New York City Hip Hop: A Modern Analysis of Rap Culture and Social Diversity

It is well known that the origins of our modern hip­hip stemmed from the boroughs of New York City in the late 1970’s. New York City at the time was a raw and racially diverse place in areas outside of Manhattan; further, New York was in the midst of one the worse crime surges in modern America. This tumultuous environment bred a new generation of artists and as such,this cross­culture integration produced a new forms of expression through music. Clive Campbell, Jamaican immigrant that went by the name Kool Herc, is credited with creating this new style in the mid 70’s. This new sound was a far cry from what we know today as rap music, nonetheless, this is where it began.
Essentially, it was a DJ playing a record and “mixing it” and combining this with the recitation of rhymes. This primitive form of music came to be known as
Hip­hop as it percolated throughout the city; every racially and culturally unique neighborhood putting on it it’s spin. The first hints of any mainstream success within the genre came with 1979’s “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugar Hill
Gang which reached #36 on the Billboard 100, thus demonstrating hip­hop’s ability to achieve commercial success. The diversity of New York City cannot be overstated, and this is an important aspect of Hip­Hop’s maturity and evolution. Within each borough there is a generalized dominant racial group or combination of groups. With names like
Jamaica­Queens, its not hard to tell which ethnic groups dominate each of the five boroughs. Statistically Speaking:
Majority Minority groups as follows: The Bronx
: Puerto Ricans, other Latino groups. (43%)
Brooklyn
: African­American (37%) & Latino (10%)

Manhattan
: Latino (25%) Asian (12%) African American (13%)
Queens
:
Latino (27%) Asian (22%) African­American (20%)
Staten Island
:

As hip­hop progressed through the 80’s and became popular throughout the country, artists from all over the United States accomplished