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Scratching

"Invented" by Grand Wizzard Theodore (DJ) The sound DJs hear in their headphones when back-cueing a b-beat (on a record), became a virtuosic art form in itself

Moral Panic: Public Enemy

(New York) Chuck D/Flavor Flav produced by bomb squad, rhythmic style with radical lyrics about black empowerment. Hate towards Jews (prof. Griff) ex. Fight the Power

Keyes' feminist tropes

- *Queen Mother:* represent afro-centric icons, intelligent black women, "dropping science", equal with men. Usually political message/undertone on race or gender. (Ex. Queen Latifah) - *Fly Girl:* chic clothing, fashionable, jewelry, heavy cosmetics, grew from blaxploitation films. Became problematic, wanted attention for skills not appearance, (Ex. Salt N Pepa) - *Sista With Attitude:* Female MCs who value attitude as empowerment. Reclaiming of "bitch", strong, aggressive women. Parallels NWA with bad girl attitude. (Ex. Lil Kim) - *Lesbian:* No discussion of music but stereotypical lesbian tropes. Says it's new, since 90s. Says lesbian rappers often adopt masculine styles& gestures. No examples cause its BS

Miami Bass

- 1980s, important precursor to southern hip-hop - Uptempo, dance-oriented music that often includes rapping, heavy bass sounds, and sharp beats filled with short sounds (hits, short riffs). Frenetic tempo - Contributed to the popularity of TR-808 Drum Machine -- Ex. 2 Live Crew, L'trimm (Cars That Go Boom)

Crunk music

- 808 beats, chanting, repetitive vocals, but more party-oriented than darker Memphis rap - Features bass-heavy drum beats (w/ hand claps) and sparse, catchy, repetitive riffs in overall beat - Atlanta based Lil' Jon ("Get Low") popularizes it to fit uptempo Atlanta club scene

Compound Rhyme

- A rhyme that contains more than one syllable - Can be perfect or slant

LaFace Records

- Antonio "LA" Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds founded 1989, base in Atlanta -- Artists include TLC, OutKast, Toni Braxton, Goodie Mob -- "Slick enough to compete with New York without northeastern elitism"

OutKast

- Big Boi and Andre 3000: have different imagery and different musical/flow styles, but combine to make hip hop from Atlanta bass, native tongues-style hip hop, and uniquely southern elements -- Double album Speakerboxx/The Love Below - Speakerboxx (Big Boi): more conventional hip hop with horn section, wah pedal guitar, tight interlocking rhythms (funk). Density of orchestration recalls textures of funk and soul/motown music - The Love Below: The Beatles of Hip Hop in Hey Ya!

Rhyme couplet vs. Chain

- Couplets: involve two rhymes - Chains: involve three or more

Musical practices of the south

- Drum machines, synthesizers, even real instruments- rather than sampled production - Sections chanted, call and response, repetitive lyrics - Flow styles experiment with speed (ex. Atlanta fast). Flow styles using more consistent/regular rhythms - Slower song tempos (especially Memphis & Houston) - Country or blues-influenced sound (Atlanta)

The South musical legacy

- Early 2000s southern artists popularize trap music (Gucci Mane, Jeezy, T.I.) ---- Brass, triplet high hats, loud kicks, snares, and low 808s - by 2010: crunk music charting, trap music commercialized, triplet flow wildly popular, hot producers from south (ex. Timboland)

End rhyme vs. internal rhyme

- End rhymes end a "line" of lyrics - Internal rhymes occur within a line

Rhetoric

- Ethos: the authority and credibility of the rapper conveyed ---- Timbres (sound quality), pitch, volume, speed, - Pathos: the emotions stirred in listener (how we feel) - Logos: the logical content of the argument (do the lyrics make sense

Rap speed/ syllabic density

- Fitting most possible syllables per beat - Being able to rap fast is a source of pride and brag in hip-hop. Even in rap languages beyond english. Ex "Worldwide Choppers" Twista's verse

Triggerman beat

- Group: The Showboys from Queens, Song: "Drag Rap" - The song goes from sampled drums to an 808 drum machine beat, made an obscure break beat (using TR-808) which became huge in Memphis and New Orleans - Both crunk & trap can trace roots to the Memphis sound, Triggerman the seed to both

The south: Memphis

- Left out of commercial hip hop through 1990s --- Juicy J, DJ Paul, Three Six Mafia - Dark lyrical themes more bizarre than gansta - "Slow & low" 808-Driven beats, samples from horror films - Chanting rap style - "Gangsta Walk"/ Buckin' - *Precursor to crunk & trap, triggerman*

Syntax/ Syntactic breaks

- Logical ordering of words to form a syntactical unit (sentence/line) -- Ideally obey the laws of grammar and mean something -- In hip hop syntax can be violated and meaning obfuscated, or the syntactical unit will be complete but in or out of alignment with the beat

Chanted lyrics

- Memphis style rap, ex. "Sleep" Three 6 Mafia, similar to plainchant.

