A form of Popular Music emphasizing rhyming voices over musical instruments, as well as sampling, scratching and mixing by DJs. Early raps were frequently merely a sequence of boasts, or attempts to upstage the other MCs. In the eighties, however, rap became increasingly politicised, through the works of Public Enemy and others, and tended to chronicle the black urban experience. Gangsta rap may be seen in this context of subversion.
Some alternative rap has musically very little to do with hip hop and rap music.