RESEARCH: Genre

Rap music has been around for nearby 70 years. The breakthrough of rap started in the 1970's and even since then it was known for its controversy and crossing a lot of the boundaries that other music genres had already set.
It is said that the rap originals were founded from tribesmen in West Africa where they held "men and words" in high regards. When slaves where brought into what was known as as the "New World" the captures would combine beats that they had remembered alongside with different phrases. Coming up to the 1960's rap became known as a street art and the earlier songs were primarily negative thought and boastful tales about other rappers.

The genre of rap firstly grew up in Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York, were rap music was most influential to black teenagers and then began to grow into a wider audience. The Sugarhill Gang's song titled "Rappers Delight" was released in 1979, as is known as the first major rap single. The most recognisable artist of this day and age and people like Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Lil Wayne, Eminem to name a few. the topics that these artists tend to write about is the "life" of a certain individual or group, drugs, love, lust/desire. Most of these artist usually show a clear display of emotion, for example if the tone of the song is angry, the artist is likely to present this through their gestures and facial expressions.

Usually in the video the regarding costume for a rap artist tend to be casual clothing, nothing to characteristic but more subtle and loose , also wearing jewellery , as most common rap artists are known to use heavy chains and prominent rings. Today a lot of rap artists have another artist featuring in their tracks, for example if it's a male rapper, they may have a female singer to vocalise the chorus.

An example of this convention is the heavy chains in snoop dogs video 'drop it like its hot', the artist is seen wearing a clear display of jewellery, in this video we can see that artist ten to show pictures, or direct shots of themselves which convey emotion or meaning to the song.
Finally, the target audience for rap is not usually too specific but actually quite broad. Rappers Kanye West say that they target an audience between the ages of 14-25, while other artists claim they try to appeal to these of a similar age to themselves, so this will vary between artists.