The term hip-hop refers to urban youth culture in America. Hip-hop is manifested in such cultural productions as graffiti art, break dancing, styles of dress (e.g., baggy pants, sneakers, Malcolm X caps, appropriately worn backwards), love of b-ball (basketball), and so forth. Although the Hip Hop Nation is predominantly Black, Latinos comprise a significant minority within this nation. Three different New-York artists have been credited with coining the term hip-hop (which dates back to the 1970s): Busy Bee Starski, DJ Hollywood, and DJ Afrika Bambaataa (founder of the Zulu Nation in New York). It is uncertain which of the three is the originator of the term, but according to Kool DJ Here, the acknowledged father of hip-hop, "only these three could argue it." Fernando indicates that the term was given broad popular exposure by "Rapper's Delight," the first commercially successful rap song, which was released by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979." The song featured the lyrics: "With a hip, hop, the hipit, the hipidipit, hip, hip, hopit, you don't stop" (Smitherman, 1997:13). 
    Rap music and rappers-such as Treach of Naughty by Nature, Ice Cube (a.k.a. Cube), formerly of NWA (Niggas Wit Attitude), P.E. (Public Enemy), Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, Yo-Yo, Kam, 2Pac - and others are the artistic representatives of the Hip-Hop Nation. 
     Through their bold and talented productions, they are fulfilling the mission of the artist: "disturb the peace." Of course, the United States Ghetto (USG) is a hotbed of unrest, dispossession, and powerlessness; so, for African Americans living on the margins, for this "underclass," there is no "peace." What is being disturbed is the peace of middle-class White and Black America (Smitherman,1997:13). 

 Rap 

    Rap music traces its roots to centuries-old African, Puerto Rico and Jamaican musical traditions, according to experts. In the early '70s, the musical style began popping up in nightclubs and after-hours joints in America's major cities. 
    Interestingly enough, the term rap was originally used in the African American speech community to refer to romantic, sexualized interaction, usually originated by a man for purposes of winning the affection and sexual favors of a woman (Smitherman,1997:12). By the late 1960s, when the term crossed over into mainstream public language, it had lost its sexual innuendo and came to mean any kind of strong, aggressive, highly fluent, pow-erful talk. 
     Then, rap was an  underground movement. 
     One finds both uses of the term in today's Black speech community, and of course, rappers represent both meanings in their artistic productions .Rap music is rooted in the Black oral tradition of tonal semantics' narrativizing, signification/signifyin, the dozens/playin the dozens,   Africanized syntax, and other communicative practices. The oral tradition itself is rooted in the surviving African tradition of "Nommo" and the power of the word in human life. 
     The rapper is a postmodern African griot, the verbally gifted storyteller and cultural historian in traditional African society. As African America's "griot," the rapper must be lyrically/linguistically fluent; he or she is expected to testify, to speak the truth, to come wit it in no uncertain terms. Further, in the early formation of rap music, the rapper was expected to speak with a quickness, because the rate of speech in rap must be constant in order to correlate it with the beat of the music. A rap song averages one hundred forty-four beats per minute, each beat of the music can be correlated to a stressed syllable. (Yasim, 1995: 38). 
There is currently afoot a concerted campaign against rap music despite its political and moral messages and its celebration of the Black oral tradition. On June 5, 1993, African American minister Reverend Calvin Butts held a "rap in" in Harlem, New York, to which he had invited participants to bring offensive tapes and CDs to destroy 
them. (This effort was foiled by members and supporters of the Hip-Hop Nation who blocked it). Reverend Butts and supporters thus took the pile of CDs and tapes to the Manhattan office of Sony and dumped them there. 
In 1994, Dr. C. Delores Tucker, head of the National Political Congress of Black Women, was successful in getting the U.S. Congress to hold hearings against rap music. She joined forces with a White male conservative, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, to mount an all-out campaign against rap music. By late September 1995, Tucker and Bennett had succeeded in forcing Time Wamer to sell off their interest in Interscope, the recording company for the most prominent of the "gangsta" rappers (Smitherman, 1997:17). 
This affair was widely covered in media. Thus Billboard magazine touched upon this problem in connection with the edits, made by this or that American radio station: “Concern about lyric content ebbs and flows every year with the release of new and seemingly outrageous records. Many in the industry, including some of the PDs contacted for this story, endorse the artist’s right to freedom of expression. Meanwhile, the debate over whose responsibility it is to crack down what is heard on records goes unresolved, as labels and stations continue to make profits” (Billboard, 1996: 37). The following headlines from “Artists & Music”(1997) add to the general idea of the conflict: “C. Delores Thucker Sues Tupac’s Estate. Rap Critic Charges That His Lyrics Slander Her” (Tupac Shakur, a.k.a. 2Pac, was one of the most prominent “gangsta-rap” singers, who was killed in the street within mysterious circumstances). 
    Admittedly, rap has its violence, its raw language, and its misogynistic lyrics. However, it is an art form that accurately reports the nuances, pathology and most importantly, resilence of Amer-ica's best kept secret... the Black ghetto" (Dawsey, 1994: 284). Hip-hop/rap culture is definitely a resistance culture. Thus, rap music is not only a Black expressive cultural phenomenon; it is, at the same time, a resisting discourse, a set of communicative practices that constitute a text of resistance against White America's racism and its Euro-centric cultural dominance (Smitherman, 1997:7)

