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80-423: The Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance is an honor presented to recording artists for quality rap performances. It was first presented at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards in 1989 and again at the 32nd Annual Grammy Awards in 1990, after which point the award was split into two categories: Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group . These two categories were combined again in 2012 as

160-551: A Jamaican immigrant, started delivering simple raps at his parties, which some claim were inspired by the Jamaican tradition of toasting . However, Kool Herc himself denies this link (in the 1984 book Hip Hop ), saying, "Jamaican toasting? Naw, naw. No connection there. I couldn't play reggae in the Bronx. People wouldn't accept it. The inspiration for rap is James Brown and the album Hustler's Convention ". Herc also suggests he

240-419: A Move" appeared on Young MC's debut album Stone Cold Rhymin' . Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the song as "unabashed catchy" due to its "skittish, rhythmic guitar riff, looped beats", backing vocals, and "funny" rhymes. The award was presented to Young MC. In 2010, Joshua Ostroff of Spinner included Young MC's win on his list of "The Grammy Awards' Biggest Mistakes", asserting that "Bust

320-535: A Move" was merely a "fun little hip-pop song" while "Fight the Power" was a "revelatory single that still stands tall as one of music's greatest (and funkiest) political statements and perhaps hip-hop's finest moment". Rapping Rapping (also rhyming , flowing , spitting , emceeing , or MCing ) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates " rhyme , rhythmic speech, and [commonly] street vernacular ". It

400-463: A cappella , meaning without accompaniment of any sort. When a rap or hip-hop artist is creating a song, "track", or record, done primarily in a production studio, most frequently a producer provides the beat(s) for the MC to flow over. Stylistically, rap occupies a gray area between speech, prose, poetry, and singing . The word, which predates the musical form, originally meant "to lightly strike", and

480-424: A command". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives a date of 1541 for the first recorded use of the word with the meaning "to utter (esp. an oath) sharply, vigorously, or suddenly". Wentworth and Flexner 's Dictionary of American Slang gives the meaning "to speak to, recognize, or acknowledge acquaintance with someone", dated 1932, and a later meaning of "to converse, esp. in an open and frank manner". It

560-487: A few weeks before the Sugarhill Gang in 1979. In another interview Curtis said: "There was rapping in the Bronx and the cats there had been doing it for a while...Fatback certainly didn't invent rap or anything. I was just interested in it and I guess years later we were the first to record it. At the time you could already see cats rapping everywhere in the streets and doing stuff." With the decline of disco in

640-501: A few" as artists who exemplify this progression. Kool Moe Dee adds, "in 2002 Eminem created the song that got the first Oscar in Hip-Hop history [Lose Yourself] ... and I would have to say that his flow is the most dominant right now (2003)". There are many different styles of flow, with different terminology used by different people – stic.man of Dead Prez uses the following terms – Alternatively, music scholar Adam Krims uses

720-604: A jazz poet/musician, has been cited as an influence on rappers such as Chuck D and KRS-One . Scott-Heron himself was influenced by Melvin Van Peebles , whose first album was 1968's Brer Soul . Van Peebles describes his vocal style as "the old Southern style", which was influenced by singers he had heard growing up in South Chicago . Van Peebles also said that he was influenced by older forms of African-American music : "... people like Blind Lemon Jefferson and

800-479: A musical style for another decade. Rap was used to describe talking on records as early as 1970 on Isaac Hayes ' album ...To Be Continued with the track name "Monologue: Ike's Rap I". Hayes' "husky-voiced sexy spoken 'raps' became key components in his signature sound". Del the Funky Homosapien similarly states that rap was used to refer to talking in a stylistic manner in the early 1970s: "I

880-518: A pause or emphasis on words in certain places.", and Aesop Rock says, "I have a system of maybe 10 little symbols that I use on paper that tell me to do something when I'm recording." Hip-hop scholars also make use of the same flow diagrams: the books How to Rap and How to Rap 2 use the diagrams to explain rap's triplets, flams, rests, rhyme schemes, runs of rhyme, and breaking rhyme patterns, among other techniques. Similar systems are used by PhD musicologists Adam Krims in his book Rap Music and

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960-465: A rapper to master, and a must for any MC. An MC with poor breath control cannot deliver difficult verses without making unintentional pauses. Raps are sometimes delivered with melody. West Coast rapper Egyptian Lover was the first notable MC to deliver "sing-raps". Popular rappers such as 50 Cent and Ja Rule add a slight melody to their otherwise purely percussive raps whereas some rappers such as Cee-Lo Green are able to harmonize their raps with

