Hip-hop Dancing

Rap music, also known as hip hop music, is a style of music that was created in the 1970s by African Americans residing in inner-city areas of the United States. These cities include New York City, Harlem, and the Bronx. Rapping is a form of hip-hop that combines rhythmic, stylized music with chanting, rhymes, and rhythmic speech. Rapping first emerged as a vocal technique that combines chants or creative speaking with a steady synthesized beat. It originated locally and quickly spread over the impoverished areas. Additionally, the development of both was triggered by a subculture, the hip-hop culture. This culture contains stylistic elements like graffiti writing, rapping, breakdancing, and scratching using turntables. Despite that hip hop and rap music seem to be synonyms, rapping is not a compulsory requirement in the making of hip-hop songs. Other elements of this hip-hop culture include bass lines and rhythmic beatboxing. The formation of the hip-hop culture was as a result of New York City block parties that the African American youth indulged in, in the 1970s. At the time, DJs used a DJ mixer and two turntables to play popular songs, as they put breaks to add flavor to the flow of music. Development of advanced technology brought about the evolution of hip-hop through the availability and affordability of the drum machines that proved to be quite useful in the formation of music. As the music became popular, schools were established to help the artist understand what it is all about and what is expected. The hip-hop music saw the birth of talented African American artists that have been successful in the music industry. Some include Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre among others.

Rap Music and the African American Identity

African Americans refer to an ethnic group of Americans, with partial or total ancestry from Africa’s black racial groups. A majority of these individuals are also the descendants of African slaves captured from Africa in the 16th century. These slaves comprised of about four million Africans. Even after the abolishment of slavery, African Americans citizens continued to be treated as inferiors for centuries. This ethnic and racial group is the third largest in the United States. However, African immigrants are not part of this group, since they do not identify themselves as Africa American. As a result of the hardships that the African Americans encountered since the middle passage, a distinct culture was born. The roots of this culture are based on the Central and West African heritage. As centuries went by, stereotyping of the African Americans continued. Therefore, in the twentieth century, hip-hop music became a way for them to express their frustrations.

The majority of the African Americans lived in the cities’ post-industrial areas. The frustrations that these minority communities experienced include high rates of crime, inequality, lack of employment opportunities and poor levels of socioeconomics. It seemed as though the politicians had combined efforts to neglect the African Americans, including their living areas. The budgets assigned to the African American neighborhoods were cut and thus, residents could not get the help they expected from the government. Additionally, public programs were also undermined, leaving this racial group to survive with very little, since they were also underpaid for their goods and services. Therefore, African American artists came up with rap music to voice these issues to the rest of the white communities, hoping to be heard. Moreover, rap music saw the birth of ‘gangsta’ rap, another hip-hop form, which condemned deep issues like racism. Therefore, Speer concludes that there exists a correlation between hip-hop and the Africa American identity. Additionally, the lyrics in the music has themes that identify with the African American identity.

Consideration of the Dred, Plessy and Brown cases, rap music, and African American identity

The Dred, Brown and Plessy cases were all landmark constitutional cases, which indicated the struggles that African Americans went through in the United States. In the Dred Scott case, the ruling upheld that African Americans had no right to sue in the federal court since they were regarded as just slaves without American citizenship. Therefore, Dred’s plead to attain freedom was denied. According to the Plessy case, laws of racial segregation indicated that there were different public facilities open to the African Americans, while others were out of limits for them. According to the doctrine, the rule claimed that this treatment was just a separation but equality prevailed. Breaking the law by not sitting in the African American section landed Plessy in court, whereby Plessy’s argument was rejected. The Brown case is similar to the Plessy case only that its focus was on schools. The law had ensured the establishment of separate schools for the White and Black race students, under segregation of public facilities. Fortunately, the court ruled this separation as unconstitutional, thus overturning the Plessy case. These issues of racial discrimination and equality were quite common with the African American people. These cases explain the identity of this racial group, in how the cases are heard and concluded.

