In the early 1970’s Irving J. Rein argued that technological advances allowed the popular arts to be more accessible than ever to the public, paving the way for rhetorical elements to be transferred to millions of people worldwide. Music, he argues, resides among these popular arts, as it resonates as one of the most persuasive of all arts due to its lyrical simplicity, repetitive nature, and ability to embed itself in our conscious and subconscious (Rein 4).Rein also argued that music, though it aims to please, leaves its audience defenseless to its persuasive and rhetorical elements. Furthermore, Rein believed that the popular arts were not in the hands of the Establishment and “exerted a steady pressure on a number of major governmental policies during the decade” (5).

    Concurrently, a new, not so popular art was in its fetal stages. Rap music was emerging as a new art form in the South Bronx. This new art form gave voice to “a generation that refused to be silenced by urban poverty” (Blow 1). Many people used the terms “hip hop” and “rap” as interchangeable words, but for our sake rap will be defined as “talking in rhyme to the rhythm of a beat,” while hip hop will be defined as “a culture, a way of life for a society of people who identify, love, and cherish rap, break dancing, DJing, and graffiti” (Blow 1). Rap music aimed to resist the hegemonic culture and “is a contemporary response to the conditions of joblessness, poverty, and disempowerment” (Smitherman 5). Rap is a musical outlet conveying the rhetoric of resistance for those in impoverished communities resisting the dominant culture on several fronts. The most obvious mode of resistance in rap is its lyrical content. Although the current state of rap music, a billion dollar industry, has downgraded the importance of lyricism in its genre relegating it below “catchy beats” and “hooks”, several non-mainstream, or “underground artist” uphold lyricism as the superior element. These rappers such as the duo Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, and Mos Def consistently include socially conscious lyrics in their music carrying on the tradition of rap pioneers like Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, and Rakim. The lyrical matter which these artists convey “fulfill[] the mission of the artist: ‘disturb the peace,” in other words resist the hegemonic culture (4). Furthermore, the use of African American English, or Ebonics, unites the hip hop community with a distinctive dialect which simultaneously defies the rules of “Standard English” whose rules are enforced by the very culture which the hip hop community is opposing (8).

    Although rap music appears to be an American musical genre which began in the 70's, its roots reach further back, to African culture before the days of slavery. Many elements of rap can be traced back to multiple indigenous cultural factions from Africa. For example, “rap music has redefined language and political discourse in the Black urban community and in marginalized African communities around the world,” (Dessaso 1) emulating the West African tradition of using music to serve a social function (Kopano 206). Furthermore, the ancient societies of Egypt used oratory to transmit cultural and spiritual values to the masses which they preferred over writing revealing one of many cultural differences which sparks “Americans” to question African-American’s intellectual ability(204-5). However, rap is more than just noise as Michael Dowdy argues that small hip hop shows which take place in local clubs satisfy Hannah Arendt’s conception of public spaces which allow for collective agency to empower the collective to “enact change, [] practice subversive action, and to speak out about injustice and current political issues” (Dowdy 75).