I’m not sure the historical redemptive quality of Hip Hop is what Karl and Tre of Year 9 are thinking of in their Rap Class the Tuesday morning I make the trip up to Burnt Mill Academy in Essex, but for those behind the scenes, who have worked hard to transform the once remote concept of weekly peripatetic Rap Tuition into a living, spitting two hour reality, it is now clearer than ever that Hip Hop, like all music, can radically change lives.Ĭharly Richardson, Head of Essex Music Service and Cristin Casey, Director of Performing Arts for the Burnt Mill Academy Trust, both sit with me silently at the back of the class as we watch tutor, rapper and artist Alex, also known as Lemzi, elicit from Karl and Tre the narrative tools used in Lost Ones by J Cole to express the different arguments in the song. Now it appears to be Rap’s greatest irony – that from society’s rejection, its banishment to the underground, to the peripheral, it has returned as the winner. ![]() Rap, Breakdance and Graffiti, which came to define a whole generation of young and predominantly black creatives involved in the Hip Hop scene, were art forms led by artists ghettoized from inception. It’s a long way from the “Rap is for gangsters” rhetoric, although it’s safe to assume this remains the view point for some. It is the most listened to genre on Spotify and whilst UK Grime isn’t strictly Hip Hop, Stormzy’s Number 1 album Gang Signs & Prayer made it into the Top Ten of the UK’s official album chart of 2017. According to the Nielsen Music 2017 report, R&B and Hip Hop are now responsible for 25.1% of all music consumption in the U.S and have overtaken Rock. What makes it look like an excellent PR coup is that the apparently subversive genre has steadily managed to establish itself as one of the most popular forms of music, breaking worldwide record sales. ![]() Whether it’s disinformation or straight-up prejudice, Hip Hop has maintained its air of dangerous mystique since it started infiltrating mainstream airwaves in the 1980s.
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