     The term "folk music" was invented by nineteenth-century scholars to describe the music of peasantry, age-old and anonymous. Nowadays it covers such a multitude of sins as to be almost meaningless. To us it means homemade-type music played mainly by ear, arising out of older traditions but with a meaning for today. We use it only for lack of a better word. Similarly, we have had to accept the label "folksinger," although "a professional singer of amateur music" would be more accurate in our own case. 
  Belarus has a strong musical tradition and many 12th century Orthodox hymns and sermons had their origins in Belarus. The musical tastes of the Belarusans changed together with the society. Old  hymns and sermons originate from Early Ages' semi-religious traditions. The existance of numerable Gods meant that each of them had to be treated in some special manner and that meant numerable songs either. There were many traditional holidays and ceremonies which demanded certain music mood. 
In the Middle Ages Belarus was a part of Great Lithiania State and at the same time served one of the main battlefields in fighting between Russia and Europe. Belarusans were fighting to protect their homeland from the invaiders that explains the choice of the music in those times. For a soldier torn away from his family there was nothing better than a missing song about home; for a winner
it was a victory song; for ordinary people - moarn songs.

Funeral songs 

      Funeral ceremonies and chants go back to tribal times. Their function was to prevent the dead person's return      and to placate him with offerings, thereby assuring his      comfortable passage to another world. Professional wailers were important figures and respected throughout Belarus for their musical and poetic gifts. The most famous wailer of the 1890's, Irina Fedosova, completely    involeved in her perfromance, entered personally into the mourners' grief. On one occasion she sag in the name of the widow  the funeral of a dunkard. Unable to  find words of praise for the dead man, she spoke the honest truth: "Palesskaya pesnya"  
              I have gone though the licensed taverns, 
              I have stood around by the public houses; 
              looking at his spendings, I have trembled, 
           I have called upon him who should by my hope, 
                     I have humilated myself. 
        I, miserable one, have heard enough of humiliation, 
                  I have endured, heavy beating; 
         He shamed me, he dishonored me before good people. 

Wedding Songs 

    Of all the songs which have come down to us from ancient time, none are more beautiful than those connected with wedding. Each ceremony, from marriage broker's first visit to the bride's home to the wedding itself, is described in chants of matchless poetry and melody. As in a well - constructed  play, the chief character-bride, groom, best man, wedding  guests, and the professional wailer-enact their various roles. 
    When the matchmaker has concluded his arrangements, it is the custom for the girl to beg her parents to break off the engagement. Her sentiments are contained in this song: 
     Not two ravens have flown together in the dark forest,  
     Nor have two warriors ridden together in the open plain,  
    But two matchmakers have met within my home.... 
    When this playacting, always performed with great sincerity, is over, presents are axchanged between families and gay  feast is held. The songs for this occasion are lyrical and  romantic: 
    The nightingale flew, to the coppice green, to the pirchwoods  bright.  
    To a spray, without heeding, the nightingale flew. 
    It was traditional for the bride to bewail the loss of girlhood  freedom and decry the prospect of living with a strange family, even if it was a love match. This chant is the bride's sister warning: 
     Don't expect my dear sister, that your father - in - law will  wake you up gently, 
     That your mother - in - law will give orders nicely.  
     They will howl at you like wild beasts, and they 
will hiss at you like snakes. 
    Before the wedding the two families exchange visits    characterized by eating, dancing, and singing. On these social occasions the wailer would sing in praise of the guests. Here  is the conclusion of one: "Zorka Venera"  
     He sits there bright as aburning taper; when he speaks it is like the giving of rubles.  
     His ruddiness is taken from the sun,his fairness from the white snow.  
     His cheeks are like the crimson poppy, his bright eyes are the eyes of a hawk,  
     His brows are black with the blackness of sable. 
    While many customs are no longer observed, the chief    wedding guest still serves as jester and merrymaker. Here is a modern song, a perfect combination of new and old, in which he enumerates the groom's wordly goods: 
      He has a great many servants, he has bright falcons, 
      Swift eagles, hunting dogs, mounted cossacks, leaping animals, 
      And   birds that pech. He has motorboat and other that are 
      Submarines. Of course there are airplanes... 
Belarusian folk music is well known; don't miss a performance if you get the opportunity. Modern folk music originated from ritualistic ceremonies or church music, and became highly developed from the 16th century onwards. Belarusian classical music is a 20th century phenomenon, though  this hasn't stopped the Minsk opera and ballet companies from earning international reputations.