Since its inception more than four decades ago, hip hop, an electrifying music, dance, and art movement, has profoundly influenced American and global popular culture. The stamp art features photographs taken by Cade Martin that depict four elements of hip hop:
Since its inception, the electrifying music, dance and artistic movement of hip-hop has profoundly influenced other areas of American and global popular culture. Emerging in the mid-1970s in African American and Caribbean American neighborhoods in New York City, teenagers developed hip-hop for neighborhood fun, storytelling and to speak out about social issues overlooked by mainstream society.
Over the next several decades, hip-hop grew into a global musical and cultural force. Not only are hip-hop artists found around the world, but each scene also brings its own contributions to the art form and tells its own local stories. Understanding the roots of hip-hop became a defining part of the culture itself, so much so that this knowledge is now widely known as hip-hop’s fifth element.
