Stylistic origins Hip hop music | Cultural origins 1990s, Greece | |
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Typical instruments Turntables, sampler, drum machine, often piano or guitar | ||
Low bap manifesto
Low Bap is a subgenre of the Greek hip hop music scene that emerged in the mid-1990s as the sound of the prominent Greek hip hop group Active Member. It is characterized by slower tempo and rapping than usual, often combined with lyrics with sociopolitical content. The words "Low Bap" do not have a specific meaning; they merely represent a perspective on life, society and politics that people in the movement have. The Low Bap movement has been expanded, so that today it includes bookstores, youth centers and specialized magazines. Cinematic attempts, concerts, and festivals have also taken place in an effort to broaden the scope of the movement, and introduce new bands to the genre's range of followers.
Contents
Origin
In June 1992, during a live performance of Public Enemy in Nikaia, B.D. Foxmoor and MCD met each other and created one of the first Greek hip hop groups, Active Member. In 1995, hip hop music was not well known in Greece. Active Member managed to attract great discographic companies and signed up with the consortium Warner (Warner Music Group). Some months later, the third disc of Active Member was produced, under the name To Megalo Kolpo (The Great Wangle), and became widely known. On that album, Active Member decided to rename hip hop as they had taken it in, thus naming it Low Bap.
Low Bap Manifesto
“Support your word with your life and vice versa”, or to make it short “you walk, you talk”: this is the path that leads to Low Bap. It is the new base of all that comprehend, think, feel, act and resist. In order for someone to understand the creation and evolution of this movement up to now, one should incorporate it in the revolutionary – in our days – procedure of self-respect. Above all, Low Bap preserves its reverence in the order of Life and it is a cultural revolution with selected aims and hard work. Since 1993, it is constantly present, with tens of records, books, magazines, shows, festivals, discussions, thousands of hours studio time, thousands of lyrics, and friends...we gathered together in this website the "tools" of our course. Here is the moment of "census", promise, reorganising, love, encounter and truth.
All those that may come by, know what should be done. Each one in one’s way. Thus, Low Bap will proudly take all the credit and burden for the next step, that will lead to the fair ones. It will continue bothering history and it will believe even deeper in the dream. Noone chose those of us who do Low Bap, we chose it ourselves. Therefore, we owe it to us, to those that lost courage, to those that will come. Now, it’s the finest hour. So, let’s go...
Place
The Low Bap scene had its beginnings in Perama, an industrial suburb of Pireaus.