1040-493: A result of a restructure of Grammy categories, and the reinstated Award for Best Rap Performance was presented at the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012. The restructuring was the consequence of the Recording Academy's wish to decrease the number of categories and awards and to eliminate distinctions between solo and duo or group performances. The Grammy Awards , an annual ceremony established in 1958, and originally called

1120-412: A shift in the way MCs rhymed: "Up until Rakim, everybody who you heard rhyme, the last word in the sentence was the rhyming [word], the connection word. Then Rakim showed us that you could put rhymes within a rhyme ... now here comes Big Daddy Kane — instead of going three words, he's going multiple". How to Rap explains that "rhyme is often thought to be the most important factor in rap writing ... rhyme

1200-414: A significant role in expressing social and political issues, addressing topics such as racism, poverty, and political oppression. By the 21st century, rap had become a global phenomenon, influencing music, fashion, and culture worldwide. The English verb rap has various meanings; these include "to strike, especially with a quick, smart, or light blow", as well "to utter sharply or vigorously: to rap out

1280-401: A striking resemblance to the evolution of jazz both stylistically and formally". Boxer Muhammad Ali anticipated elements of rap, often using rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, both for when he was trash talking in boxing and as political poetry for his activism outside of boxing, paving the way for The Last Poets in 1968, Gil Scott-Heron in 1970, and the emergence of rap music in

1360-512: Is a primary ingredient of hip-hop music , and so commonly associated with the genre that it is sometimes called "rap music". Precursors to modern rap music include the West African griot tradition, certain vocal styles of blues and jazz , an African-American insult game called playing the dozens (see Battle rap and Diss ), and 1960s African-American poetry. Stemming from the hip-hop cultural movement , rap music originated in

1440-671: Is commonly referred to as the "Migos Flow" (a term that is contentious within the hip-hop community). Mitchell Ohriner in "Flow: The Rhythmic Voice in Rap Music" describes seven "groove classes" consisting of archetypal sixteen-step accent patterns generated by grouping notes in clusters of two and/or three. These groove classes are further distinguished from one another as "duple" and "nonduple". Groove classes without internal repetition can occur in any of sixteen rhythmic rotations, whereas groove classes with internal repetition have fewer meaningful rotations. The standard form of rap notation

1520-532: Is now used to describe quick speech or repartee. The word has been used in the English language since the 16th century. In the 1960s the word became a slang term meaning "to converse" in African American vernacular , and very soon after that came to denote the musical style. The word "rap" is so closely associated with hip-hop music that many writers use the terms interchangeably. Rap music has played

1600-468: Is still the rhyme foundation all emcees are building on". Artists and critics often credit Rakim with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows near the beginning of hip hop's new school – Kool Moe Dee says, "any emcee that came after 1986 had to study Rakim just to know what to be able to do. Rakim, in 1986, gave us flow and that was the rhyme style from 1986 to 1994. From that point on, anybody emceeing

1680-459: Is the flow diagram, where rappers line-up their lyrics underneath "beat numbers". Different rappers have slightly different forms of flow diagram that they use: Del the Funky Homosapien says, "I'm just writing out the rhythm of the flow, basically. Even if it's just slashes to represent the beats, that's enough to give me a visual path.", Vinnie Paz states, "I've created my own sort of writing technique, like little marks and asterisks to show like

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1760-416: Is these meanings from which the musical form of rapping derives, and this definition may be from a shortening of repartee . A rapper refers to a performer who "raps". By the late 1960s, when Hubert G. Brown changed his name to H. Rap Brown , rap was a slang term referring to an oration or speech, such as was common among the "hip" crowd in the protest movements, but it did not come to be associated with

1840-527: Is usually performed over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The components of rap include "content" (what is being said, e.g., lyrics ), "flow" ( rhythm , rhyme ), and "delivery" ( cadence , tone ). Rap differs from spoken-word poetry in that it is usually performed off-time to musical accompaniment. It also differs from singing , which varies in pitch and does not always include words . Because they do not rely on pitch inflection, some rap artists may play with timbre or other vocal qualities. Rap

