapter examines how the Hong Kong hip hop group LazyMuthaFucka (LMF) localizes hip hop authenticity. Deviating from existing studies which label LMF as “conscious rap” or “gangsta rap,” the study introduces the notion of the “Lazy element” to reveal LMF’s artistic vision as one that is too “Lazy” to conform to any artistic conventions or categories. The examination focuses on how the group manifests the Lazy element in both its musical and lyrical aesthetics. This chapter concludes that LMF’s Lazy element represents the localization of the fluidity of hip hop authenticity in the Hong Kong context.

An analysis of the intersection of popular music, specifically hip hop, and expressions of collective and personal identity in Israeli society.

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From New York to Paris, Tokyo and Sydney, hip-hop culture is a Diaspora transcending ethnic, linguistic, and geographic boundaries. As Osumare [Osumare H. Beat streets in the global hood: connective marginalities of the hip-hop globe. Journal of American and Comparative Cultures 2001;2(Spring/Summer):171–181.] indicates, " Global hip-hop youth culture has become a phenomenon in the truest sense of the word and has affected nearly every country on the map (171). " We extend our knowledge of the worldwide diffusion of hip-hop culture (Stanley TL. Cool consumption goods fit for hip-hop. Advert Age 2004;75:12 [July 12]) and employ qualitative research methods to address our research questions. Our findings identify commonalities among members of the hip-hop Diaspora and suggest that the core essence of hip-hop is shared by marginalized groups. Our data also illustrate that hip-hop is malleable and is adapted to speak to members of multiple national cultures, and localized socioeconomic and political conditions: hip-hop youth culture is glocalized.

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The current study examined links between psychological wellbeing and involvement in HipHop culture (Rap, DJing, Breakdancing, Graffiti, etc) with regards to intrinsic motivation. A mixed methods approach was chosen to identify motivational themes and link them to components of prevalent wellbeing theories. Level of involvement was correlated with wellbeing while examining the moderating effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations from quantitative and qualitative data. Motivational themes could be linked to all components of wellbeing and statistical results suggested that high involvement in HipHop is linked to wellbeing, moderated by intrinsic and extrinsic aspiration scores. However, mean wellbeing scores of the current sample do not exceed those of comparison samples. Possible explanations and apparent inherent characteristics of a HipHop sample are discussed and further research into the positive potential of HipHop is suggested.

Miles White

This paper attempts to address is not simply the progression of hip-hop music and culture in the United States from what it began as in the early 1970s. It will address some of the reasons why and how the music and culture have changed over the last quarter century to become something quite different from what they were before the middle to late 1980s and the years since. I think that with respect to much of what has been written about rap music and its history up to this point, there is still much room to examine some of the pivotal moments in this history and offer some new kinds of insights into why this culture changed so dramatically in the way that it did in such a relatively short span of time – some of the socio-economic and political processes at play – and how that transformation has affected in a number of respects, not only American youth culture, but youth cultures in many other parts of the world as well.

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Argumentative essay: Discovery Diversity in Hip-Hop Culture

Write a 500 word evidence based, argumentative essay stating what grade you think you earned in the IGED-270 Diversity in Hip-Hop culture course spring 2017 semester. In addition to responding to the aforementioned question, the essay should also be a reflection of the term, for example: What did you like most about the course? What did you like least? How might the course be improved? Did you gain anything from the course, if so what?

It was the first time I tool such a course that involved the description of cultural norm that were formed by the development of hip-hop music. I tried my best to attend the classes and discussion that helped me get acquainted to concepts like culture and cultural diversity, examining social groups and how these groups are formed and come together, understand stereotypical behaviors and its advantages and disadvantages. From all the course work, exams and class discussions, I am hopeful to get a B grade. I know this may not be a perfect score but I think that for the time being, being new to the concepts and finding it challenging to digest these concepts, B is an appropriate score for me. With time, I would be taking similar courses, not primarily related to hip-hop culture. I hope to improve my grade then.

There are many aspects of the course that I liked and enjoyed. I was not aware of the cultural movement’s influences of hip-hop or any other music genre before. I believed that cultural movements are shaped by only movements that are based on getting out to streets and chanting in the favor of an ideology or whatever you stand for. But now, I have realized that there are many ways a culture can be motivated by. It could well be music. Hip-hop is one of the instrument that was used as a motivation in the late 80’s and till now as a medium to deliver message of peace, social and economic rights and justice.

