Knowledge

British hip hop is a genre of music, and a culture that covers a variety of styles of hip hop music made in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland (The United Kingdom). It is generally classified as one of a number of styles of urban music. British hip hop was originally influenced by the dub/toasting introduced to the United Kingdom by Jamaican immigrants in the 1960s’70s, who eventually developed uniquely influenced rapping (or speed-toasting) in order to match the rhythm of the ever-increasing pace and aggression of Jamaican-influenced dub in the UK and to describe street/gang violence, similar to that in the US. UK rap, or speed-toasting, has also been heavily influenced by US hip-hop. British hip hop, particularly that originating from London, was commercially superseded by grime, however, after a post-millennium boom period, the genre remains a hotbed of talent. In 2003, The Times described British hip hop’s broad ranging approach: “…’UK rap’ is a broad sonic church, encompassing anything made in Britain by musicians informed or inspired by hip-hop’s possibilities, whose music is a response to the same stimuli that gave birth to rap in New York in the mid-Seventies.”