Complexion (Don't Mean a Thing)
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Williams, Hipness, Hybridity, and Neo-Bohemian Hip-Hop
HIPNESS, HYBRIDITY, AND “NEO-BOHEMIAN” HIP-HOP: RETHINKING EXISTENCE IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Maxwell Lewis Williams August 2020 © 2020 Maxwell Lewis Williams HIPNESS, HYBRIDITY, AND “NEO-BOHEMIAN” HIP-HOP: RETHINKING EXISTENCE IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA Maxwell Lewis Williams Cornell University 2020 This dissertation theorizes a contemporary hip-hop genre that I call “neo-bohemian,” typified by rapper Kendrick Lamar and his collective, Black Hippy. I argue that, by reclaiming the origins of hipness as a set of hybridizing Black cultural responses to the experience of modernity, neo- bohemian rappers imagine and live out liberating ways of being beyond the West’s objectification and dehumanization of Blackness. In turn, I situate neo-bohemian hip-hop within a history of Black musical expression in the United States, Senegal, Mali, and South Africa to locate an “aesthetics of existence” in the African diaspora. By centering this aesthetics as a unifying component of these musical practices, I challenge top-down models of essential diasporic interconnection. Instead, I present diaspora as emerging primarily through comparable responses to experiences of paradigmatic racial violence, through which to imagine radical alternatives to our anti-Black global society. Overall, by rethinking the heuristic value of hipness as a musical and lived Black aesthetic, the project develops an innovative method for connecting the aesthetic and the social in music studies and Black studies, while offering original historical and musicological insights into Black metaphysics and studies of the African diaspora. -
Sujm 2016 Final Proof[1]
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals online Sydney Undergraduate Journal of Musicology Vol. 6, December 2016 “I Remember You Was Conflicted”: Reinterpreting Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly JOHN LAWRIE You can take the boy out the hood, but you can’t take the hood out the homie – The Comrads, 19971 The individual cannot be removed from their cultural context, nor can these contexts exist without the individual. This we consider self-evident. Yet in discussing art of subjugated cultures, specifically African American music, these two spheres are often wrongly separated. This has cultivated a divide in which personal exploration through music has been decoupled from the artist’s greater comments on their cultural struggle. These works are necessarily grounded in the context to which they speak, however this greater context must acknowledge the experience of the individual. This essay aims to pursue a methodology centred on the relationship between the personal and the cultural, with a case study of Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly.2 Lamar straddles this divide. His personal difficulty with removal from the Compton community is inextricably linked with the struggle of African Americans in the wake of the Ferguson unrest. Lamar is in the optimal position to comment on this cultural struggle, however his fame and celebrity has partially removed him from the issues he attempts to articulate. As Lamar examines the relationship between himself and his community and context throughout To Pimp a Butterfly, he gives authenticity to his voice despite its fallibility. -
Hip-Hop's Diversity and Misperceptions
The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Honors College Summer 8-2020 Hip-Hop's Diversity and Misperceptions Andrew Cashman Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors Part of the Music Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HIP-HOP’S DIVERSITY AND MISPERCEPTIONS by Andrew Cashman A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Degree with Honors (Anthropology) The Honors College University of Maine August 2020 Advisory Committee: Joline Blais, Associate Professor of New Media, Advisor Kreg Ettenger, Associate Professor of Anthropology Christine Beitl, Associate Professor of Anthropology Sharon Tisher, Lecturer, School of Economics and Honors Stuart Marrs, Professor of Music 2020 Andrew Cashman All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT The misperception that hip-hop is a single entity that glorifies wealth and the selling of drugs, and promotes misogynistic attitudes towards women, as well as advocating gang violence is one that supports a mainstream perspective towards the marginalized.1 The prevalence of drug dealing and drug use is not a picture of inherent actions of members in the hip-hop community, but a reflection of economic opportunities that those in poverty see as a means towards living well. Some artists may glorify that, but other artists either decry it or offer it as a tragic reality. In hip-hop trends build off of music and music builds off of trends in a cyclical manner. -
Rock Music's Crusade of Authenticity
ROCK MUSIC’S CRUSADE OF AUTHENTICITY by DANIEL BROMFIELD A THESIS Presented to the Department of Journalism and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts June 2016 An Abstract of the Thesis of Daniel Bromfield for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the School of Journalism and Communications to be taken June 2016 Title: Rock Music's Crusade Of Authenticity Prof. Thomas Wheeler This thesis attempts to define rock music's standards of authenticity and explore their origins. Included are comparison of rock's standards of authenticity to those of other genres and an exploration of how authenticity has been perceived throughout the history of rock music. This study argues that rock's standards of authenticity are unusual among pop music genres in that they entail artists both writing their own songs and playing their own instruments. This is in contrast to genres like hip hop, contemporary pop, and R&B, which have their own quite different standards of authenticity. Quotes from rock fans, critics, and musicians are used to provide insight into rock's standards of authenticity and how they developed over time. ii Acknowledgements I would like to first and foremost thank my father for introducing me to music. If not for his decision to turn me on to the Beatles one sunny day in June 2006, I would surely be pursuing a far more boring career – and thesis topic. And I would like to thank my mother for giving me a great life and being endlessly supportive. -