1920-534: Is what gives rap lyrics their musicality. Many of the rhythmic techniques used in rapping come from percussive techniques and many rappers compare themselves to percussionists . How to Rap 2 identifies all the rhythmic techniques used in rapping such as triplets , flams , 16th notes , 32nd notes , syncopation , extensive use of rests , and rhythmic techniques unique to rapping such as West Coast "lazy tails", coined by Shock G . Rapping has also been done in various time signatures , such as 3/4 time . Since

2000-538: The Billboard Hot 100 and number 4 on the Billboard Hot R&;B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It was later sampled by Will Smith in his 1999 song of the same name , featuring Kool Moe Dee (along with Dru Hill ). It was recorded for the soundtrack to the film Wild Wild West . The music video features Kool Moe Dee in a western style town with snow on the ground and with back up dancers. The video

2080-600: The 2000s , rapping has evolved into a style of rap that spills over the boundaries of the beat, closely resembling spoken English. Rappers like MF Doom and Eminem have exhibited this style, and since then, rapping has been difficult to notate. The American hip-hop group Crime Mob exhibited a new rap flow in songs such as " Knuck If You Buck ", heavily dependent on triplets. Rappers including Drake , Kanye West , Rick Ross , Young Jeezy and more have included this influence in their music. In 2014, an American hip-hop collective from Atlanta , Migos , popularized this flow, and

2160-468: The acronym 's expansion may be considered evidence for its ubiquity: the full term "Master of Ceremonies" is very rarely used in the hip-hop scene. This confusion prompted the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest to include this statement in the liner notes to their 1993 album Midnight Marauders : Wild Wild West (Kool Moe Dee song) In the United States, the single peaked at number 62 on

2240-551: The album of the same name ), Kool Moe Dee for " Wild Wild West ", LL Cool J for " Going Back to Cali ", and Salt-n-Pepa (the duo consisting of Cheryl James and Sandra Denton ) for " Push It ". The duo known as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince consisted of DJ Jazzy Jeff (birth name Jeffrey Townes) and actor Will Smith, whose nickname also appeared in the American television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , in which he starred. "Parents Just Don't Understand" appeared on

2320-470: The griots of West Africans were delivering stories rhythmically , over drums and sparse instrumentation. Such resemblances have been noted by many modern artists, modern day "griots", spoken word artists, mainstream news sources, and academics. Rap lyrics and music are part of the "Black rhetorical continuum", continuing past traditions of expanding upon them through "creative use of language and rhetorical styles and strategies". Blues , rooted in

2400-597: The work songs and spirituals of slavery , was first played by black Americans around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation . This way of preaching, unique to African-Americans, called the Black sermonic tradition influenced singers and musicians such as 1940s African-American gospel group The Jubalaires . The Jubalaire's songs "The Preacher and the Bear" (1941) and "Noah" (1946) are precursors to

2480-500: The '90s. Music scholar Adam Krims says, "the flow of MCs is one of the profoundest changes that separates out new-sounding from older-sounding music ... it is widely recognized and remarked that rhythmic styles of many commercially successful MCs since roughly the beginning of the 1990s have progressively become faster and more 'complex'". He cites "members of the Wu-Tang Clan , Nas , AZ , Big Pun , and Ras Kass , just to name

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2560-513: The 1970s. An editor of the newspaper, The Fayetteville Observer interviewed Bill Curtis of the disco-funk music group the Fatback Band in 2020. Curtis noted that when he moved to the Bronx in the 1970s he heard people rapping over scratched records throughout the neighborhoods and radio DJs were rapping before the genre was released on retail recordings. The Fatback Band released the first rap recording, " King Tim III (Personality Jock) ",

2640-529: The 2010s as "rap", the source came from Manhattan. Pete DJ Jones said the first person he heard rap was DJ Hollywood , a Harlem (not Bronx) native who was the house DJ at the Apollo Theater . Kurtis Blow also said the first person he heard rhyme was DJ Hollywood. In a 2014 interview, Hollywood said: "I used to like the way Frankie Crocker would ride a track, but he wasn't syncopated to the track though. I liked [WWRL DJ] Hank Spann too, but he wasn't on

2720-518: The African-American community were items like schoolyard chants and taunts, clapping games , jump-rope rhymes , some with unwritten folk histories going back hundreds of years across many nationalities. Sometimes these items contain racially offensive lyrics. In his narration between the tracks on George Russell 's 1958 jazz album New York, N.Y. , the singer Jon Hendricks recorded something close to modern rap, since it all rhymed and

