When viewing the music industry’s relationship with African American artists throughout the twentieth century, hindsight grants us the perspective of seeing how profoundly white-dominant mainstream music is. Yet, the twentieth century saw the rise and adaptation of many African American musical genres into mainstream America. From ragtime, jazz, blues, and rock and roll, these genres debuted to an ambivalent and cynical—not to mention “hostile”—America, with some labeling the music “devilish” and, put more crudely, “nigger noise.” The story time tells, however, is that white America slowly adapted each of these genres and styles as each gained national acclaim, but remained sternly disapproving of the original artists. The “solution” for mainstream America – such is the case for rock and roll and its “king,” Elvis Presley – came when white artists began covering African American artists’ work. These cover-artists often garnered a dishonest fortune on the work of their musical colleagues not as a result of talent, but out of mainstream America’s preference of having a white artist perform the otherwise “devilish” “nigger noise.”
It was through the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement that African American artists began to receive much overdue credit for their work. In this aftermath, African American artists continued experimenting with traditional styles in mainstream America and their own genres. The wake of the Civil Rights Movement saw the rise of hip-hop and rap, which maintained the poly-rhythmic style of jazz, rock and roll, blues, and ragtime, while emerging into national attention by detailing the hardships and inequality of the 1980’s from an African American perspective. These new artforms rose to similar fame as earlier genres – receiving both praise and skepticism – yet again, hindsight grants us the power to see that rap and hip-hop were not the fad skeptics of the 1970’s believed it to be. Instead, these genres have become two of the dominant musical styles in present day mainstream America; and as a result, these genres’ styles, characteristics, and lyrical content have assimilated into a large portion of modern popular culture. This fact begs several questions: What is contained within rap and hip-hop that attracts such large demographics of listeners to also identify with and enjoy the music? Also, have these two genres strayed over time with such wide-acclaimed success from their original politically-oriented content to endorse mainstream consumer culture? And in correlation, what political power, if any, do these genres maintain today? To find these answers, we will dive into the history and origin of rap and hip-hop in its earliest days to see how the genre has developed in response to politics old and new.