Metre / Measure

- Metre = how many beats fit into measure. Rhythmic pattern constituted by grouping beats into measures/bars. ---- 1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a - Measure = section of musical staff that holds amount of beats inside of it ---- Ex. song written in 4/4 time will hold 4 quarter note beats per measure

Phrase

- Musical/ lyrical utterance - Usually has identifiable beginning and end points - Ideally consists of some type of motion from beginning to end - Has set of pitches that we expect, moves along that pattern so we know it is done - In hip-hop: ---- A passage of flow that often has identifiable beginning and end points, and a sense of motion ---- Can be established by rhythm breaks, breaths, end rhymes, and completion of syntactical unit/ idea. ---- Expectations are generated through rhyme

The South: New Orleans

- Originator of "bounce": high energy hip hop/dance/latin hybrid --- Heavy use of drum machines and synthesizers (almost no samples), shout outs, call and response, sexualized lyrics -- Heavy use of triggerman beat -- Big Freeda, Ca$h Money Records

Accents/ Stresses (3 ways of doing them in rap)

- Raising voice (pitch) - Elongating specific syllables (duration) - Rapping certain syllables louder than others (volume) - Accents are in dialogue with the rhythm of the beat

The south: Houston

- Rap-a-lot records (Geto Boys, DJ Screw, Pimp C) - References to lean

Metre

- Repeating pattern of stresses that organizes the rhythm into bars and beats; is underlined by the pulse, which is not always heard, but is sensed by the listener ---- Duple, triple, quadruple, compound ---- Typically hip hop songs are in 4/4 quadruple metre - Basic 1,2,3,4 of beat loop

Cultural tropes of the south

- Ruralness, segregation, backwardness, and being less sophisticated, advanced or elite as North East. Shows this by lo-fi production, bluegrass/country references and the blues - South as a home base for hip hop

Chopped and Screwed

- Slowing down records and skipping beats, repeating, scratching/other DJ techniques. Southern hip-hop's propensity for slower beats! 60-75 BPM. Comes from DJ Screw (Houston)

Articulative techniques of flow

- The amount of legato or staccato used (how fluid or jagged flow is) - The degree of articulation of consonants (how sharp or dull the flow is) - The extent to which the onset of any syllable is earlier or behind the beat (microrhythm)

Microtiming

- The degree to which an MC raps ahead or behind the beat, three main types: -- Swung: the unequal division of the pulse into long and short parts ---- When basic beat (1,2,3,4) is subdivided unequally ex. Andre 3000, LL Cool J Flava in your ear -- Lagging: the general "lagging behind" of the beat by the MCs flow ex. Snoop dogg/ busta rhymes -- Conversational: the approximation of natural speech rhythms in flow ex. Lauryn hill/ eminem stan ---- Rhythms of rap don't line up with beat too cleanly but still sounds normal

Tessitura

- The pitch height of the MCs voice (in vocal pitch) - Similar to texture, the best sounding/comfortable/acceptable vocal range/timbre for an MC --- ex. Akon

Metric techniques of flow

- The placement of rhyming syllables - The placements of accented syllables - The degree of correspondence between syntactical units and measures (the way MCs line up or don't line up with the beat, microtiming) - The number of syllables per beat (how fast MCs rap)

Vocal timbre

- color/tone quality, perceived sound of a note,sound or tune - Example: raspy/throat voice vs. smooth singing

The South: Atlanta

- distinct pop/soul feel to samples, extremely fast rapping/flow styles. - southern drawl audible. --- Crunk Music - LaFace records 1990s Atlanta began southern hip-hops culture. 1995 source awards OutKast "the souths got something to say".