2800-444: The African-American community—"to discuss or debate informally." The early rapping of hip-hop developed out of DJ and master of ceremonies ' announcements made over the microphone at parties, and later into more complex raps. Grandmaster Caz stated: "The microphone was just used for making announcements, like when the next party was gonna be, or people's moms would come to the party looking for them, and you have to announce it on

2880-421: The Bronx , New York City , in the early 1970s and became part of popular music later that decade. Rapping developed from the announcements made over the microphone at parties by DJs and MCs , evolving into more complex lyrical performances. Rap is usually delivered over a beat , typically provided by a DJ , turntablist , or beatboxer when performing live. Much less commonly a rapper can decide to perform

2960-485: The Bronx hip hop set that until then was composed of DJing and b-boying (or beatboxing ), with traditional "shout out" style rapping. The style that Hollywood created and his partner introduced to the hip hop set quickly became the standard. Before that time, most MC rhymes, based on radio DJs, consisted of short patters that were disconnected thematically; they were separate unto themselves. But by using song lyrics, Hollywood gave his rhyme an inherent flow and theme. This

3040-452: The Funky Homosapien , Tech N9ne , People Under the Stairs , Twista , B-Real , Mr Lif , 2Mex , and Cage . MCs stay on beat by stressing syllables in time to the four beats of the musical backdrop. Poetry scholar Derek Attridge describes how this works in his book Poetic Rhythm – "rap lyrics are written to be performed to an accompaniment that emphasizes the metrical structure of

3120-562: The Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position". The award goes to the artist. The producer, engineer, and songwriter can apply for a Winner's Certificate. The first award for Best Rap Performance

3200-581: The Poetics of Identity and Kyle Adams in his academic work on flow. Because rap revolves around a strong 4/4 beat, with certain syllables said in time to the beat, all the notational systems have a similar structure: they all have the same 4 beat numbers at the top of the diagram, so that syllables can be written in-line with the beat numbers. This allows devices such as rests, "lazy tails", flams, and other rhythmic techniques to be shown, as well as illustrating where different rhyming words fall in relation to

3280-405: The beat. The Midwestern group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony was one of the first groups to achieve nationwide recognition for using the fast-paced, melodic and harmonic raps that are also practiced by Do or Die , another Midwestern group. Another rapper that harmonized his rhymes was Nate Dogg , a rapper part of the group 213. Rakim experimented not only with following the beat, but also with complementing

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3360-534: The book How to Rap breaks flow down into rhyme, rhyme schemes , and rhythm (also known as cadence ). 'Flow' is also sometimes used to refer to elements of the delivery ( pitch , timbre , volume ) as well, though often a distinction is made between the flow and the delivery. Staying on the beat is central to rap's flow – many MCs note the importance of staying on-beat in How to Rap including Sean Price , Mighty Casey, Zion I , Vinnie Paz , Fredro Starr , Del

3440-408: The book How to Rap , where diagrams are used to show how the lyrics line up with the beat – "stressing a syllable on each of the four beats gives the lyrics the same underlying rhythmic pulse as the music and keeps them in rhythm ... other syllables in the song may still be stressed, but the ones that fall in time with the four beats of a bar are the only ones that need to be emphasized in order to keep

3520-422: The category in 2012, American rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West won the award two consecutive times; the two rappers were surpassed in terms of wins by fellow American rapper Kendrick Lamar , who holds the record with six awards. American rapper Megan Thee Stallion and American singer-songwriter Beyoncé became the first female artists to win the category with " Savage (Remix) ". The Best Rap Performance category

3600-551: The category was split into the categories Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Recognizing that both categories were continuing to receive numerous entries, the Best Rap Album recognition was established for the 38th Grammy Awards in 1996—the inaugural award was presented to Naughty by Nature for Poverty's Paradise . In 2003, the Best Rap Solo Performance category

3680-476: The crowd'. Some use this word interchangeably with the term rapper , while for others the term denotes a superior level of skill and connection to the wider culture. MC can often be used as a term of distinction; referring to an artist with good performance skills. As Kool G Rap notes, "masters of ceremony, where the word 'M.C.' comes from, means just keeping the party alive" [sic] . Many people in hip hop including DJ Premier and KRS-One feel that James Brown

3760-508: The duo's 1988 album He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper . "Going Back to Cali" appeared on the soundtrack to the film Less than Zero as well as LL Cool J's 1989 studio album Walking with a Panther . Kool Moe Dee's "Wild Wild West" and Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It" appeared on the albums How Ya Like Me Now and Hot, Cool & Vicious , respectively. Rap and heavy metal categories were introduced

