5 Background: What is Hip-Hop culture?

Hip-hop culture originally rooted in the Bronx, NY, has influence and is common amongst the PEERs community. Hip-hop can be defined as a complex culture that encompasses DJing, MCing, Graffiti art, and different dance styles¹⁰. In the early 1970s Hip-hop culture grew in popularity within the African American and Latinx community. As a result of financial and economic disparity amongst the African American, Latinx, and Caribbean immigrant communities, hip-hop became an outlet for people to share their experiences.

Hip-hop is a cultural movement that incorporates different forms of art. Hip-hop has shown to be multi-faceted and originally had influences on exclusively music, fashion, graffiti art, and dance. To this day, hip-hop has expanded into one of the world’s most prominent music genres and has significant cultural influences in fashion, media, music, art, athletics, education, etc. The cultural imprints of hip-hop have developed into further subcultures and can be found everywhere.