Art in the Hip-Hop Culture

Hip hop is a music genre and cultural movement which developed in New York City in the early 1970s primarily among African Americans and Latino Americans. Hip Hop's four main artistic elements are MCing (often called rapping), DJing, graffiti writing, and breakdancing. The Hip Hop culture combines dance, music, and painting and manifests it into a unique style.

Turntablism refers to the extended boundaries and techniques of normal DJing innovated by hip hop. Traditionally, a DJ will use two turntables simultaneously. These are connected to a DJ mixer, an amplifier, speakers, and various other pieces of electronic music equipment. The DJ will then perform various tricks between the two albums currently in rotation using the above listed methods. The result is a unique sound created by the seemingly combined sound of two separate songs into one song.

Rapping, also known as Emceeing, MCing, Rhyme spitting, Spitting, or just Rhyming, is the rhythmic delivery of rhymes, one of the central elements of hip hop music and culture.

In America around the late 1960s, graffiti was used as a form of expression by political activists, and also by gangs such as the Savage Skulls, La Familia, and Savage Nomads to mark territory. The relationship between graffiti and hip hop culture arises both from early graffiti artists practicing other aspects of hip hop, and its being practiced in areas where other elements of hip hop were evolving as art forms. Graffiti is recognized as a visual expression of rap music, just as breakdancing is viewed as a physical expression.

Breaking, also breakdancing or B-boying, is a dynamic style of dance which developed as part of the hip hop culture. The "B" in B-boy stands for break, as in break-boy (or girl). The term "B-boy" originated from the dancers at DJ Kool Herc's parties, who saved their best dance moves for the break section of the song, getting in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive, frenetic style.

All of these contribute to the art of Hip-Hop and how it is viewed in today's society.