scholarly journals Rap artists’ identity in archetypal roles of hero and seeker: A linguistic perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 646-661
Author(s):  
Nataliia Kravchenko ◽  
Olena Zhykharieva ◽  
Yuliia Kononets
Keyword(s):  
Rap Artists

scholarly journals From roadman to royalties: Inter-representational value and the hypercapitalist impulses of grime

2021 ◽  
pp. 174165902110243
Author(s):  
Orlando Woods
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Music Videos ◽  
Digital Recording ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Ubiquitous Access ◽  
Rap Artists

This paper explores how digital media can cause the representational value of rap artists to be transformed. Ubiquitous access to digital recording, production and distribution technologies grants rappers an unprecedented degree of representational autonomy, meaning they are able to integrate the street aesthetic into their lyrics and music videos, and thus create content that offers a more authentic representation of their (past) lives. Sidestepping the mainstream music industry, the digital enables these integrations and bolsters the hypercapitalist impulses of content creators. I illustrate these ideas through a case study of grime artist, Bugzy Malone, who uses his music to narrate his evolution from a life of criminality (selling drugs on the street; a ‘roadman’), to one in which his representational value is recognised by commercial brands who want to partner with him because of his street credibility (collecting ‘royalties’). Bugzy Malone’s commercial success is not predicated on a departure from his criminal past, but the deliberate foregrounding of it as a marker of authenticity. The representational autonomy provided by digital media can therefore enable artists to maximise the affective cachet of the once-criminal self.

scholarly journals “My Rap Is a Prayer but with a Razor in the Mouth”: Religious Themes in Russian Rap

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-116
Author(s):  
Nikolai S. Poliakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
Social Character ◽  
General Sense ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
New Form ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Rap Artists

The paper presents the analysis of religious themes in the lyrics of Russian rap artists. The songs of such musical groups and artists as “Kasta”, Detsl, FACE, Husky, Noize MC, “Sol’ Zemli”, “25/17” are considered. The article proves that rap in Russia has become a significant cultural phenomenon, and the lyrics of rap artists can be interpreted as poetry, inscribing it in the tradition of Russian literature. The article demonstrates that in Russian rap we can find such religious themes as God-seeking, anti-clericalism, criticism of religion as an institution, philippics against its individual representatives, a premonition of the coming Apocalypse, expressing a general sense of impending disaster. Musicians sensitively capture the atmosphere of the era and reflect it in their lyrics. Despite the fact that rap is a new form of art, in the world’s poetic tradition, dating back to the biblical texts, is reflected the works of Russian rap musicians, and at the same time it has a clear and sharp social character.

scholarly journals Explorative Visual Analysis of Rap Music

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Christofer Meinecke ◽  
Ahmad Dawar Hakimi ◽  
Stefan Jänicke
Keyword(s):  
Rap Music ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Word Embedding ◽  
Visualization System ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Abstract Level ◽  
Support Domain ◽  
Music Lyrics ◽  
Rap Artists

Detecting references and similarities in music lyrics can be a difficult task. Crowdsourced knowledge platforms such as Genius. can help in this process through user-annotated information about the artist and the song but fail to include visualizations to help users find similarities and structures on a higher and more abstract level. We propose a prototype to compute similarities between rap artists based on word embedding of their lyrics crawled from Genius. Furthermore, the artists and their lyrics can be analyzed using an explorative visualization system applying multiple visualization methods to support domain-specific tasks.

scholarly journals Jim Jarmusch’s Aesthetics of Sampling

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Gonzales
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
The Other ◽  
American Film ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
Cross Fertilization ◽  
The Way ◽  
Rap Artists

JIM JARMUSCH'S AESTHETICS OF SAMPLING IN GHOST DOG - THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI ICE Cube's "Gangsta's Fairytale" (1990), Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg's "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" (1996), 50 Cent's "What Up Gangsta" (2003): from the end of the 1980s, in countless raps,(1) the gangster persona has inspired a host of MCs, who since then have adopted - and adapted - an imagery and themes the American film industry started dealing with sixty years earlier.(2) However, this cross-fertilization can work the other way round too. A director like Jim Jarmusch has chosen to invigorate Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai not only with the charismatic power of the black gangster, but also with a particularly rich intertextual network and an aesthetics of sampling clearly reminiscent of that taken up by rap artists since the end of the 1970s. Indeed, rap music's dominant feature...

