Story Telling In Hip Hop

           When people think of hip hop, story telling is usually one of the first characteristics to come to their mind. Story telling is extremely common and is one of the aspects of hip hop that makes the genre different from others. In the early days of hip hop, you had artists that would release tons of songs that would use story telling to promote a certain message. The message could be a simple message like “Damn, life is hard in the ghetto” or a much more complex message like “materialism in the ghetto was a problem that led to an increase of crime in America”. One example that demonstrates the latter is Boogie Down Productions “Love’s Gonna Getcha (Material Love)”. In this song, KRS-One embodies the “wise father of hip-hop” personality and begins to tell a story about how life was difficult for him and his family because his mother couldn’t make enough money to afford all the luxuries that he and his siblings wanted. He later begins to take actions into his own hands and starts selling drugs with his friend Rob which quickly spirals into gang shootings and watching his friend Rob die on the streets. KRS-One ends the song with him saying “when you fall in love with materials and you start scheming and carrying on for it, just remember, it's gonna get'cha”.

Although east coast rappers like KRS-One, Mos Def and Talib Kweli used story telling to promote a positive message, other rappers from the west coast such as Eazy-E and Ice Cube used story telling to show their life in the California ghettoes. The most recognizable song is Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day”. This song is used by Ice Cube to showcase the events that happened that made his day enjoyable like him getting a triple double in basketball and not having the police harass him at a red light. Although these are simple things, they play a major role in depicting the gangster rap lifestyle of the 90’s in the West Coast. Another song that does a great job in depicting the gangster rap lifestyle is the song “No more questions” by Eazy-E. The song paints the scene of an interview between Eazy-E and a female interviewer. In the interview, he tells the interviewer how he breaks into houses and sells drugs in his spare time. He also talks about how he’s never slipping and maintains a gangster persona all the time.

The story telling that occurs in the west coast is most relevant to the story telling that happens in present day hip hop. Popular present day rap artists mainly use story telling to create music that enforces their gangster persona or endorses smoking, drinking or partying. Good examples would be Wiz Khalifa in songs like “Medicated” and “The Plan” as well as Mac Miller in songs like “Lucky ass bitch”.

Make it Matter: Language, Politics, and Purpose

Within most songs, the artist has a goal of sending a message across to the audience. This gives a purpose to the song. With a purpose behind a song, it creates more of an emotional bond between the listener and the artist them self. This purpose mainly talks about the politics, either of the streets or of the world. Such songs that describe some political issues are “My President” by Young Jeezy and Nas[1], “White America” by Eminem[2], and “From Yesterday” by 30 Seconds to Mars[3]. With these songs either explaining how corrupt the government is or how we the people have finally done right. Now some people say that music has no influence on politics, but this is wrong. As you may of heard in the presidential speech, Barack Obama addresses the United States of America and adds that “we all cannot be like Lil Wayne”[4], meaning even the high class politicians recognize the influence these artists have . Now with this influence these artists have, they also how to beware of what language they are going to use for their song. As language can make the difference between a funny/ comical song or a serious and heartfelt song, it really does have a big impact on the way the song is interpreted. Such songs that can be compared are “Rella”, by Hodgy, Domo Genesis, and Tyler the Creator [5], to the song “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis [6]. Such key differences in these songs are the choice of words and the tone of the song. As “Same Love” is has a slower pace, lyrics have more of a point behind it, it creates a sense of knowledge and a need of change. As “Rella” is just a past paced song that has no meaning from any of its lyrics.

                For many artists, the lyric side of the song gives a purpose, political agenda, and a type of language is associated with it. One of the many songs that express all three of these qualities is the song “Dancing with the Devil” by Immortal Technique [7]. This song shows the less famous side of the streets and how it can affect someone in a horrible way. As the main guy they rap about tells about how he starts to use drugs, and how he gets into a gang. The purpose of this song is to tell the listener that the street is not something that should be looked up to, but yet it is a place where the devil will take a dance with you. Through the use of very descriptive words, the artists create a picture of the situation in the listeners mind, even though the picture they paint is very gory. This helps them with the explanation of why the artist is wrong, and that there doings will come at a price. With this price, they give off the political agenda of saying that the streets need to be fixed, because if not, the story being told through this song will repeat.

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9sABRosdNg

[2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZIzD0ZfTFg

[3]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpG7FzXrNSs

[4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJmJIAqlMKI

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN-xq7t6pKw

[6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0

[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-1ZaMe72ZU

Sampling In Hip-hop

             Merriam-Webster defines sampling as “The act of using a small part of a recording as part of another recording.” Although some artists create their own beats and sounds, may artists from the beginning of hip-hop through today have used sampling throughout their music in the form of loops, beats, breaks and scratching.  It is not necessary to sample a song in order to make a hip-hop hit but many of the hits throughout the genres history have used sampling in some shape or form.  Sampling allows hip-hop songs to appeal to a wider audience by using familiar sounds and tones liked already by many or that may appeal to many and then simply just adding to it. Some producers and artists will find a song or songs that they like then sample it directly. Producers may also put it through a synthesizer and alter the song. Some may speed up the tempo of the song or slow it down or simply eliminate the beat entirely and just use the lyrics of it.  I am going to use two examples the first being an old and the second being more recent. The first song is “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa and The Soulsonic Funk[1]. This song came out in 1982 and heavily sampled the song “Trans-Europe Express” by Kraftwork[2] . This song is important because it was very influential to the both hip-hop and dance music.  Afrika Bambaataa used the beat drop of “Trans-Europe Express” rapped over it. It worked out that the beat used was also a good dance tune there by making it a success not only in the hip-hop market but also in the emerging dance market.  “Planet Rock” made it near the top of the top 100 and top ten in hip hop and dance and is remembered as one of the first mega popular songs of the hip-hop genre that used a sample. The second song is “Who Gon Stop Me”[3] by Jay-Z and Kanye West. This song is more recent having been released in 2011 on the Watch The Throne album. “Who Gon Stop Me” sampled the dubstep song “I Can’t Stop” by Flux Pavilion[4], which was one of the first dubstep songs become really main stream. Jay and Kanye mainly use a loop of the part of the song that says “I can’t stop” and then supply their own beat. Although both of my examples sampled dance music songs sampling is not limited to dance music and can include every genre from rock to jazz. Some producers now a day make their living off sampling. For example Kanye West started as a producer at Roc-A-Fella records making the beats to many of Jay-Z‘s and other artists at the label's songs Looking towards the future of hip-hop I feel that many artists and producers will be using more and more samples. Not only will these producer and artists be sampling new songs but also sampling hits from the old days. Sampling is a very important part of hip-hop and will continue to be.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrL5N_iX4Ms

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBGNlTPgQII

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2mBK9LsKf4

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q9rewnLFYw