3840-435: The early 1980s rap became a new form of expression. Rap arose from musical experimentation with rhyming, rhythmic speech. Rap was a departure from disco. Sherley Anne Williams refers to the development of rap as "anti-Disco" in style and means of reproduction. The early productions of Rap after Disco sought a more simplified manner of producing the tracks they were to sing over. Williams explains how Rap composers and DJ's opposed

3920-569: The field hollers. I was also influenced by spoken word song styles from Germany that I encountered when I lived in France." During the mid-20th century, the musical culture of the Caribbean was constantly influenced by the concurrent changes in American music . As early as 1956, deejays were toasting over dubbed Jamaican beats. It was called "rap", expanding the word's earlier meaning in

4000-532: The following statement: "If they don't want us, we don't want them." Adding to the controversy surrounding the category, some members of the rap community believed artists such as Big Daddy Kane , KRS-One , and N.W.A (whose debut album Straight Outta Compton "launched gangsta rap ") were overlooked. Awards were presented to Jeff and Smith at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. While Smith

4080-400: The following terms – MCs use many different rhyming techniques, including complex rhyme schemes, as Adam Krims points out – "the complexity ... involves multiple rhymes in the same rhyme complex (i.e. section with consistently rhyming words), internal rhymes , [and] offbeat rhymes". There is also widespread use of multisyllabic rhymes . It has been noted that rap's use of rhyme is some of

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4160-423: The genre of rap music. The Jubalaires and other African-American singing groups during the blues, jazz, and gospel era are examples of the origins and development of rap music. Grammy-winning blues musician/historian Elijah Wald and others have argued that the blues were being rapped as early as the 1920s. Wald went so far as to call hip hop "the living blues". A notable recorded example of rapping in blues

4240-440: The heavily orchestrated and ritzy multi-tracks of Disco for "break beats" which were created from compiling different records from numerous genres and did not require the equipment from professional recording studios . Professional studios were not necessary therefore opening the production of rap to the youth who as Williams explains felt "locked out" because of the capital needed to produce Disco records. More directly related to

4320-511: The late 1970s, the term emcee, MC or M.C., derived from " master of ceremonies ", became an alternative title for a rapper, and for their role within hip-hop music and culture. An MC uses rhyming verses, pre-written or ad lib (' freestyled '), to introduce the DJ with whom they work, to keep the crowd entertained or to glorify themselves. As hip hop progressed, the title MC acquired backronyms such as 'mike chanter' 'microphone controller', 'microphone checker', 'music commentator', and one who 'moves

4400-423: The lyrics in time with the music". In rap terminology, 16-bars is the amount of time that rappers are generally given to perform a guest verse on another artist's song; one bar is typically equal to four beats of music. Old school flows were relatively basic and used only few syllables per bar, simple rhythmic patterns, and basic rhyming techniques and rhyme schemes. Melle Mel is cited as an MC who epitomizes

4480-440: The mic. Different DJs started embellishing what they were saying. I would make an announcement this way, and somebody would hear that and they add a little bit to it. I'd hear it again and take it a little step further 'til it turned from lines to sentences to paragraphs to verses to rhymes." One of the first rappers at the beginning of the hip hop period, at the end of the 1970s, was also hip hop's first DJ , DJ Kool Herc . Herc,

4560-501: The military ( United States Navy ). It was within the lyrics of a rap song called " This Wall " that Hammer first identified himself as M.C. Hammer and later marketed it on his debut album Feel My Power . The term MC has also been used in the genre of grime music to refer to a rapid style of rapping. Grime artist JME released an album titled Grime MC in 2019 which peaked at 29 on the UK Albums Chart . Uncertainty over

4640-402: The most advanced in all forms of poetry – music scholar Adam Bradley notes, "rap rhymes so much and with such variety that it is now the largest and richest contemporary archive of rhymed words. It has done more than any other art form in recent history to expand rhyme's formal range and expressive possibilities". In the book How to Rap , Masta Ace explains how Rakim and Big Daddy Kane caused

4720-402: The music. To successfully deliver a rap, a rapper must also develop vocal presence, enunciation , and breath control . Vocal presence is the distinctiveness of a rapper's voice on record. Enunciation is essential to a flowing rap; some rappers choose also to exaggerate it for comic and artistic effect. Breath control, taking in air without interrupting one's delivery, is an important skill for