I understood hip-hop culture from different perspectives. One of the perspective was how it defined a specific culture. We went into depth of the theory of hip-hop, what it stood for in the past and what it stands for now. Human relationships are also covered by hip-hop. Hip-hop has an inner ingredient that compels it to talk about sexuality and how the society treats the men and women differently. Social justice may be delivered differently to men and women. For example women might be discriminated only because they women. Hip-hop also shed light on social classes and how they are treated. Power is a subject that has been discussed in hip-hop since it has come into being. Especially how the powerful elite controls the economies and justice system and manipulates it to serve their vested interests. Hip-hop educates its audience about all these and many more issues and motivates them to break their silence and have their say.

The course was a good starter for me. I think that there are still some ways the course can be improved. I think that by subtracting some course content for the syllabus could improve the course. The course is trying to teach too much in too less time like a semester. The importance of the course calls for a more thorough discussion of the course contents. We might have tried to cover too much that could have left some of the important aspects of Hip-hop undiscovered.

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319 Dance Essay Topics & Research Questions on Hip Hop, Ballet, & More

Dancing is a universal form of expression and movement. It has been an integral part of human culture for centuries. From traditional cultural dances to contemporary urban dance styles, this art form transcends language barriers and brings people together.

But dancing is not just about entertainment. It is significant in various aspects of society, from its role in expressing emotions to its impact on mental health.

In this article, our expert team delves into the diverse world of dance. Below, you’ll find interesting dance topics to write about and explore the cultural, social, emotional, and physical dimensions of dance. Read till the end to find a writing guide with examples.

🔝 Top 10 Dance Essay Topics

✏️ dancing essays: writing prompts, 🎓 dance essay titles, 💃🏻 argumentative essay topics about dance, 🕺🏾 hip hop research paper topics, 🔎 dance research paper topics, 📜 dance history research paper topics, 🩰 ballet research topics, ❓ dance research questions, ✍️ dance essay: writing guide, 🔗 references.

• Cultural significance of dance.
• Mental health benefits of dancing.
• Gender roles in dance.
• Dance as nonverbal communication.
• Technological innovations in dance.
• Social impact of dance activism.
• Dance education in schools.
• Emotional expression in dance.
• Dance and cultural identity.
• Politics of dance movements.

Why I Love Dance: Essay Prompt

Are you passionate about dance and want to write about it? Consider including the following points in your essay:

• Explain your deep-rooted passion for dance. Reflect on how dance has influenced your life, shaped your identity, and impacted your personal growth.
• Describe the specific styles or dance genres you are passionate about and explain why they hold a special place in your heart. Share experiences that have strengthened your love for dance, such as memorable performances, challenges , or inspirational moments.
• Discuss how dance has enriched your life and contributed to your overall well-being. Convey your dedication to dance and the importance of this art form in your life.

What Does Dance Mean to You: Essay Prompt

This essay is your chance to reflect on the place of dance in your life. Here are some ideas to include in your paper:

• Express your understanding and connection to dance. Describe what dance means to you on a deeply personal and emotional level. Share your unique perspective on the effects of dance on your life choices and identity.
• Discuss how dance has impacted your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Write about its contribution to your personal growth and development. Describe the emotions and sensations you experience while dancing and how they enrich your life. Discuss any memorable dance experiences, performances, or interactions with fellow dancers that impressed you.
• Depict your passion and appreciation for dance. Articulate the role of dancing in your life. Consider how dance has allowed you to express yourself , connect with others, and navigate life.

Hip Hop Essay Prompt

Are you a fan of hip-hop dance? Then you might enjoy writing an essay about it! Consider the points below to cover in your paper:

• Explore the art and culture of hip-hop. Discuss the origins and evolution of hip-hop dance, including its roots in African, Caribbean, and African-American dance traditions. Study the key elements of hip-hop dance, including its unique style, movement vocabulary, and musicality.
• Discuss the impact of hip-hop dance on popular culture , including its influence on music videos, films, fashion, and the entertainment industry. Analyze the social and cultural significance of hip-hop dance, including its role as a form of self-expression, community-building, and activism . Discuss the diversity and inclusion within hip-hop dance, including its ability to bring people of different backgrounds together.
• Describe any personal experiences or connections with hip-hop dance , and discuss how it has influenced your understanding of dance and culture. Convey your appreciation for hip-hop dance’s artistry, creativity, and cultural relevance. Provide insights into this dynamic and influential dance form.

