Hip-hop as a musical form began among youth in the South Bronx, New York in the mid-1970s. Individuals such as Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash were among the first pioneers of this art form. (Fernando 43) Through their club performances and music promotion, hip-hop steadily grew in popularity throughout the 1970s. Hip-hop's first commercial success was the song "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979. (Potter 45) This helped bring hip-hop to the national spotlight. The 1980s saw the continued success of hip-hop with many artists such as Run DMC (who had the first rap album to go gold in 1984), LL Cool J, Fat Boys and Coast Rappers West Ice-T and NWA became popular. Today, in the late 1990s, rap music continues to be an important and prominent aspect of African American culture. Hip-hop was a way for inner-city black youth to express what they felt, saw and experienced and it became a form of entertainment. Hanging out with friends and rapping or listening to other people's rap kept black youth out of trouble in the dangerous neighborhoods in which they lived. The dominant culture didn't have a type of music that met the needs of these young people, so they created their own. Thus, hip-hop originally emerged as a way “for inner-city [black] youth to express their daily lives and struggles” (VOT, 125). Hip-hop is now considered a subculture that includes large numbers of middle- and upper-class white youth, who grew up to support and appreciate it. Many young Americans today are considered part of the hip-hop subculture because they share a common love for a type of music that combines catchy beats with upbeat music and thoughtful lyrics to create songs with a distinct political stance. Hip-hop lyrics talk about issues faced by rappers, such as poverty, crime, violence, racism, poor living conditions, drugs, alcoholism, corruption, and prostitution. These are serious issues that many in the hip-hop subculture believe are being ignored by the American mainstream. Members of the subculture recognize and recognize that these problems exist. Members of this subculture consider "the other group" to be those who do not understand hip-hop and the message its artists are trying to convey. The repressive culture, or opposition, is the dominant culture because it ignores these problems and perhaps even acts as a catalyst for some of them..