4800-399: The old school flow – Kool Moe Dee says, "from 1970 to 1978 we rhymed one way [then] Melle Mel, in 1978, gave us the new cadence we would use from 1978 to 1986". He's the first emcee to explode in a new rhyme cadence, and change the way every emcee rhymed forever. Rakim, The Notorious B.I.G. , and Eminem have flipped the flow, but Melle Mel's downbeat on the two, four, kick to snare cadence

4880-587: The one. Guys back then weren't concerned with being musical. I wanted to flow with the record". And in 1975, he ushered in what became known as the "hip hop" style by rhyming syncopated to the beat of an existing record uninterruptedly for nearly a minute. He adapted the lyrics of Isaac Hayes ' "Good Love 6-9969" and rhymed it to the breakdown part of "Love Is the Message". His partner Kevin Smith, better known as Lovebug Starski , took this new style and introduced it to

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4960-410: The same time" and Allmusic writes, "rhymers like PE 's Chuck D , Big Daddy Kane , KRS-One , and Rakim basically invented the complex wordplay and lyrical kung-fu of later hip-hop". The golden age is considered to have ended around 1993–94, marking the end of rap lyricism's most innovative period. "Flow" is defined as "the rhythms and rhymes" of a hip-hop song's lyrics and how they interact –

5040-435: The same year (along with Best Bluegrass Album ), but, according to the show's producers, time constraints prevented both categories from being televised. Nominee Kool Moe Dee performed during the ceremony, but the rap award was presented during the "usually fast-paced pre-televised ceremony". DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith led a boycott of the ceremony and were joined by fellow nominees LL Cool J and Salt-n-Pepa. Salt-n-Pepa issued

5120-501: The song's melody with his own voice, making his flow sound like that of an instrument (a saxophone in particular). The ability to rap quickly and clearly is sometimes regarded as an important sign of skill. In certain hip-hop subgenres such as chopped and screwed , slow-paced rapping is often considered optimal. The current record for fastest rapper is held by Spanish rapper Domingo Edjang Moreno, known by his alias Chojin, who rapped 921 syllables in one minute on December 23, 2008. In

5200-399: The verse". He says rap lyrics are made up of, "lines with four stressed beats, separated by other syllables that may vary in number and may include other stressed syllables. The strong beat of the accompaniment coincides with the stressed beats of the verse, and the rapper organizes the rhythms of the intervening syllables to provide variety and surprise". The same technique is also noted in

5280-468: The word". Kool Moe Dee states that Biggie introduced a newer flow which "dominated from 1994 to 2002", and also says that Method Man was "one of the emcees from the early to mid-'90s that ushered in the era of flow ... Rakim invented it, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, and Kool G Rap expanded it, but Biggie and Method Man made flow the single most important aspect of an emcee's game". He also cites Craig Mack as an artist who contributed to developing flow in

5360-701: Was absent from the ceremony, Jeff was present to accept his award. In 2004, Serena Kappes of People magazine ranked Smith's ceremony boycott number eight on its list of Top 10 Grammy Moments. Jeff and Smith were also recognized by the American Music Awards in 1989 with awards for Favorite Rap Artists and Favorite Rap Album, and "Parent's Just Don't Understand" also earned the duo the first MTV Video Music Award for Best Rap Video . Smith later earned Best Rap Solo Performance awards in 1998 for " Men in Black " and 1999 for " Gettin' Jiggy wit It ", and

5440-453: Was born in '72 ... back then what rapping meant, basically, was you trying to convey something—you're trying to convince somebody. That's what rapping is, it's in the way you talk." Rap is sometimes said to be an acronym for ' R hythm A nd P oetry', though this is not the origin of the word and so may be a backronym . Similarities to rapping can be observed in West African chanting folk traditions. Centuries before hip-hop music existed,

5520-708: Was delivered in a hip, rhythm-conscious manner. Art forms such as spoken word jazz poetry and comedy records had an influence on the first rappers. Coke La Rock , often credited as hip-hop's first MC cites the Last Poets among his influences, as well as comedians such as Wild Man Steve and Richard Pryor . Comedian Rudy Ray Moore released under the counter albums in the 1960s and 1970s such as This Pussy Belongs to Me (1970), which contained "raunchy, sexually explicit rhymes that often had to do with pimps, prostitutes, players, and hustlers", and which later led to him being called "The Godfather of Rap". Gil Scott-Heron ,

