What is hip-hop culture?

Hip-Hop, which means "swinging ass", originated in the African-American community, and its origin can be traced back to the 1970s.

Hip-hop is a street culture composed of many elements, including music, dance, rap, DJ technology, costumes, graffiti and so on.

Hip-hop is a street culture and a life attitude. He has a close relationship with extreme sports such as skateboarding and BMX, as well as street culture.

Hip-hop people all have the same behavior, even if you don't know them, you can accurately judge them from their appearance.

Hip-Hop has now entered the mainstream culture from the street. In the United States, the mainstream entertainment space has been occupied by hip hop; In Korea, the combination of Hip-Hop and its own culture has become the most popular cultural form with Korean characteristics. In China, this culture is becoming more and more active among teenagers.

The so-called "hip-hop" has become a popular fashion, even a fixed habit. Wearing loose but expensive clothes, wearing brand-name headscarves or sports hats, collecting sports shoes, and of course, mobile phones and headphones with digital photography, plus a bunch of shiny metal ornaments, stepping on that wobbly pace.

Many people may not even have heard of the "hip-hop industry", but in fact, almost most people in the world have already lived in the cultural atmosphere created by this industry. Take Taiwan Province Province as an example. As long as we turn on the TV casually, the advertisements selling mobile phones, sneakers, jeans and drinks will always be a group of young people wearing baseball caps, headscarves, loose clothes, or even a jacket with a hood, stepping on sneakers and dancing, running or doing other actions there. This is the "hip-hop style"; Of course, not to mention the rapper on the variety channel.

In addition to the typical "hip-hop style" seen in TV advertisements and variety channels, if you take to the streets, that kind of "hip-hop style" is more common in places where some fashionable teenagers and even young new middle classes are concentrated. Some young upstarts wear ball caps and hang handsome and cool wireless mobile phone devices, which is of course the concrete embodiment of "hip-hop style".

And "hip-hop" certainly didn't come out of thin air. The formation of style is mainly through commodities and the behavioral and cultural codes created by commodities. Therefore, style is naturally an industry. So, how big is the so-called "hip hop industry"? It may scare people to death, because according to experts' official estimates, the "hip-hop industry" accounts for about a quarter of any consumer behavior in the United States, including clothing, shoes, accessories, sports equipment, television, magazines, movies, advertisements, mobile phones, soft drinks and strong drinks, chain fast food, records, modeling, cosmetics, art, finance and ball games.

Hip-hop is a style creative industry.

Therefore, the so-called "hip-hop industry" is too vague to be clearly defined. If everything related to "hip-hop style" is included in the loosest definition, then its scale in the United States alone may reach more than one trillion dollars. But this definition is actually too grandiose. The so-called "hip-hop industry" should be the core industry to launch the whole "hip-hop style", so it is a style creative industry. Conservative estimates are at least tens of billions of dollars.

In 2003, Businessweek will report on Saimons, the godfather of hip-hop, mainly because the performance of hip-hop in this year was really amazing. Clothing alone has achieved a performance of $2 billion. A movie "8Mile" starring rapper Eminem has just been released, and its first weekend box office was $565,438+2,000, breaking the record of Jurassic Park. In 2002, Courvoisier, a world famous wine, used rap to play wine, and its sales immediately increased by 20%. In 2003, almost all the American pop charts were hip-hop. Because the whole "hip-hop style" has become so powerful, it has not only expanded the site of industrial activities, but even top universities such as Harvard and MIT have seriously studied and taught it as a cultural, life and industrial phenomenon.

The best example of the new American dream

Therefore, it can be said that hip-hop is no longer just a subculture stage for African-American teenagers. The style it created has gradually become a new fashion after being occupied and changed in the process of capitalist commercialization. After conquering new york and LA, it gradually began to conquer the whole world. There is a so-called "HipHopGeneration" in the United States, which refers to the black generation that rose between 1985 and 1990. There is no doubt that Simmons is the most successful person of this generation. He is the biggest creative person and initiator of "hip hop Industry" in the world, and he is no longer a "black buppie". CanDream) is the best model. He was the founder of DefJam, the most important rap record company, and later sold it to Universal Records for more than 1 billion dollars. At present, he is the second largest record company in the United States, with an annual turnover of 700 million US dollars. At present, it has a huge comprehensive empire including clothing, media, drinks and finance. The annual performance of clothing wholesale alone is $260 million, and the annual performance of the whole empire is about $654.38+0 billion.