Why Dance Is a Sport: Essay Prompt

There’s been a long-lasting debate about whether dance should be considered an art or a sport. You can present your opinion on this issue in your essay. Here is a prompt to guide you:

• Study the arguments on both sides of the debate and articulate your stance. Discuss the physical demands of dance, including athleticism, strength, and endurance. Compare them to the criteria used to define sports.
• Explore the competitive nature of dance , including competitions, rankings, and performance expectations . Discuss the training, dedication, and discipline required for dance and compare them to other recognized sports.
• Examine the artistic and creative elements of dance and how they may differentiate dance from traditional sports. Discuss any challenges or controversies surrounding the classification of dance as a sport. It might be the lack of standardized rules, funding, and recognition.
• Consider the cultural, historical, and societal factors influencing perceptions of dance as a sport. Present your argument supported by evidence and examples. Provide a nuanced perspective on this complex and debated topic.

Below, you’ll find plenty of ideas for a college essay about dance. Read on to find a suitable topic for your paper!

Modern Dance Essay: Topics

Modern dance significantly differs from traditional dance forms like ballet. Nowadays, dancers prioritize emotional expression instead of following rigid rules. Here are some interesting dance titles & ideas for your essay on modern styles:

• The diversity of contemporary dance styles.
• Psychological determinants of choosing a particular dance style.
• Creative Movement and Dance in My School .
• Sociopolitical concerns through the prism of dance.
• Modern dance as a form of protest against classical dance.
• Modern Black dance: race in motion.
• Significant people who contributed to the modernization of dance.
• Features of post-modern dance.
• Art Therapy: Creativity as a Critical Part of Art Therapy .
• The new American dance forms.
• Modern dance in the US vs. Europe: differences and similarities.
• Injuries in modern dance: career options for dancers.
• The concepts of modernity, race, and nation in the early modern dance forms.
• Oxygen uptake during a modern dance class.
• Physical Therapy Services for Sports Injuries .
• Socio-demographic correlates of modern dance genre preferences.
• Indian modern dance and feminism.
• Self-expression in modern dance.
• National and transnational modern dance.
• Principles of modern dance therapy.
• Regular engagement in modern dance and depression treatment .
• Modern dance pioneers who revolutionized this art: a case of Lester Horton.
• Incorporating Physical Activity into Lesson Plans .
• Mood changes of people attending dance classes.
• Modern dance classes: can one learn to dance online ?
• Evolving gay stereotypes in modern dance.
• Dance as a reflection of culture.
• Depression and Physical Exercise .
• German modern dance during the Nazi rule.
• Body image and modern dance engagement.
• Eating disorders in professional modern dancers.
• Significant elements of modern dance.
• Dance as a hobby and professional activity.
• Art Education, Its Role and Benefits .
• Examples of popular modern dance styles.
• Controversial dance practices.
• Is folk dance considered modern dance?
• Does modern dance come with serious choreography similar to classical dance?
• Class and ethnicity reflected in dance.
• Physical Activity and Sports Team Participation .
• Modern dance in France.
• The transformative power of flamenco dancing.

Dance Critique Essay: Topics

A dance critique essay requires you to evaluate carefully a particular dance performance or a specific aspect of this art form. Check out some dance titles for an essay to inspire your critical response :

• Degradation of dance quality in the 21st century.
• Passion versus physical characteristics in dance performance.
• Racism and gender discrimination at the dance competitions.
• Gender inequality in professional dance.
• Subway dance – a subculture or simply a weird place for practice?
• Dancing and Its Effects on Self-Esteem .
• How did industrialization contribute to the departure from classical dance?
• The rise of burlesque as a rebellion against ballet.
• The Role of Music and Movement in Education .
• The ideology and importance of radical dance.
• The Wigman technique of dance.
• José Limón’s contribution to contemporary dance.
• The place and influence of the American Dance Festival in modern American dance traditions.
• Art, Music, and Dance in Therapeutic Treatment .
• Combination of choreography and multimedia in Alwin Nikolais’s works.
• The flaws and loopholes of early modern dance.
• Popularization of African American dance across the world.
• Ballet elements in contemporary dance.
• The Importance of Arts in the School Curriculum .
• The contribution of Grete Wiesenthal to modern dance development.
• What place does concert dance occupy in the dance typology?
• Place of women in dance – now and then.
• Differences between modern and contemporary dance styles.
• Pole dance’s potential for inclusion in the Olympic Games list.