5600-558: Was divided into separate recognitions for Female and Male Rap Solo Performances . The categories remained separated by gender until 2005 when they were combined into the genderless category originally known as Best Rap Solo Performance. Additional rap categories include Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song , established in 2002 and 2004 , respectively. For the 31st Grammy Awards (1989), Best Rap Performance nominees included DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for "Parents Just Don't Understand", J. J. Fad for "Supersonic" (from

5680-456: Was first presented at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards in 1989. NARAS President Mike Green said in Billboard that the music genre has "matured into several kinds of music, with several kinds of artists doing it". Diane Theriot, a representative of the awards department for the academy, recalled being "inundated with eligible rap entries during the first few years of having the category". In 1991,

5760-400: Was forced to focus on their flow". Kool Moe Dee explains that before Rakim, the term 'flow' was not widely used – "Rakim is basically the inventor of flow. We were not even using the word flow until Rakim came along. It was called rhyming, it was called cadence, but it wasn't called flow. Rakim created flow!" He adds that while Rakim upgraded and popularized the focus on flow, "he didn't invent

5840-429: Was nominated again in 2000 for " Wild Wild West ". Nominees for the 32nd Annual Grammy Awards included De La Soul for " Me Myself and I ", DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for " I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson ", Public Enemy for " Fight the Power ", Tone Lōc for " Funky Cold Medina ", and Young MC for " Bust a Move ". "Me Myself and I" appears on De La Soul's studio album 3 Feet High and Rising and in 2008

5920-481: Was not on lyrical technique, but simply on good times", one notable exception being Melle Mel , who set the way for future rappers through his socio-political content and creative wordplay. Golden age hip hop (the mid-1980s to early '90s) was the time period where hip-hop lyricism went through its most drastic transformation – writer William Jelani Cobb says "in these golden years, a critical mass of mic prodigies were literally creating themselves and their art form at

6000-414: Was presented to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (the vocal duo consisting of DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith ) for " Parents Just Don't Understand ". The ceremony was not without controversy; nominees Jeff and Smith led a boycott in protest of the awards presentation not being televised, and some members of the rap community felt that more qualified artists were overlooked. After the reintroduction of

6080-541: Was quickly noticed, and the style spread. By the end of the 1970s, artists such as Kurtis Blow and the Sugarhill Gang were starting to receive radio airplay and make an impact far outside of New York City, on a national scale. Blondie 's 1981 single, " Rapture ", was one of the first songs featuring rap to top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Old school rap (1979–84) was "easily identified by its relatively simple raps" according to AllMusic , "the emphasis

6160-875: Was ranked number 46 on VH1 's list of the 100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs Ever!!! "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson", written by the duo along with Pete Harris, appears on DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's third album And in This Corner... . "Fight the Power" appeared on the 1988 soundtrack for the film Do the Right Thing and later on Public Enemy's third studio album Fear of a Black Planet (1990). The song ranked number one on VH1's aforementioned list, number 40 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list, and number 322 on Rolling Stone ' s 2004 list of " The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time ". "Funky Cold Medina", written by Young MC, Michael L. Ross and Matt Dike , first appeared on Tone Lōc's debut album Lōc-ed After Dark . "Bust

6240-436: Was the 1950 song "Gotta Let You Go" by Joe Hill Louis . Jazz , which developed from the blues and other African-American and European musical traditions and originated around the beginning of the 20th century, has also influenced hip hop and has been cited as a precursor of hip hop. Not just jazz music and lyrics but also jazz poetry . According to John Sobol, the jazz musician and poet who wrote Digitopia Blues , rap "bears

6320-481: Was the first MC. James Brown had the lyrics, moves, and soul that greatly influenced a lot of rappers in hip hop, and arguably even started the first MC rhyme. For some rappers, there was a distinction to the term, such as for MC Hammer who acquired the nickname "MC" for being a "Master of Ceremonies" which he used when he began performing at various clubs while on the road with the Oakland As and eventually in

6400-456: Was too young while in Jamaica to get into sound system parties: "I couldn't get in. Couldn't get in. I was ten, eleven years old," and that while in Jamaica, he was listening to James Brown: "I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist was James Brown. That's who inspired me. A lot of the records I played were by James Brown." However, in terms of what was identified in

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