I found it interesting throughout my research for the upcoming presentation that hip-hop has really changed from what it was ten or even twenty years ago. In my opinion, thought his may sound somewhat strange, hip-hop takes form of the current mainstream culture. Take a look at the Rapper's Delight "music video" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6gD_CwF5YM). Never would you see any artists today (Unless doing so provocatively) dress or dance like the people in the video. Why? Because hip hop today takes on a different form. However, what's interesting is the question: What form does it really take today? We can classify each time period through a certain number of mainstream and subcultures before (e.g. Hippies in the 60's), but today almost every subculture and mainstream culture thrives, whether it be skateboarders, hippies, etc, which leads to hip-hop having many forms. Here are some examples:
1) Artists like Lil Wayne are involving themselves in the skateboarding culture (http://www.sohh.com/img/lil-wayne-skateboard-2011-10-22-300x300.jpg), and though horrible, Lil Wayne has even involved himself with the electric guitar
2) Artists like B.O.B and Drake have integrated different types of music before unknown to the hip-hop culture, whether it be electric disco, featuring pop stars (e.g. Rihanna, Taylor Swift, etc.), or both singing and rapping.
3) Hip-Hop has used shoes as one of its main trending styles; what's interesting is that while going through my closet, I found this pair of shoes: http://5.kicksonfire.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/nike-dunk-high-pro-sb-de-la-soul-baroque-brown-altitude-green-1.jpg. I will bring these on Tuesday during the presentation, but the fact that a hip-hop artist group designed a skateboarding pair of shoes was really intriguing to me, as if they purposely did that to reel in more audience from different backgrounds.
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