"Queer"

-- "Refers to *non-normative, curious, and imaginatively ambiguous*, objects and relations... queer sexuality can be defined as a practice of discursive excess that *twists normal notions of gender and sexuality*" -- 2 case studies in class: Missy Elliot ('queering the mic' though never addressed sexuality) and Mykki Blanco (Micheal = man, Mykki = dressed in drag, HIV positive) -- Missy is "involved in the disruption of and reconstitution of female identity inside and outside of hip-hop"

Media

-- "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village." -- Political and social consequences from any medium, an extension of ourselves, result from the new scale made by any new technology -- "The medium is the message"

TikTok music

-- Allows users to make 15-second videos with song-titles and artists included -- Helped to launch "Old Town Road" -- Like SoundCloud, low bar of entry -- Continuation of the *multi-layered collaboration* that characterizes hip-hop culture

Trap Beat

-- Beat production relies heavily on synth and drum machines, much less on samples and break beats. *Minor tonality synth lines* (fake strings) - epic, dark, menacing -- Slow tempo, *spastic hi-hats* (high pitch time keeper that can be tweaked/unpredictable), drum machine beats -- Ex. T.I "24s"

Masculinity in Hip Hop

-- Black masculinity: strength, aggression, violence (NWA, Ice T) -- Hypermasculinity: the exaggerated performance of these behaviours that we see in much mainstream rap music, often as an effort to reclaim masculinity, to dismiss the vulnerability -- Transfer of blame to women, use of the word bitch -- These masculinities satisfy the rappers image, but also purposely in line with white fan's perception of black men

Intersectionality

-- Complex, cumulative manner in which the effects of different forms of discrimination combine, overlap, or intersect -- Race and gender converge so that the concerns of minority women fall into the void between concerns about women's issues and concerns about racism -- Some parts of identity can be privileged, some are not ---- Ex. eminem

Mumble/ Soundcloud rap

-- Emerged from flow style like gucci mane and future, generally refers to a vocal style that places less emphasis on lyricism, comprehensibility, and enunciation. ----> An unpolished sound, slightly lofi, similar to Memphis Hip Hop. -- Final step of democratization of hip hop, anyone can do this -- Internet: made low barrier of entry

Spiritual Sampling

-- Example of how sampling and hip hop have a collective knowledge, taking different things and putting them together, no different with religion, inspiration from different faiths -- Does it run at odds with the fundamental nature of religion?

Autotune

-- Initially intended as a corrective tool for vocal production, it is eventually harnessed as an aesthetic approach, eventually in hip hop through T-Pain, Kanye (808) -- Effect is achieved by kicking in the autotune sooner in a vocal sound than is natural - the voice takes a couple of seconds to settle on a pitch, so to add autotune sooner than this sounds unnatural

Tonality: Major / Minor

-- Minor= tense, sad, descending key, going down motive (ex. Jesus Walks) -- Major= promising, happy, upbeat, ascending beat, moving upwards (ex. Lecrae, I'll Find You) Ties with Christian rapper v. rapper that is Christian

Black Lives Matter/ Harris article

-- Police harassment led to a crowd chanting Kendrick's "Alright" as a new black national anthem -- Alright a sign of hope since Michael Ferguson and Sandra Bland death, also brings a sense of community -- Political messages inside hip hop, ex. Kendrick "DNA" and "BLOOD", samples fox news criticism after BET awards performance -- Over "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and "We Shall Overcome", should change by era

Regionalism v. Post-regionalism

-- Post-regionalism: Internet created a sense of playlist, it no longer matters where you are from in rap. Internet has also become an agent of collaboration, and a place to release and consume music. ----> More intimate and directness between fans and artists, ongoing engagement from artists. Strong *record labels no longer needed* for artists to gain & maintain (ex Young Thug, Chance no record label) -- Post regionalism ended the Southern era, but mainly because place no longer mattered -- Regional example would be 2Pac, calling out his home cities, working with Dr Dre

Interpretive Community (Keyes)

-- Prevailing issue in the historical narrative of female MCs is that they were active in the scene from the very beginning, but we often don't hear about them -- Aim to construct a historical overview of female MCs that is sensitive to these artists' roles in hip-hop music in general, as females, and as Black females. The interpretation of the issue should be from the similar perspective of those facing it. -- Idea that the people she cites in this article are black female scholars, coming at it from the inside

Triplet Flow

-- Rapping in triplets, sets of three syllables over each large beat -- Can make the flow sound more "crowded" but often the beats in songs with triplet flow are slower, usually below 75 bpm. (Slower to accommodate faster subdivisions) -- Trap beats & triplet flow make a good musical pairing (trap beats usually slower, some sparse in hi hat) -- Criticized by older generation MCs

Nation of Islam / Five Percent Nation

-- Religious/ cultural movements that took place in the 20th century in the African American community -- 5% of "poor righteous teachers" whose mission is to enlighten 85% population who are slaves to the ruiling 10%. Hence frequent references to teachers, dropping science, etc ---- "Teachers" seen as Gods, there for misguided youth (mainly boys) in Urban black America -- Malcom X was a member. Hip hop: *Rakim, Queen Latifah, Wu Tang, Members of Tribe, Nas and Busta Rhymes* -- Islamist-led terrorist attacks (9/11) stigmatized Islamic faith in America

