Ginsberg’s Howl’s Influence on the Emergence of Hip-hop music

Adjoining the Parallels of Two Counter-Cultures in the Twentieth Century America

Abstract

Howl (1955) is regarded as one of the most influential and prophetic poems of Allen Ginsberg and the modern America. It’s a lamentation for the creative minds and a portrayal of oppressed American society which suppresses all the radical and rebellious artists. The establishment of this poem’s literary merit in the literary circle has always been under great scrutiny as it was charged for obscenity. Consequently, after a precarious journey and suffering criticism by several conservative literary critics and scholars, Ginsberg’s Howl sustained itself in America, and led to influence many radical writers and artists. 

In the similar manner, later in 1970s, emerged a performing art called rap music, which is generally engulfed under the terminology of hip-hop (deejaying, rapping, graffiti painting, break dancing). Hip-hop began as an expression of rebellion against established system in black communities but eventually got celebrated through the entire America.

This paper tries to situate Howl and Ginsberg as revolutionary, self-reflexive and an influence which paved the way for the birth of counter-cultures. A parallel between the two movements (Beat movement and Hip-hop) is searched and contemplated by pointing out the similarities in the ethos of both of these movements.