Dance Reflection Essay: Topic Ideas

Are you looking for thought-provoking dance topics to talk about in a reflection paper ? Check out the list below:

• What features and character traits should a good dance teacher possess?
• What does it mean to be a dance revolutionary?
• What did modern dance pioneers do to create new dance types?
• Should professional dance be taught in college?
• Sports Psychologist: Working With Athletes .
• The national dance of my country.
• My first experience in a dance class.
• My music preferences for dancing.
• Dances with Wolves Essay – Movie Analysis .
• Dancing as a personal form of relaxation and meditation.
• Why do some people prefer dancing alone at home and others need an audience?
• My favorite movie about dancing.
• Ballet as my passion and my greatest disappointment.
• My opinion of dancing as a profession.
• Music in the Service of Social Movements .
• Importance of dancing in my culture .
• What I think makes a good and bad dancer.
• My experience of participating in a dance contest.
• The role of dance in my family.
• My fascination with Indian dance.
• My dream is to become a hip-hop dancer.
• Benefits I see in regular dancing.
• The pros and cons of professional engagement in dance.

There are some controversial issues related to dance you can explore in your paper. Below, you’ll discover a list of dance topics to express your reasoned opinion about.

• Dance can be a tool for social change .
• How can culture be reflected through dance?
• Should College Athletes Be Paid?
• The impact of the environment on dance perception.
• The importance of dance styles and types for specific cultures.
• Dance as an intangible cultural heritage.
• Is dance a kind of sport?
• Sports-Related Problems and Conflicts .
• Why do people start to dance?
• Why is the audience attracted to dance performances?
• What is the motivation behind starting to dance at an early age?
• Why is contemporary dance more popular than classical dance today?
• The Cognitive Performance and Physical Activity Link .
• Are modern dance styles, like hip hop, easier than ballet dancing?
• Dance training is highly traumatic and shouldn’t be practiced at an early age.
• The risk of trauma and permanent injury among professional ballet dancers.
• Street dance is not serious dance.
• Exercise – The Mind and Body Connection .
• The impact of motivation and self-confidence on dance performance.
• Dancing positively affects the physical and cognitive health of aging adults.
• Dance is a tool against aging .
• Different dance styles and genres require different physical endurance and energy expenditure.
• Music Incorporation into Classes .
• Importance of choosing your dance style according to your BMI and bodily peculiarities.
• Partner dancing is healthier for motor control and coordination than solo dancing.
• Benefits of ballroom dancing.
• The economic effect of dance development.
• What is the hardest dance style?
• Cultural Appropriation in Music .
• Ghost dance as a religious movement.
• Electronic dance as a new subculture.
• Techniques of dancing to jazz music.
• Flamenco dance as a reflection of Spanish passion.
• Students’ Motivation and Satisfaction of Music Festival .
• Cultural significance of feminist dance films.
• The impact of proper nutrition on dance performance.
• The art of staging a dance performance.
• The social significance of street dance.
• Creative Art Therapy for Mental Illness .
• What does dance have to do with math?
• Belly dance as a recreational activity.
• Interpretative dance as a strong therapeutic tool.
• The use of dance therapy for individuals with Down syndrome .

Hip-hop dance is a popular street dance style that emerged in the second half of the 20th century. It encourages freedom of expression and is characterized by freestyle movements, particularly drops to the ground and sharp turns. If you seek to write a paper on hip-hop, here are catchy dance titles to inspire you:

