I Am Hip Hop

by Keith
Snow City Arts

I am hip hop. I make people feel good about themselves.

I am hip hop. I reflect the street—the rims, the dubs, the jewelry, the slang, the way people dress, how the people party with their loud music till 3-4 in the morning, all the people jukin’.

I am hip hop. I am a trendsetter. I am a record breaker.

I am hip hop. I have made many people rich and famous. I help black people go from low status to high status—like Black people in sports & acting.

I am hip hop—rap & R&B, Soul, & all that jazz. I am a way of life, a whole lot of music.

I am hop hop, like Missy Elliott’s "One Minute Man," produced by Timberlake, that captures a sexual relationship. In the lyric she raps about wanting more than one minute to be satisfied "Break me off / Show me what you got / ‘Cause I don’t want no one minute man."

I am hip hop. DJs scratch my records to get the right sound in a club. You can still hear the sound of the song on a record when you’re scratchin’, but it’s a new sound.

I am hip hop. I am not always negative. I have positive outcomes. I can teach people about ways of life. I can tell you about what people go through, politics. I don’t always talk about rims & cars & girls. I tell stories about life.

I am hip hop. My future—hip hop is here to stay for many generations. Hip hop is not dead. It just changes up as it goes ahead.

I am hip hop. I work through recording studios, where artists could do ten songs a day and where they chill out in there. They have fun & do what they love to do in the studio. They might kick back & smoke & drink in the studio.

I am hip hop, like the Southern style—like Little Scrappy, Ying Yang Twins, Little Wayne. Producer Collie Park from Atlanta does hype music, where people get their jerky head, arm, & leg movements, wild & out dance moves. Like Ying Yang Twins’ "Wait (The Whisper Song)" "Hey how you doin lil mama? Let me whisper in your ear, / Tell you sumthing that you want to hear."

I am hip hop, like the West Coast style—Tupac, Ice Cube, Ice-T, NWA. E-40 made up hyphy, where he made up his own language, like "crackalackin’," "scrape" (ghost ride), "go stupid" (go crazy, do whatever you wan t to the music.

I am hip hop. Jazz, the Blues, R&B, and Gospel started it all. I am a major part of Black history. of Black history.