Planning - History Of The Music Video - 80's Hip Hop Vs 90's Hip Hop

Hip hop music is genre of music that rose to popularity in the 80's. Hip Hop music is defined as having a rhythmic beat usually accompanied by rapping or rhythmic speech. The instrumentals are usually electronically generated.

Brooklyn

Hip hop music stemmed from Africa American culture especially from "block parties".  In major cities like New York the black population live in the rough areas such as Brooklyn. For a young black man during that time there was limited employment and little employment there was would have gone to white men.  A result of this led many black people into crime such as selling drugs, robbery and intimidation tactics. 

When these gangsters get together they would boast about their exploits and one form of doing this was by rhyming to a beat.

80's Hip Hop lyrics as sung by people like Curtis blow raped their new life as rich celebrities and less focused on violence and the life of a gangster.

This famous music video by MC Hammer showed how 80's hip hop music video were. The video was many focused on dancing to the beat of the music. The costumes are flamboyant and do not represent what the target audience (Young Black urban youths) would wear on a daily basis. Lyrically the artists talk about now he is successful the police cant keep him down anymore or mistreat him conveying that he has broke free of the poverty trap. There is also a lot of attractive young girls in the music video which would make people aspire to be him since he has essentially reached "end game" status.

This is an example of a 90's hip hop video. As you can see it is very different form an 80's video. the main difference is the video shows clips of how life was like in the "struggle" with clips of the police and people committing crime. The costumes are also different and more relatable to people who are listening to the music. There is less focus on dancing and more emphasis on the meaning of the lyrics. The budget for the video has also increased with more elaborate scenes and locations.