Before the foundation of rap music, artists used other types of music to express themselves. During the slave days, African Americans used work songs while working in the fields. While relaxing they formed game songs to distract themselves from the torture they received. Also, during happy times, dance music helped in the celebrations. As time went, the music evolved to blues, rock ‘n’ roll, soul jazz, funk and finally rap. Since the rap music was used to express issues such as those mentioned above, it is clear that the genre, hip-hop music, created by African Americans explains their identity.

Hip-hop effects on cognition. Cognition encompasses processes like judgment, knowledge, memory, and problem solving, among others. These processes are involved in the acquisition of knowledge and understanding during thinking, sensing and throughout experiences. When people encounter problems or issues with their cognition, they may experience anxiety or stress. A majority of individuals opt to listen to music when they experience such challenges, in search of relaxation. For example, when students are preparing for exams, a majority get anxious because they doubt their ability to remember the information they have stored in their memories. As a result, they experience more anxiety and thus are unable to revise in the effort to refresh their memories. It is at these moments that many turn to music, hoping to alleviate the emotional torment.

Different genres of music affect the different cognitive process, differently. The hip-hop music is quite simulative due to the beats used and the frequent fast chanting now and then, depending on the rhythm. Therefore, during a cognitive process like storage and retrieval of information hip-hop music may cause a distraction, if the listening to the music takes place at that same time. Also, it may corrupt one’s judgment. The disruption arises because the mind gets caught up trying to keep up and understand the words in the song. As a result, hip hop music is a distractor of cognition, in this context.

Another context is the aftermath effect that hip-hop has on cognition, after frequent listening. The nature of this genre is fast uttering of words in rhythm, which may also include the use of metaphors. Therefore, listeners of this music have to be fast in interpreting the metaphors to understand the message. As the music flows the actual interpretation has to be fast enough to ensure that one is not left behind as the song goes on. At first, processing of information at such a speed is challenging. However, after frequently listening, one’s mind begins to adapt and begins to attain the speed in processing information. As time goes by, the mind gets used and thinking becomes instant. When away from the music, the brain utilizes its new skill. During brainstorming, ideas are easily generated. Also, retrieval and storage of information become a fast process because the memory is alert and ready to act at any given moment. According to Bonny, Lindberg, and Pacampara, cognitive skills are linked to high performance in sciences, math, technology and engineering. Therefore, the better the working of the cognitive skills the higher the performance. Also, it is acknowledged that hip-hop dances are fast to rhyme with the beats and the music. Hip-hop dance is compared to pastimes like video games and chess, where people have to think hard, correctly and fast to beat their opponents. Hence, dances have to be fast thinkers and movers as they incorporate the diverse moves into the dance. Moreover, these dances must by rhythmical with the words and beats. Petersen concludes that such dancers with a lot of experience tend to recognize the positive emotions portrayed in people’s faces better than the less experienced. Hence, hip-hop music sharpens cognitive abilities by improving their workability. A sharp mind is quick to respond to learning and memory.

Bibliography

Bonny, Justin W., Jenna C. Lindberg, and Marc C. Pacampar. “Hip Hop Dance experience linked to sociocognitive ability,” Ed. Lawrence M Ward. PLoS ONE 12, no. 2 (2017), accessed November 21, 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287481/

Hess, Mickey, ed. Hip hop in America: A regional guide. ABC-CLIO, 2009.

Jackson, John P. Science for segregation: Race, law, and the case against Brown v. Board of Education. NYU Press, 2005.

Petersen, Neil, ”The cognitive Benefits of hip hop dance,” All Psych, (2017), accessed November 22, 2017, https://blog.allpsych.com/the-cognitive-benefits-of-hip-hop-dance/

Speer, Neena, ”Hip-Hop and Black identity,” Proceedings of The National Conference On Undergraduate Research, (2014), accessed November 21, 2017, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwilg_yFjtDXAhVGthQKHaD9CzAQFggmMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncurproceedings.org%2Fojs%2Findex.php%2Fncur2014%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F1079%2F549&usg=AOvVaw2uETe0xpRCmVYUMW6-XQcO