Social Media

-- Social media supplanted how music is distributed -- Allowed artists to become more visible/audible, more collaboration -- Allows fans to find out more about their artists life, see them more as people Streaming services as social media, also more media = more music. Songs featured in instagram & vine videos, tik tok music

Christian Rap

-- Tenets of Christianity and realness of hip hop seem fundamentally at odds with one another (wealth v. charity) -- Expressed through tonality, lyrics, visuals. Ex. Chance using gospel, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony getting more religious after Eazy-E's death ("Tha Crossroads") -- Though it was always present, did not have the same exposure as Islam

Signifyin(g)

-- The connotative or associative troping that pervades Afro-american vernacular oral traditions, can also be seen in musical ones. Flipping of meaning of word ex. Sick --Modification / blurred literal meaning through wordplay and irony --MCs signify by quoting, metaphors, slang, diss tracks (flipping meaning of other rappers words)

Trap Music

-- Trap beats characterized by deep sub base lines (when u feel the bass, low frequency), 808 beats, also found in Three Six Mafia 1990s releases, supplemented by *synth driven string lines, minor tonalities, slower tempos* -- The use of the term 'trap' can be traced as far back as T.Is 2003 album Trap Muzik, but the impetus for this genre goes back much further (memphis) -- T.I, trap is a place where drugs are sold

MC

--"Master of Ceremonies" --Raps over beats to hype up the crowd; their raps consist of rhymes articulated in a rhythm that creates a sense of flow --Blended traditional MC role with radio patter of black DJs, developing rapping --Encouraged partygoers to dance and join in

Punch Phrasing

--"Punching" in short segments of records, often on top of the basic beat --Especially horn hits and vocal exclamations. Example Grandmaster Flash

Call/Response

--Arena in which signifying takes place. The family of dialogical practices that constitute the Ring Shout and subsequent Afro-american musical traditions --Call, cries, whoops and hollers, ad-lib interjections by people other than lead MC

Moral Panic

--Concept developed by Stanley Cohen --Cultivation of fear in one or more segments of society over a group of people or related cultural practice --Often framed fears around youth, delinquency, sexual promiscuity, violence, drug use ---- Public Enemy, N.W.A., 2 Live Crew ---- Central Park Jogger case and Tone-Loc's "Wild Thing"

DJ

--Creates beats using portions of other records (breakbeats), and by manipulating them using record players --derived from Jamaican sound systems and disco (turntable mixer set) --Pioneered by Kool Herc (B-Beats), Grandmaster Flash --Developed many technical innovations that would serve as a basis for modern rap (break spinning, merry-go-round, punch phrasing, scratching

Identity

--Describes the ways individuals/groups define themselves / how they are defined by others --- Identity is a process, ambivalent not fixed

Intro/Outro

--Function much like they do in any vernacular music: they bookend the more structurally fixed sections of the song such as verses, hooks, interludes, etc. --Intros may be used for "hyping", for political.social reasons, or establishing a narrative --Outros can be used for the act of representation, ex "California Love", shouting out home cities

Beatboxing

--Imitations of the DJ techniques but with the mouth and body --A special kind of vocal percussion

Essentialism

--Initially applied to gender, the idea that different categories of people have an underlying essence that is transmitted genetically (not learned) ---- I.E. "all women are emotional", all black people have rhythm

Toast/Toasting

--Mixture of talking, chanting, and singing that flourishes in Jamacan music of the 1950s and 1960s --Jamacain/Afro-american origin, epic recitation poem. Oral poetry that forms an antecedent to rapping (storytelling).

Signifying Monkey

--Monkey beats lion in wordplay and inverts the status of the lion, schoolly D --Protorap, kind of like spoken poem, a way of fighting without being physical

Strophic Form

--Strophe in poetry: a set of lines of text that subscribe to an organized pattern of syllabification and rhyme. In contrast to stanzas, strophes can come varying lengths --Strophic songs in hip hop refer to song forms that have a series of versus without any major song sections breaking them up like hooks. Can have refrains at end of verse. --Less common throughout Golden Age

Ring Shout

--The earliest known afro-american musical tradition, dating back to slavery - a multifaceted context for communicating through music --Continuous basic rhythm that creates constant pulse

Sampling

--The practice of extracting a segment from a previous recording, musically altering it through cutting, looping, or tempo changes, and using it in a newly recorded song. --The recorded capturing and reuse of sounds in a new musical context --Amount of samples went down after Biz Markie parodied Gilbert O'Sullivans "Alone Again"

