Comedy hip hop

Comedy hip hop or comedy rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that is comedic in nature, often incorporating satirical lyrics. While many examples of comedy hip hop could be considered a parody of the hip hop genre, in the case of artists who merely incorporate humor into their more serious, purist hip hop styles, such as Eminem, this is not necessarily the case.

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince could be the first artist credited with starting the comedy rap genre with songs such as "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble", "Parents Just Don't Understand", "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson" and "You Saw My Blinker". N.W.A. and Ice Cube's early albums were not as comedic and lighthearted as The Fresh Prince but did incorporate humor.

Before the darker themes that are characteristic of the Gangsta rap of the 1990s, comedy hip hop, with its lighter and more humorous style, came to prominence in the 1980s, carried by popular acts such as the Beastie Boys. Various influential comedy hip hop groups began in the late 1980s, such as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince Kid 'n Play Das EFX and Fu-Schnickens, and throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, rappers including Hopsin, Eminem, Jon Lajoie, Afroman, and The Lonely Island gained popularity. Rucka Rucka Ali is an artist who experiments with comedy hip hop while touching on social issues such as racism, as in his song, "I Can Do Whatever I'm White". "Weird Al" Yankovic has made entries to this music genre, along with Nerdcore. "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis is also a well known song of comedy hip hop. While few rappers make comedy hip hop their focus such as Lil Dicky, the genre maintains a substantial loyal following.

Hip hop

Hip hop or hip-hop is a sub-cultural movement that formed during the early 1970s by African-American and Puerto Rican youths residing in the South Bronx in New York City. It became popular outside of the African-American community in the late 1980s and by the 2000s became the most listened-to musical genre in the world. It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: rap music (oral), turntablism or DJing (aural), b-boying (physical) and graffiti art (visual). Even while it continues to develop globally in myriad styles, these four foundational elements provide coherence to hip hop culture. The term is often used in a restrictive fashion as synonymous only with the oral practice of rap music.

The origin of the hip hop culture stems from the block parties of the Ghetto Brothers, when they plugged in the amplifiers for their instruments and speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used music to break down racial barriers, and from DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc mixed samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the "father" of hip hop. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or "Emceein", DJing or "Deejayin", B-boying and graffiti writing or "Aerosol Writin".