Exam Terms Flashcards
(39 cards)
Mechanical Recording Rights
Right to reproduce a particular recording of a song or album. Pre-1980s focus was on pirating, later focus was on sampling. As importance and prevalence of sampling has grown, the importance of this copyright law has increased.
Treatment
Refers to “narrative treatment.” How music video directors treat the HH artist’s desires, lyrical focus etc. while also incorporating their own preferred visual styles and technical strengths.
-Tricia Rose, BN
Public Transcript
This is the dominant transcript or what James Scott calls the “transcripts of power.” It is the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate, and it upholds the social order. Hip Hop resists the public transcript.
Black Atlantic Triangle
The African Diaspora, formed by the triangular slave trade which spanned Africa, the Americas and Europe. This triangle facilitates the the inter-cultural exchange across the diaspora, which is important to HH as it draws from Afrodiasporic traditions.
Syncopation
This is a key African American vernacular style and consists of the accenting of rhythmic patterns on weak rather than strong impulses. It is effectively an unexpected interruption of the regular rhythm. This technique is central to Hip Hop culture including rapping, DJ’ing and breakdancing.
Call-and-Response
This refers to when a song leader gives a musical statement and the chorus immediately follows with a response. According to John Taylor, it was brought from Africa and is central to musical traditions both on the continent and in the African diaspora. It is important in our course as it represents a diasporic link between Africa and the Americas.
Flow
Refers to rhythm over time and, in the case of an MC, is determined by the rhythmic structure of their lyrics over the rhythms of the track. It can be formed through pitch, pace, tone etc. It is the MC’s unique fingerprint.
Rhythmic Concrescence
A type of rhythmic harmony in which several, independent rhythmic components work together and eventually blend together to create a cumulative effect. It can also be regarded the ‘soul’ ‘swing’ etc. of a song. It is found throughout African American musical traditions.
Toasting
According to Rose in Black Noise, it is a boastful form of oral storytelling that is often political, aggressive, violent and sexist on content. It is considered a lyrical antecedent to Hip Hop. Regarded a predecessor to the vulgarity and violence in Hip Hop lyrics.
Rhythm Over Time
MC’s flow or lyrical cadence in relation to the beat. According to Bradley, it is maintained by rapping “in the pocket,” linguistic, tempo and timing.
Flow, Layering and Rupture
All 3 are stylistically central to breaking, graffiti style, rapping and musical construction showing stylistic continuity between these AA traditions. See definition of ‘flow.’ ‘Layering’ is the construction of a new song through sampling. ‘Rupture’ is a disruption in the continuity (of a song, dance, rap) through breakbeats, popping / locking etc.
Bad Man vs. Bad N***a
Both are archetypal portrayals of Black men and have AA folklore origins. Bad man may be a violent rule breaker who is considered a troublemaker by white, but is ultimately considered heroic by his those around him because he seeks the good of his community. On the contrary, Bad n***a is seen as a threat by other Black People as he acts on his own self-interest even if it hurts his community. He exerts his power by resisting all moral and social control.
Sound System / Dub
Both are Jamaican in origin and share various similarities with Hip Hop. DJ Kool Herc drew on the bass-heavy sensibilities of Jamaican sound systems, which were designed to play dub, in order to create a sound system that would become a foundation for Hip Hop in the Bronx. With this sound system, Cool Herc pioneered the break beat which is central to Hip Hop today.
Versioning
The repeated borrowing and recycling of an entire, popular composition. It is key to AA and Caribbean musical traditions. It is a method of narrative reformulation, resistance and paying homage and redefined traditional notions of authorship / originality (Rose).
Symbolic meaning of “inner city”
Buzzword that comes loaded with racialized implications, assumptions and stereotypes. It carries stereotypes about crime, Black youth, violence etc. that decenter the institutional reasons for the existence of inner city conditions. Importance in Hip Hop…
Resistance, Refusal, Renegotation
This is how, according to Lipsitz, white Americans have responded to civil rights laws & efforts such as desegregation efforts. White fight & flight from neighborhoods contributed to the process of ghettoization, contributing to the creation of the social conditions under which Hip Hop would emerge.
Tensions between the Homoerotic and Homophobic
Homophobia is central to dominant views of masculinity in Hip Hop. As a result, according to Hill Collins, Black men reject close male friendships that come close to homoerotic bonding. This gives rise to what Rose calls the “gangster, pimp, hoe trinity” whereby any close social interaction between Black men must include women in order to not be perceived as homoerotic.
Red-Lining
Practice by the HOLC in the 20th century that used a color-coding map to determine how ‘suitable’ an individual was for a home loan. The lowest rating, red, was given to any neighborhood with a Black person and thus incentivized racial segregation and racial inequality. It contributed to the process of ghettoization, thereby contributing to the creation of the social conditions under which Hip Hop was created.
Possessive Investment in Whiteness
Institutionalized investment in structures that promote whiteness as the standard of freedom, privilege etc. and Blackness as the standard for slavery (Lipsitz) and sub-humanity. One of its effects is the affording of economic advantages to whites to the expense of Black people. This created the economic conditions that inspire Hip Hop.
Oppositional Transcripts
Cultural responses to the oppressive public transcripts. Rap is an oppositional transcript in that it resists oppression through counter-hegemonic ideas and images. It allows the oppressed and powerless to exercise social power by giving voice to their (untold) histories and experiences in a public arena, fostering communal resistance.
Chronic Joblessness
Urban deindustrialization, which affected all communities, disproportionately affected Black communities in the 1970s and 80s. It led to mass unemployment in Black neighborhoods which led to what Wilson calls social disorganization in Black communities, such that Black people were geographically, culturally and socially isolated from work. This pushed Black people into street economies which, today, inform much of the lyrical content in Hip Hop.
Dual Rhythmic Relationship
According to Bradley, this refers to when the instrumentals/beat and vocals work together to unify the track. Hip Hop artists may craft their lyrics to the beat or creatively disrupt the musical patterns in the song (through techniques like syncopation), in both cases delivering a unified piece of music that satisfies the audience’s musical expectations of rhythm. It allows MCs to break away from the rigidity of musical patterns.
Rocking (instead of) fighting
Competitive dancing of African American origin that uses gestures (as opposed to actual violence) to undermine the opponent. This dancing was done to African American music such as soul and is an antecedent to contemporary Hip Hop dance styles.
Minstrelsy
According to Ogbar, this was when white men dressed in blackface and performed routines that ridiculed Black humanity. It both reflected and shaped white perceptions of Black people, to the ultimate benefit of white supremacy. It reinforced dangerous and degrading stereotypes of Black people for the entertainment of white people, which can be likened to how contemporary mainstream Hip Hop reinforces stereotypes of Black people for the entertainment of its majority-white consumers.
