Hip Hop

Maestro Fresh Wes: I got no gats or grills so my tracks ain't real? Cuz I don't pack steel? Then my tracks appeal?
Classified: And to the mass appeal? Watch how fast they fail -- yeah I'm hip hop son, until my casket's sealed.

—Classified, "Hard to be Hip Hop"

Old school hip hop was comprised of four ingredients--graffiti, DJ-ing, MC-ing, and beat boxing (Breakdancing is another staple, but not within the context of hip hop music, just hip hop culture). Nowadays, it is viewed as another name for rap.

Note that there are many different scenes, subgenres, and cultures within hip hop besides gangsta rap. Even gangsta rap has several sub-forms like Horrorcore, and Mafioso rap. Unfortunately, they rarely receive anywhere near the attention in other media (or anywhere near the record sales).

For the Genre Motif found in TV and movies, see here.

Sub-genres include:

• Alternative Hip Hop
• Chap-Hop
• Conscious Hip Hop
• Cloud Rap
  • Emo Hip Hop
• Comedy Hip Hop
  • Satirical Hip Hop
• Country Rap
• Crunk
  • Crunkcore
• Dirty Rap
• Experimental Hip Hop
• Gangsta Rap
• Glam Rap
• Hardcore Hip Hop
  • Drill Music
  • Trap Music
  • SoundCloud Rap
• Horrorcore
• Miami Bass
• Nerdcore
• Political Rap
• Pop Rap
• Rap Rock
  • Punk Rap
  • Rap Metal
• Southern Hip Hop
• Swag Rap
• Turntablism

Tropes covered within Hip Hop and the industry itself:

• Abusive Parents
• Angry Black Man
• Big Applesauce
• Black Sheep Hit
• Boastful Rap
• Broken Base: And how! Read the entry for details.
• Comics Rule Everything Around Me
• Confirmation Bias / Don't Shoot the Message: A lot of people, casual listeners and purists alike, tend to love or hate hip hop (and its subgenres) based on its messages, imagery, and other factors moreso than the actual music itself.
• Cool Car
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority
• Conspiracy Theorist
• Controversy-Proof Image: Exceptions being Ice T's cop killer controversy, which for all intents and purposes ruined his mainstream career as a rapper, and Nelly, due to the tip drill controversy. Possibly Public Enemy as well thanks to Professor Grif's comments about Jews.
• Crapsack World
• Darker and Edgier: Arguably the Golden Age era, even the alternative movement.
  • The genre as a whole has gone through this: compare the clean-cut Fresh Prince with Lil Wayne.
    • Of course there's no agreement on whether or not this generation is darker, as some have the exact OPPOSITE opinion.
• Deader Than Disco/Genre Killer: Censorship, Executive Meddling, Lighter and Softer, and Misaimed Marketing of Hip Hop is what arguably killed the Gangsta Rap, Hardcore Hip Hop, Conscious Hip Hop, Alternative Rap, and Political Rap sub-genres in the mainstream. Specific reasons are;
  • Stronger radio and video censorship towards Hardcore Hip Hop, Gangsta Rap, and Political Rap. MTV even refused to play a certain Public Enemy video because of a political statement. This become an extreme wall banger when you realized how the sexually explicit videos were rarely if ever banned, but violence and political statements were apparently where they drew the line.
    • Some even say West Coast hip-hop specifically was blacklisted because of the East Coast/West Coast rivalries, and because of this it never recovered. Then there was the death of 2pac and the collapse of Death Row Records and its rival Ruthless Records thanks to Executive Meddling (according to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony). After that West Coast rap in general, gangsta or otherwise, was persona non grata.
    • There was a BET memo that said they wouldn't play Political Rap because it's too intelligent for its audiences.
  • Conscious Hip Hop, likely due to the Afrocentric overtones not being broadly appealing. The beginning of the end was probably when the mainstream ignored Digable Planets's more Afrocentric album Blowout Comb, and Arrested Development's follow up album Zingalamaduni.
  • Alternative Rap was killed due to the same reasons as Conscious Hip Hop, exceptions being that it has a mainstream-friendly package like Black Eyed Peas and Kanye West.
  • Alternatively the above genres just weren't popular enough outside of hip-hop's core audience. So basically Money, Dear Boy...
• Deep South: Quite a few rappers are from Atlanta and other Southern areas.
• Domestic Abuse
• Executive Meddling: Especially after it became profitable.
• Fandom Rivalry: Whoo boy!...
• Follow the Leader: Oh yes, also a huge cause of Hip-Hop beef and Fandom Rivalry
• For the Evulz
• Genre Turning Point: Circa 1988, where hip hop broke into the mainstream, and the beginning of the Golden Age.
• Gun Porn
• Hotter and Sexier: Specifically the music videos around the turn of the century. Which ironically makes the old 2 Live Crew videos tame by today's standards..
• "I Am" Song
• Inherent in the System: Some rap songs cover this.
• Intercourse with You
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks
• Justified Criminal
• Lighter and Softer: Current form of hop-hop is accused of this. Not just for specific artists but the genre as a whole, according to some.
• List Song
• Malcolm Xerox: A none Strawman version.
• Mob War
• Murder Ballad
• Murder Simulators: Rap music has been a popular scapegoat for almost 20 years. The media frenzy died down around the mid 90's, then in '99, Eminem made his debut and the controversy went right back into full swing. People often blame it (and video games) for teens' insensitivity to violence and for promoting stereotypes about women.
• Music Is Politics: Discussed and invoked.
• Older Than They Think: "Rap Battles" have existed since at least the fifth century C.E., making this Older Than Feudalism. Between the 5th and 16th centuries, Norse, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval poets would engage in a practice called "flyting", in which they would insult each other in extemporaneous verse. The practice also appeared in literature and epic poetry -- for example, in the Lokasenna, Loki insults the other gods in verse.
• Pop Culture Isolation
• Protest Song
• Public Medium Ignorance: Sometimes almost to a racist degree.
• Rape as Drama
• Sassy Black Woman
• Screwed by the Network: See Deader Than Disco above.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money
• Soapbox Sadie
• Token Minority: White and/or female rappers.
  • Interestingly enough for most of The Nineties female emcees was quite common. So much so that arguably they wouldn't count as a Token Minority. But after the turn of the millennium all that changed. This has been brought up in a lot of Hip Hop mags and blogs.
  • Asian rappers. Definitely Asian rappers (although this is mostly true in western countries, as they are the majority in eastern countries).
• Villain Protagonist: The viewpoint adopted in several songs.
• Voice of the Resistance: Some see the genre as this, or is capable of being this.
• Wolverine Publicity: Want to be popular fast? Just pay a well-known rapper to feature in your song.