• The role of dance in hip-hop culture.
• Chinese Hip Hop and Identity .
• Hip-hop dance and body power.
• Hip-hop as an African diaspora dance style.
• Meanings and messages in hip-hop dance.
• Genders, Sexuality, and Hip-Hop .
• Origins of hip-hop.
• Injury incidence in hip-hop training and performance.
• Commercialization of hip-hop dance.
• Core elements of hip-hop dancing.
• The Uprising of Hip-Hop: Music History .
• Hip-hop dance in modern ballet choreography.
• Low back pain in hip-hop dancers.
• B-boying in hip-hop.
• Motivations of hip-hop dancers for professional engagement with this dance style.
• The “breaks” concept in break dancing.
• The Evolution of Hip-Hop Culture .
• The roots of hip-hop choreography.
• Battling among hip-hop crews.
• Hip-hop scandals – sex and violence in hip-hop content.
• Theorizing hip-hop dance.
• Hip-Hop’s Response to Crime Analysis .
• Hip-hop dance consumption: who is the target audience?
• Globalization and hip-hop dancing.
• Principles of hip-hop dance codification.
• Hip-hop as a black social dance.
• Metaphors in hip-hop dance moves.
• Black feminism in hip-hop dance.
• Concepts of Elite Culture and Popular Culture .
• US Ebonics as the language of American hip-hop choreography.
• Extreme kinematics in hip-hop performances.
• What injuries are the most common among hip-hop dancers?
• Can hip-hop be a professional career?
• Basic rhythmic movements of hip-hop dance.
• Hip-hop practice’s impact on the dancer’s mood.
• Body poetics in hip-hop performances.
• Standards for judging hip-hop contests.
• Cultural Movement: Hip-Hop Related Films .
• Le hip hop – a French hip-hop subculture.
• The hip-hop culture in New York.
• Perceptions of race in the hip-hop community: white vs. black dancers.
• Hip-hop theater in London: a new level of dance style’s legitimization.

Do you want to learn more about dance? Then why not write a research paper on that? Below, you’ll discover a list of engaging dance topics to research.

• Novel approaches to dance: a blend with architecture at the Barnes Foundation’s exhibition.
• Dance from an anthropological perspective .
• Politics and poetics in dance.
• The biology of dance movements’ language.
• Teaching dance: should it be art or sport?
• Dance ethnology.
• Women in dance since antiquity : the images of sylphs and sirens.
• Philosophy of the dance: universal or nationally bound?
• What is a dance movement?
• Dancing and the brain.
• Psychology of dance.
• Dance as a mighty psychotherapeutic tool.
• Should national dance be included in the school curriculum?
• Living through psychological trauma in dance.
• The role of dance improvisations.
• Reform and revival of old dance styles.
• The role of space and subjectivity in dance.
• Shakespeare and the dance tradition of England.
• The social anthropology of dance performances.
• Theories and methodologies in dance research.
• A Eurocentric approach to the study of dance.
• Dance and the body.
• Dance as a method of self-study .
• Computer technology and dance.
• The evolution of Irish dance.
• The contribution of Merce Cunningham to modern dance.
• How does dance stimulate social fantasy?
• Partner dancing as a way to strengthen relationships in a couple .
• Verbal language of dancers and choreographers.
• The political side of national dancing.
• Dance and physics.
• The mind-body concept in dance.
• What can be regarded as contemporary dance?
• Dance imagery in various dance styles.
• What makes people dance? The philosophy of bodily movement.
• Dancing out one’s emotions: the dance of anger or happiness.
• The neural basis of human dance movements.
• Isadora Duncan’s revolutionary dance theory.
• The challenges of the interactive dance genre.
• Dance from the position of existential phenomenology.
• Dualism and body-soul separation: a dance perspective.
• Dance and embodiment.
• Dance and self: a philosophical perspective .
• Body as object vs. subject in dance.
• Freedom and intention in body movements during dance.
• Staged dance: the concept of created body.
• A tension between the personal and the universal in dance.
• Health benefits of recreational and professional dance.
• Japanese dance as an embodiment of culture.
• Turning body and identity into dance choreography.

The history of dance dates back millennia. So, there is so much to explore! Check out possible dance research project ideas for your history paper:

• Approaches to rethinking dance history.
• The elements of early European modern dance.
• Feminist perspectives on dance history.
• Dance at the dawn of history.
• History of somatic education and its relationship to dance.
• History of classic theatrical dancing.
• New media use in dance history reconstructions.
• The evolution of dance and sexuality relationship.
• Tools for capturing dance from the past.
• Dances in prehistory.
• Early records of dance performances in historical manuscripts.
• Ancient Greek dance traditions and forms.
• Dancing in Ancient Rome.
• Dance at court: the 16th-17th centuries in Europe.
• Evolution of dance from royal court to theater in the 18th century.
• The early dancing traditions in the 17th-century US.
• Dancing genres in Medieval Europe.
• The history of waltz: origin, evolution of dance elements, and traditions.
• How did the tango dance emerge?
• The emergence of belly dance.
• Flamenco dance history: a style born in Andalusia.
• Historical perspectives on dance research.
• The Ojibwa dance drum: history of the practice.
• Yoeme performs as a narrative of Yaqui history.
• The evolution of African American dance.
• The African roots of Latin American popular dance.
• Ethnographic elements of modern dance performances.
• The dance halls of Britain, 1918-1960.
• A historical overview of social dance.
• Global history of dance development.
• Dance in the French baroque opera.
• The history and meaning of tango dancing in Argentina.
• What materials to use when studying dance history?
• A cultural history of dance in the troubled areas: a case study of Palestine.
• The hidden history of capoeira: intersections of battle craft and dance.

