The roots of American hip hop music can be traced down to western Africa and in various foreign cultures. The vocal style of popular rap can be associated with the griot tradition from Africa, where the griots wander from place to place singing their music and telling about history and traditions. Street performers over the years influenced the more dramatic impact of early American hip hop music, with their freestyle performances in an effort to earn an honest living in a troubled inner city.
American hip hop music had another influence that came, it was from New York during the post civil rights era. People finding that gathering to celebrate personal events was a worthwhile activity grew, with it, the legendary block parties, soon, was created. Disc jockeys, who normally worked the underground club scenes, were finding a new outlet to unleash their beat driven creative mixes of soul, funk, and cultural music, and were often asked to perform at block parties everywhere, as entertainment for the masses. Their sound soon caught on, and American hip hop music began to explode onto the music scene.
The thing about American hip hop music is that it undergone a hard time finding its definition unlike other genres. The limelight was focused on the darker side of rap music for a while, due to its amassing of its own sense of notoriety in a bad way. Meanwhile, DJ made dance mixes was rising in fame and gradually building its own niche in American hip hop music. The underground clubs were quickly becoming mainstream, and soon the two sub-cultures would begin to clash.
Street performers, with their DJ mixed tapes of hip hop beats, perform wild break dancing routines that rouses the crowds of larger cities, add their mark to the American hip hop music. Meanwhile, at the peak of American hip hop, concert performances started undergoing a transformation, soon turning more into competitions rather than planned exhibitions. Established rapper groups would take on all comers, inciting the audience to decide the winners of such competitions with their cheers.
The vibrant world of American hip hop music soon began to lose its luster, as more rebellious artists became victims of their own lifestyles. The world of the american hip hop music entered a tailspin, as two of its stars,Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG, got murdered. The genre suffered the effects as many of its popular artists fall into committing criminal acts that failed to hide itself from the public eye.
Now, American hip hop music has begun a resurgence in a more defined and acceptable manner. Positive and thoughtful lyrics replaced the generally negative and hateful tones of the past, by new artists driven in restoring the popularity of American hip hop music in the world, artists who now create albums commonly revolving on themes of love and community building. Whether this new incarnation will be as popular as the old remains to be seen, but it is definitely off to a good start.