Specific purpose: To inform my audience on the history of rap music.

Thesis: Hip Hop has become like WWF Wrestling.

Central idea: I want my audience to know and understand the roots of rap music

I. Hip Hop has become like WWF Wrestling. There are few artists who can hold an audience's attention for more than one hit record. There are even fewer who have the ability in this day and age to release an album that can be listened to and enjoyed in it's entirety. It's a small miracle in the year 2002 that an artist has a catalogue of music that can be looked upon as a complete body of work.

II. Rap music wasn't even considered a category at the Grammy's until the late 80's. It is surprising to me because rap is a form of music and it took so long to be recognized in mainstream.

A. Its not a mystery, its history, and here's how it goes.

1. Two years ago, a friend of mine, asked me to say some MC rhymes" and since then Run DMC has never looked back. The rap superstars have done it all and then some ever since they took the U.S. music scene by storm with Its Like That and Sucker MC's in the early 80's.

2. Ironically, in its original incarnation NWA was hardly revolutionary. Easy-E ( Eric Wright), a former drug dealer who started Ruthless Records with money he earned by pushing, was attempting to start a rap empire, by building a roster of successful rap artists. However, he wasn't having much success until Dr. Dre -- a member of the World Class Wreckin' Cru -- and Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson) began writing songs for Ruthless. Easy-E tried to give one of the duo's songs, "Boyz N The Hood," to Ruthless signees HBO and when the group refused, Eazy formed NWA -- an acronym for Niggaz With Attitude -- with Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, adding World Class Wreckin' Cru member Yella ( Antoine Carraby), the Arabian Prince and the D.O.C. to the group.

· The first rap group to win a Grammy Award

· The first rap act to earn a gold album (RUN-DMC/1984)

· The first rap act to reach the Top 10 on Billboard's Hot 100 ("Walk This Way"/1986)

I. Hip Hop isn't just a form of music its a lifestyle and how you choose to portray it is your choice. If its gangster rap that your into and that's what image you like to portray you might just want to think twice Biggie Smalls and 2pac are prime examples of it.

B. Some of the Run DMC's history-making achievements which changed the face of rap and popular music

1. N.W.A., the unapologetically violent and sexist pioneers of gangsta rap, is in many ways the most notorious group in the history of rap. Emerging in the late '80s, when Public Enemy had rewritten the rules of hardcore rap by proving that it could be intelligent, revolutionary and socially aware, N.W.A. capitalized on PE's sonic breakthroughs while ignoring their message. Instead, the five-piece crew celebrated the violence and hedonism of the criminal life, capturing it all in blunt, harsh language. Initially, the group's relentless attack appeared to be serious, vital commentary, and it even provoked the FBI to caution N.W.A.'s record company, but following Ice Cubes departure late 1989, the group began to turn to self-parody. With his high-pitched whine, Easy-E's urban nightmares now seemed like comic book fantasies, but that fulfilled the fantasies of t

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1458
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)