Ballet is a highly formalized dance form with rigid rules and predefined positions. If you’re interested in this classical type of choreography, check out the dance research topics below:

• Is free dance a subtype of ballet?
• The evolution of ballet traditions by Isadora Duncan.
• Russo-American ballet at the start of the 20th century.
• Emerging American ballet: the 1930s onwards.
• Romantic and classical ballet traditions in the 19th century.
• Classical ballet in Russia.
• Classical ballet vs. modern dance: key similarities.
• Injuries in professional ballet.
• Static and functional balance in ballet dance.
• Ballet as a form of ethnic dance.
• The impact of ballet dance attire on female dancers’ self-perception.
• Endurance of pain among ballet dancers.
• The concept of the ideal ballet body.
• Methods of preventing hip and knee injuries in professional ballet.
• Physiological eligibility characteristics for classical ballet.
• Evolution of ballet dancer identity in the process of training.
• Incidence of sprained ankles in ballet dancers.
• Physiological responses to active ballet exercise among dancers of different ages.
• Importance of artistic performance ability in ballet dancers.
• Disordered eating patterns among ballet dancers.
• Management of stress fractures in ballet dancers.
• Ballet dancer career: an international perspective.
• Incidence of scoliosis in young ballet dancers.
• Travesty dancing in the 19th-century ballet tradition.
• Gender issues in ballet.
• The cultural power of ballet.
• Degenerative joint disease risks among female ballet trainees.
• Hip arthrosis as a long-term consequence of ballet training.
• History of the “Apollo’s Angels” ballet.
• Sleep quality in professional ballet dancers.
• Heteromasculinity images among male ballet dancers.
• Postural stability before and after a ballet injury.
• Dance classicism as an ideology.
• Royal Ballet’s dancers and body perception.
• How do professional ballet dancers perceive injury and aging?

Are you looking for research topics about dance in the form of questions? We’ve got you covered! Look through the list below to find good dance topics to research:

• How does dance education foster creativity in children ?
• How do feminists view belly dance?
• What is the impact of technology on dance performances?
• How to preserve indigenous peoples’ traditional dance forms?
• How have traditional gender roles been challenged through dance?
• What creative strategies do choreographers employ?
• What is the impact of dance on community building?
• What factors contribute to the commercialization of dance?
• How does dance function as a means of storytelling ?
• What is the link between dance and spirituality in different religions?
• What is the role of costumes and stage design in dance performances?
• What are the cognitive benefits of dance for older adults?
• How has ballet adapted to modern artistic movements?
• How has globalization affected the cross-cultural exchange of dance styles?
• What dance styles have been influenced by flamenco?

Do you need help writing an essay on dance? Below, we’ve prepared a short guide with examples. Read on to learn how to write each section of your dance essay.

Dance Essay Introduction

The introduction is the opening paragraph of an essay that should engage the readers. Use a hook to grab the readers’ interest and introduce your topic. It can be a catchy quote, interesting question, or controversial statement.

Hook example : Imagine a world where bodies move in perfect harmony, telling stories without words. That’s the magic of dance, an art form that transcends language and culture, captivating audiences for centuries.

After that, you can provide some background information about the subject. End your introduction with a thesis statement .

Thesis Statement about Dance

The thesis statement outlines the central argument or purpose of the essay. It is the last sentence of your introduction, summarizing the whole paper. Your thesis should include all the main points mentioned in your writing in the same sequence.

Dance thesis example : Dance is not only a form of artistic expression but also a means of communication, a tool for personal growth, and a reflection of cultural identity.

Essay about Dance: Body Paragraphs

The essay’s body contains paragraphs that provide evidence and support for the thesis statement. Each section should begin with a topic sentence that presents a point related to your central argument.

Topic sentence example : One significant aspect of dance is its ability to convey emotions and stories through movement.

Evidence, such as examples, facts, or research, should support the topic sentence. The evidence should be analyzed and explained to show how it supports the thesis statement.