Rap is the core of "hip-hop style"

There are different opinions about "hip-hop". Some people say that it originated in ancient Africa and others say that it originated in Jamaican, but there is no doubt that Byaku Shiki's rap songs are the core of "hip-hop style". In the 1970' s, it became popular with the appearance of music synthesizers, expressing unruly sadness and anger with dance steps, so it has a strong personality, pursues self-identity and does not obey the mainstream. This style of music and dance soon spread in the streets of black youth settlements and big cities.

Apart from music and dance steps, their costumes are actually very street-like. For example, in the black community at that time, life was scarce and street drug trafficking was the main business. That kind of big and heavy clothes or hooded clothes is necessary for young drug dealers to wander around the streets all night, while loose pants and pockets are used to hide guns and sneakers are used to chase them when necessary. In other words, this kind of clothing is actually quite close to the gang clothing of unruly teenagers.

However, from history and experience, we also know that all symbolic meanings are fluid. Walking in the street, talking and dressing, when the black status caused by the civil rights movement is gradually pulled away, its code meaning moves in the direction of "handsome" and "cool". Then it penetrates into white youth groups and areas where blacks and whites meet, such as music and sports, through middle schools and universities. It is precisely because of this permeability that the black wonderful flower with commercial vision has a stage to play. If we review the development of "hip-hop industry", we can notice that before the mid-1960s, it could only be regarded as a "subculture". However, since the late 1980s,1980s, it has been popular among American teenagers because of its cool and rebellious style, and even all big companies have to pay attention to its existence and get involved. So, 1985, Sony cooperated with DedJam Records Company to help it develop its sales channels. 1986, Adi? Das began to use rap paradise to help marketing. When mainstream enterprises began to intervene in this industry, the "hip-hop style" has become a part of the mainstream, and even achieved a certain dominance. This dominance is not in the hands of white people, but is controlled by black creative entrepreneurs, because only they know the tricky and possible direction of the whole "hip-hop style".

High-end goods are also attractive to hip hop.

Therefore, from "hip-hop style" to "subculture" to a style and industry that affects the whole country and even the whole world, we may be able to review the so-called "Paris style" this year. PierrBourdieu, a master of French modern thought, once studied the so-called "Bohemian style" in France. He pointed out that after the French Revolution, a large number of young people from other provinces poured into Paris. They were aloof, carefree and comfortable, and more than half of the later "Paris style" was the result of this "Bohemian style" and was refined. When we go to Paris today, we will soon notice that anyone in Paris, even casual clothes, will present a different flavor, which is the mystery of the so-called "lifestyle".

Today, because "hip-hop" has become a huge industry in the world, and its status is still rising, it not only affects people's daily life goods, but also penetrates into high-end goods and brand-name fields, such as Heineken beer, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, American brand Gap and so on. At this time, there were many high-end goods in the "hip-hop world", and some hip-hop characters were too expensive for ordinary people to afford. For example, Reebok launched a limited edition of Sdot shoes at Easter, which set a sales record for the company and immediately sold them in Yi Bei for $250. This shows that "hip-hop products" are popular and upscale. If you add a collector's edition of the mobile phone, it will be even more incredible.

Hip-hop music spread from America to the whole world.

That is to say, in the past 20 years, when we talk about "hip-hop", although the name is the same, the essence is already very different. In the early years, "hip-hop" was the "poverty" of poor children in black communities, and they were full of grief and indignation at their tragic fate. But today, the so-called "hip-hop" has already become a popular fashion, even a customary habit, wearing loose but expensive clothes, wearing brand-name headscarves or sports hats, collecting sports shoes, and of course, mobile phones and headphones with digital photography. Today's "hip-hop characters" win by being handsome and cool. Perhaps after several years of continuous refining, they will become a unique "new york style"! In the past, hip-hop was a little red-browed and green-eyed, but today's hip-hop has become a cool brother and a hot girl. Times change so fast!

Therefore, the whole development history of "hip-hop industry" is actually a topic worthy of research in creative industries. "Hip-hop industry" is a process from scratch, from illegal to mainstream, from non-commodity to commercialization. It is the original style of marginal people, and finally it not only developed into a new mainstream, but even spread all over the world with the national conditions of the United States. There are too many tricks worthy of detailed reference. In any case, the godfather entrepreneur Simmons is definitely a legendary hero in the creative field in the 20th century. It is a miracle in the history of life industry that a lifestyle can affect a quarter of daily leisure consumption activities in the United States.