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THIS THE PAGE WILL BE ABOUT THE WHOLE CULTURE OF HIP HOP!

RAP/MCing - The terms rap and hip hop are often used interchangeably and with little differentiation between them. Strictly speaking, rap is a misnomer, as it constitutes merely one component of the music. The other element is DJing - the art of manipulating records on a turntable in a way that transforms a segment of a song, usually an instrumental portion (or breakbeat) to provide a hip hop rhythm. Rapping (or MCing as it was originally known) is the spoken word accompaniment for the music. While rapping/MCing has become pre-eminent in the 90s, it was actually the art of DJing which came first, forging the foundation for the music and creating a definitive basis for the culture of hip hop.

B-BOYING/GIRLING- History can trace the development of breakdaning to the African martial arts form, capoeta, brought to America by slaves a century before. No one knows the founder of breakdancing but it was popularised by members of the Zulu Nation. B-boying consisted of diffrent systles that eventually converged through the late 70s. Up-rocking was a kind of non-contact mock martial art first seen in Brooklyn. Plus there were two imported West Coast styles - pop-locking (a mixture of strutting, robotics and moonwalking) and body-popping (developed on the West Coast by Boogaloo Sam).

GRAFFITI - This soent the most part of it's life going full steam, completely indeperndent of what was going on in hip hop. Graffiti had decorated urban trains in New York since the early 70s. Even though territorial wall markings were a fixture of New York's urbanenvironment in the 70s they simply grew in size and ambition, often bedecking whole tenement walls as well as subway trains. According to Fab Five Freddy, graffitis growth sprang from a quest for identity and recognition.

THE SNEAKER - An item of almost mythical importance to b-boys. They had to be old school even then. With plastic shell toe e.g. the shell-toed Adidas. Each kid had a sneaker etiquette, that you would never step on anyone's sneakers. Stepping on someone's sneakers could easily be a death sentence. You also had to keep your sneakers spotless.