Evidence example : In classical ballet, dancers’ graceful movements and facial expressions can portray a wide range of emotions, from love and joy to sorrow and anger.

Dancing Essay: Conclusion

The conclusion is the final part that summarizes the main points made in the essay’s body. It should also restate the thesis statement in a paraphrased form without introducing new information. The conclusion should leave a lasting impression and a sense of closure.

Conclusion example : In conclusion, dance is a powerful form of expression beyond mere movement. It is a universal language conveying emotions, facilitating personal growth, and reflecting cultural identity.

How to Describe Dancing: Words & Tips

When describing dancing in an essay, use vivid and sensory language to convey the experience. Words such as “graceful,” “rhythmic,” “expressive,” and “dynamic” can capture the movement and style of dancing.

Emotive words like “joy,” “passion,” “energy,” and “freedom” can convey the emotional impact of dancing. Describing the physical sensations of dancing can make the description more immersive. You can write about the feeling of one’s body in motion, the sound of feet tapping, the swish of skirts, or the rush of adrenaline.

Metaphors or similes, such as “floating like a butterfly,” can add depth and creativity. Overall, using vivid language that engages the senses and emotions will benefit your paper.

We hope you found a perfect essay topic in this article. Use our free online title generator to get even more creative topics about dance and writing inspiration.

• Dance 260: Introduction to Dance: Dance Topics | BYU Library
• Dance: Topics in Dance and Dance History | Utah Tech University Library
• Research Areas | UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts
• Dance | PBS Learning Media
• Dancing Styles | Boston University
• Dance 260: Introduction to Dance: Research Help | BYU Library
• Writing a Dance Critique | Utah Tech University Library
• Glossary for Dance | Connecticut’s Official State Website
• Guidelines For Writing a Dance Review | Human Kinetics

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This week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe) , the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:

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It was one of the wildest weekends in hip-hop history: two heavyweight rappers, five new diss tracks, one music video and millions of fans either squirming or holding popcorn as it all went down.

Since Friday, Drake and Kendrick Lamar have released songs aimed at each other at a rapid clip, igniting pro-sports levels of spectating and driving hip-hop media personalities into overtime.

A feud between the two rappers has simmered for years, but the heat turned up in March after Lamar took direct aim at Drake and J. Cole in a guest verse on “Like That,” a track on the Future and Metro Boomin album “We Don’t Trust You.”

At first it was a free-for-all : Cole released a response track before retracting it 48 hours later. A bevy of hip-hop figures entered the fray, including Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky and producer Metro Boomin, who offered a free beat to the person who recorded the best verse for “BBL Drizzy” — a track the producer released on SoundCloud to poke fun at Drake.

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But Drake vs. Lamar remained the main event. In April, Drake responded with a pair of diss tracks, including one that used A.I. to re-create the voices of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg and triggered a legal threat. (Drake pulled the song.) And Lamar fired back with a dense, six-minute epic, “Euphoria,” that called Drake a scam artist and an absent father.

Many users on social media have reveled in the feud, declaring that it’s restored urgency to hip-hop and elevated each rapper’s artistry. “Kendrick got Drake to rap like it matters again and Drake got Kendrick to drop consistently,” one user commented on Instagram . “we eating so good (right now).”

This weekend extended that excitement — but also marked a darker turn in the feud, with Lamar and Drake lodging serious accusations against each other. It was a showcase for two of the most acclaimed rappers of their generation, an unburdening of long-steeping resentments and a tangle of insinuation and innuendo. Information-rich (fans quickly worked to decode every bar) and likely misinformation-dense (with the rappers denying some of each other’s claims), it was a classic rap feud with a very modern flavor. Here, track by track, is what fans heard.

Kendrick Lamar drops “6:16 in LA”

Days after dropping “Euphoria,” Lamar released an Instagram-only single called “6:16 in LA” — a callback to Drake’s timestamp tracks (like “8am in Charlotte”). Internet sleuths applied Swiftie-grade levels of scrutiny to the release, suggesting alternate explanations: A reference to Tupac’s birthday on June 16, perhaps; the day the late O.J. Simpson’s trial started in 1995; Canadian Father’s Day (Drake is Canadian); the date of Lamar’s last tour stop in Drake’s hometown of Toronto; and the series premiere date of HBO’s “Euphoria,” which Drake executive produces.

