Harlem Renaissance part 2

    Like all genres of music, Hip Hop expresses emotions, but what makes it Unique is the way that it expresses the struggles and oppression that dates since the beginning of colonization. Since Hip Hop was invented in the Bronx in the 1970's it has evolved and become a section of the music industry that captivates millions around the world.

    It has a certain similarity to that of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's. Hip-hop has done what jazz did in the roaring 20's. Attracting people of all ages and demographics to a vibrant and diverse style of music. They both detail the struggles that people suffer every day. Hip-hop has in fact elaborated and diversified these sentiments into addressing every problem imaginable from depression to drug use, to political activism and the hidden racial injustice of our modern society. 

The Spark for Hip-hop
     As the civil rights movement began to fade away in the 70's, with peoples apparent satisfaction with a new equal nation visible a new rise of activism and expression began to grow. Since the age of slavery, African Americans developed a unique culture of their own, to survive their brutal labor and lives in general. This culture lived through the renaissance where jazz became the music of not only the roaring 20's, a golden age of for the US but decades to come, with people hopping on the genre and diversifying it. At the base of it, jazz was a form of expression for African Americans of the day to let the world know of their struggles, since then it became a music for all sorts of moods and occasions. Once again this culture spread to the young, who struggled in the poorest parts of this nation, creating a genre of music that combined poetry and beat making to express their sentiments on their situation. This style of music has appealed to every type of struggle you can think of, something that jazz began in the Harlem Renaissance.

Hip Hop's civil rights activism
     Hip-hop reminds the US of its slave past, its jim crow past, and it's modern-day institutional implicit and explicit segregation. Through the music of the streets, Hip-hop brings a style music that expresses the situation of every type of American out there. One of the biggest sentiments expressed through rap is the explanation of the countless lives lost in the ghettoes of the US. They remind out of touch Americans with the hard cold truth that the US attempts to escape from its dark past. That theoretical equality brought by law does not bring equity, the true form of freedom and equality in America.