scholarly journals Bridging and bounding Asian-ness in hip-hop : a content analysis of Asian hip-hop lyrics and media discourse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ziye Tang
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
American Music ◽  
Black Music ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Media ◽  
Boundary Model ◽  
Rap Artists

Asian and Asian American rap artists have been marginalized in mainstream American music industry and media for a long time. Searching for a public recognition of their works in a Black music genre, Asian artists during different time periods had to apply different strategies on describing their race in lyrics. Therefore, Asian-ness was also framed differently by journalists during different time period since they receive different messages from Asian rap artists. To find out how Asian rappers mark their racial identities, how media receive and present Asian artists' lyrical messages, as well as a correlation between them, the researcher applied framing theory and racial-aesthetic boundary model (Roy, 2004). This research started with examining three generations of rap artists who debuted in 1990s, 2000s and 2010s on how they applied four racialaesthetic boundary frames and the non-race frame. The results indicated significant differences when Asian rappers of different generations applied identity, appropriation and non-race frames. The researcher also analyzed the usage of the five frames applied by media about Asian-ness when the media refers to the three artists. The researcher then examined the correlation between artists' self-marked frames and media-marked frames. The results indicated a linear-like correlation for identity framing, which means messages under identity frames in lyrics were well perceived and presented by journalists, as well as possible exponential correlations for two negative racial-aesthetic frames, appropriation and segregation, which means messages under the two frames in lyrics were exaggeratedly perceived and presented by journalists. The results also showed that media would mention Asian-ness when cover and review Asian artists even they never mentioned their race in lyrics.

Keepin’ it Real in Central Europe: The DIY Rap Music Careers of Male Hip Hop Artists in Austria

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Reitsamer ◽  
Rainer Prokop
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Production Performance ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Rap Artists

This article sets out to broaden our understanding of the significance of authenticity, locality and language for the development of a do-it-yourself (DIY) rap music career by taking male rap artists in Austria as an example. Drawing on interviews carried out in 2014–2015 with two groups of rap artists from different social and cultural backgrounds who embarked on their rap music careers in the early 1990s and the early 2000s, we analyse their rap lyrics and the social and economic contexts in which these individuals became rappers. We examine how the artists articulate claims to authenticity by appropriating African-American rap styles, meanings and idioms and blending them with local languages and references to local cultures and national politics. We also examine the rappers’ relationship to the music industry and the use of informal channels for the production, performance and consumption of rap and hip hop in general. The article suggests that the DIY careers of these rap artists depend on both the rappers’ use of music to articulate claims to authenticity and their ability to form (trans-)local networks for sharing skills, knowledge and other resources, as well as on Austria’s cultural policy and the changes in the music industry that have taken place in recent years.

In Brief

Contexts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Keyword(s):  
Racial Disparities ◽  
White Women ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Rap Artists

Racial disparities and discrimination in the job market, why white women vote for trump, and are present day rap artists speaking to and about their communities?

scholarly journals Detecting Text Reuse and Similarities between Artists in Rap Music through Visualization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christofer Meinecke ◽  
Stefan Jänicke
Keyword(s):  
Rap Music ◽  
Abstract Level ◽  
Song Lyrics ◽  
Rap Artists

Detecting references and similarities in music lyricscan be a difficult task. Crowdsourced knowledge platforms likeGenius can help in this process through user annotatedinformation about the artist and the song but fail to includevisualizations to help users finding similarities and structures ona higher and more abstract level. We propose a prototype todetect and visualize the similarity of rap artists based on theirlyrics and monolingual alignments of song lyrics. For this, weapply word and sentence embeddings to lyrics we crawled fromGenius.

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