“6:16 in LA” samples an Al Green ballad and is co-produced by Taylor Swift’s frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff — a tongue-in-cheek response to Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle,” in which he taunted Lamar for collaborating with pop artists like Swift.

In the song, Lamar warns that he’s war-ready, accuses Drake of hiding behind memes and Twitter bots and even stokes intrigue about Drake’s inner circle.

“Have you ever thought that OVO is workin’ for me? Fake bully, I hate bullies, you must be a terrible person. Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it,” Lamar raps, suggesting that there’s a mole among Drake’s friends and affiliates of his brand October’s Very Own. “Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it.”

Drake releases “Family Matters”

Hours later, Drake responded with “Family Matters,” a 7-minute track that directly insults Lamar, Metro Boomin and the Weeknd — though most of his ire is directed at the Compton rapper. The song claims that Lamar called Tupac’s estate to have Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle” removed from content platforms. It also accused Lamar of putting on activist airs.

“Always rapping like you ’bout to get the slaves freed,” Drake raps. “You just acting like a activist, it’s make believe. Don’t even go back to your hood and plant no money trees.”

But in some of the song’s most serious accusations, Drake made specific allegations about Lamar and his longtime partner, Whitney Alford, involving domestic violence and infidelity. Publicists for Lamar did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s email requests for comment.

In the song’s accompanying music video , imagery shows a car crusher destroying a Dodge Caravan, which resembles the one featured in the cover art of Lamar’s acclaimed album “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.”

Lamar immediately follows with “Meet the Grahams”

Fans and hip-hop media had less than an hour to digest “Family Matters” when Lamar circled back with “Meet the Grahams,” a song in which the rapper speaks directly to Drake, his parents and his son, Adonis.

The track, layered over an eerie piano beat, involved allegations regarding Drake’s rumored relationships and family.

In another verse, Lamar tells famous NBA stars to stay away from Drake and his team: “Ay, LeBron, keep the family away, hey, Curry, keep the family away / To anybody that embody the love for they kids, keep the family away / They lookin’ at you too if you standin’ by him, keep the family away.”

And again with “Not Like Us”

Lamar wasn’t done. Less than 24 hours passed before he was back again with “Not Like Us” — a catchy West Coast hip-hop song that accused Drake’s team of criminal behavior and went harder at insulting the Canadian rapper, going so far as to accuse him of pedophilia.

In another verse, Lamar continues: “Ain’t you tired? Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor.”

Publicists for Drake did not immediately respond to The Post’s email requests for comment.

The song grabbed hold of the internet, with many fans declaring it an instant bop for a rapper who has been known for his conscious and cerebral rap rather than commercial and club hits like Drake’s.

Footage uploaded to social media over the weekend showed DJs playing “Not Like Us” in clubs. Other fans overlaid the track’s audio onto various hip-hop dance videos.

Drake fires back with “The Heart Part 6”

Just as Sunday came to a close, Drake had the final word (for now), releasing “The Heart Part 6” — a callback to Lamar’s own five-part “The Heart” series of songs. In the nearly six-minute rap, Drake denied the allegations that Lamar had thrown against him, while also claiming that he and his team had fooled Lamar’s camp into thinking Drake had another secret child.

“We plotted for a week and then we fed you the information/a daughter that’s 11 years old, I bet he takes it,” Drake raps. “We thought about giving a fake name or a destination. But you so thirsty, you not concerned with investigation.”

Drake also referenced abuse that Lamar opened up about in a past song. “Ahh, wait a second, that’s that one record where you say you got molested,” Drake raps. “ … I just made the whole connection. This about to get so depressin’. This is trauma from your own confessions.”

While their feud has long turned ugly, many users felt that Drake’s reference to molestation was a new low. They also say he misinterpreted Lamar’s song “Mother I Sober,” which references abuse his mother experienced as a child.

“Drake taking a song about Molestation and making it a joke is tone deaf,” one user wrote on X.

In a tweet , Drake further provoked Lamar: “And we know you’re dropping 6 mins after so instead of posting my address you have a lot to address.”

Lamar so far has not responded. But for now, many fans and music outlets have already declared Lamar as the victor. The crown goes to Compton, Rolling Stone proclaimed.

“Safe to say Kendrick Lamar already won,” one X user wrote. While another user on Instagram suggested Drake buried his own grave. “Admitting that you had to plot with your [people] to take down Kendrick is admitting you lost.”

This story will be updated.