Backbeat

-Basic drum pattern of much popular music ---- Kick (bass) drum on beats 1 and 3 ---- Snare drum on beats 2 and 4 ---- Hi-hat plays 8th notes

Flow vs. Beat

-Hip hop has two main textural layers: flow and beat ---Flow = the rhythmic and articulative features of a rappers delivery of lyrics. Concerns rhythm, rhyme, phrasing, speed, pronunciation, semantics, etc ---Beat= a musical collage composed of brief segments of recorded sound. Beats form the musical backdrop against which flow operates. Beats are typically cyclical (loop-based) and are created through sampled loops, recorded instruments, and sequencing of synthesized or sampled sounds

Musical Parameters of Flow

-Rhyme -Syntax -Lyrical Subject Matter -Articulation and Accent -Pitch -Rhythm

Doing the Dozens

A back and forth game (a type of signifying) of insults. Verbally attacking opponent, comes in form of diss tracks, battle rapping, bragging/ one-upmanship

Cypher

A cyclical, improvised freestlye session with several MCs who take turns one after another without breaking the chain or interrupting each other. Lyrical aspect is not negative or diss-based

Posse Cut

A type of song where a number of different MCs collaborate - more or less a "formal" cypher. Whereas rock bands typically have one front person, hip hop groups normally have many.

Hypermetre

Above rhythm and metre, it is a higher level of rhythmic organization

Verse-hook form

Alternating versus and hooks: more popular during Golden Age and eventually dominate mainstream hip hop. Hooks can be rapped or sung, have less lyrics and are repetitive. Proliferation of verse-hook songs as hip hops crossover into the mainstream

Moral Panic: 2 Live Crew

Cali, Obscenity trial, had to create 2 versions of every record. Ex Me So Horny, Banned in the USA

Moral Panic: N.W.A.

Compton (LA), Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E. Music dismissed as needlessly violent, misogynistic and anti-police- were banned from major venues. F*ck The Police

Structural Samples

Create the beat, often consists of drum break, or an "intact" slice of another recording

Momentary Samples

Decorate the beginning, end, or interrupt the song, often "intact" slices of previous songs (Ex. Kanye Bound)

Surface Samples

Decorate the surface of a beat. Often horn hits, vocal sounds, record scratches

Call AND Response

Dialogic interaction between a leader and a group of responders. Ex. the scenario a tribe called quest

Music Video

Functions: - Promotion - Amplify lyrical/ narrative content of song - Contribute to or contradict generic norms and stereotypes - Autonomous works of art (individual to song) - Providing further artistic/social commentary, going further than song

MPF: Syntax

Grammatical ordering of words in a syntactic unit. As the primary organizational framework, it operates either with or in contrast with the metre of the song

Merry-go-Round

Kool Herc: Instead of playing instrumental records, he would play the break beats in between them to make a continuos dance rhythm.

Refrain

Not a standalone song section, it is part of a verse. Repeated word or phrase that either introduces or concludes a verse. Ex. Welcome To the Terrordome Public Enemy

Roland TR-808

One of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns.

MPF: Pitch

Refers to how high or low the MCs voice sounds. Is important because it is part of the organization of melody and can emphasize emotive aspects of a text. Higher pitch may seem more anxious/direct, lower more calm

End Rhyme & Internal Rhyme

Rhymes at the end of a line vs. Rhymes inside of a line (emerges in Golden Age)

Hook

Section of the song akin to a chorus in pop music. It can be rapped or sung, often where singing occurs if there is, often includes different lyrics from verse, has less lyrics that are repeated over and over. Ex Buggin' Out A Tribe Called Quest

Verse

Take up most of the song, all rapping and lyrical content

Turntablism

Taken together, the techniques of merry-go-round/break spinning, punch phrasing, and scratching constitute this. Also a name generally for instrumental hip-hop created (primarily) with turntables

Rhythm

Temporal organization of sounds into notes of different durations- operates within a metre

Breakbeat

The catchiest instrumental sections from other songs

MPF: Articulation and Accent

The way MCs voice their lyrics. The sharpness, dullness, stress, accent, and connectivity are all aspects of articulation. (staccato vs. legato, discrete vs. connected), stress of syllables

Binary Opposition

Theoretical opposites are strictly defined and put against each other: black-white, male-female, urban-rural. Problem in hip hop

Syncopation

When an accented or marked rhythm occurs off beat, countering the metric structure in a way

Rhyme Couplet

When rhymes arrive in pairs and then change to 2 more

Slant (imperfect) rhyme

When the rhyming syllables' final consonant may match, but the vowel sound does not (e.g. all and bowl)

Perfect rhyme

When the rhyming syllables' final vowel and consonants match (ex. All and ball)