The Legacy of Jazz Poetry in Contemporary Rap: Langston Hughes, Gil Scott-Heron, and Kendrick Lamar
Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Undergraduate Honors Theses 2020-07-31 The Legacy of Jazz Poetry in Contemporary Rap: Langston Hughes, Gil Scott-Heron, and Kendrick Lamar Madison Brasher Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studentpub_uht BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Brasher, Madison, "The Legacy of Jazz Poetry in Contemporary Rap: Langston Hughes, Gil Scott-Heron, and Kendrick Lamar" (2020). Undergraduate Honors Theses. 149. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studentpub_uht/149 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Honors Thesis THE LEGACY OF JAZZ POETRY IN CONTEMPORARY RAP: LANGSTON HUGHES, GIL SCOTT-HERON, AND KENDRICK LAMAR by Madison Hailes Brasher Submitted to Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of graduation requirements for University Honors English Department Brigham Young University August 2020 Advisor: Greg Clark Honors Coordinator: John Talbot ii ABSTRACT THE LEGACY OF JAZZ POETRY IN CONTEMPORARY RAP: LANGSTON HUGHES, GIL SCOTT-HERON, AND KENDRICK LAMAR Madison Brasher English Department Bachelor of Arts Langston Hughes wrote in “Jazz as Communication that: “Jazz is a great big sea. It washes up all kinds of fish and shells and spume and waves with a steady old beat, or off-beat.” In this paper I assert that the rap music of Kendrick Lamar contains the steady off-beat of jazz and carries out the rhetorical legacy of Hughes’ jazz poetry. By marking the key elements of jazz poetry and tracing their presence in rap music, I will show how these elements create a powerful aesthetic experience for audiences that primes them for the rhetorical messages of the artist. -
00:00:00 Music Transition Gentle, Trilling Music with a Steady Drumbeat Plays Under the Dialogue
00:00:00 Music Transition Gentle, trilling music with a steady drumbeat plays under the dialogue. 00:00:01 Promo Promo Speaker: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR. [Music fades out.] 00:00:12 Music Transition “Huddle Formation” from the album Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team. 00:00:19 Jesse Host It’s Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. Terrace Martin—a musician and Thorn producer—was born in Los Angeles’s Crenshaw District. He first started in music as a saxophonist who played in jazz bands, went to an arts high school, and even went to band camp. He wasn’t much older than 18 when he figured out that life wasn’t for him. At the same, the kids growing up around him were freestyling and making mixtapes and beats. And who wouldn’t be excited about that? With those two parallel backgrounds, Terrace kicked off a career that would make him a trailblazing polymath in popular music. As a producer, he’s worked with Snoop Dogg, Charlie Wilson, YG, Kendrick Lamar. As a solo artist, he’s released about half a dozen albums. Terrace channels classic artists like Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Herbie Hancock, while also landing some pretty great features—heavy hitters like Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Wiz Khalifa, and the aforementioned K Dot. Terrace isn’t the kind of guy to be slowed down by anything, including a pandemic. [Music fades in.] In 2020, he released seven EPs, including Village Days, a record that features a jazz tribute to the late Nipsey Hussle. -
Generative Elements in Kendrick Lamar's to Pimp a Bu Erfly
This Flow Ain’t Free: Generative Elements in Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Buerfly John J. Maessich NOTE: The examples for the (text-only) PDF version of this item are available online at: hp://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.1/mto.19.25.1.maessich.php KEYWORDS: Hop hop, hip-hop, flow, Kendrick Lamar, popular music, semiotics, cultural studies ABSTRACT: This article presents analyses of three songs from To Pimp a Buerfly with respect to the relationship between Lamar’s flow and the instrumental track in each song. A spectrum of flow is proposed, which consists of flow that is at one extreme derivative (metrically and hypermetrically aligned with the instrumental track) and at the other generative (flow and instrumental track are discontinuous). This framework is then considered with respect to normative stylistic considerations and used as a means of interpretation in tandem with the lyrics. Received DATE Volume 25, Number 1, April 2019 Copyright © 2019 Society for Music Theory [1] In his article “On the Metrical Techniques of Flow in Rap Music,” Kyle Adams defined flow in rap music as “all of the rhythmical and articulative features of a rapper’s delivery of the lyrics” (Adams 2009, [6]). He outlines how delivery can affect the expressive quality of the song, discussing a variety of rhythmic techniques that include the placement of accented syllables in relation to the beat, as well as the variance of note length and subdivisions of the beat. He summarizes the defining characteristics of flow into two main categories: metrical techniques and articulative techniques. -
Graduates Prepare to Walk the Stage See Page 4 2 the Gazette | May 7, 2015 Voices
the Gazette VOL. 77, NO. 12 STUDENT VOICE OF LANGSTON UNIVERSITY THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015 Graduates prepare to walk the stage See Page 4 2 The Gazette | May 7, 2015 Voices The Gazette is produced What is beauty? within the Department of Communication at Langston University. It serves as a teaching tool Professor says it's 'in the eye of the beholder' and public relations vehicle. The newspaper is As a junior at Langston ciety today, ranging from solo album “The Miseduca- published bimonthly and University, I enrolled in the the color of our skin to our tion of Lauryn Hill” in order is dispersed across campus Black Authors in American physical weight to our own to acquire the self-love and every other Thursday, Literature course, in which value system. self-worth she lacks and to except during we read several different Pecola represents a butter- overcome the existential examinations, holidays and texts. fly pimped by the system— angst from which she is suf- extended school breaks. One particular text that a system that oppresses fering. had an impact on me was minorities of all kinds and Society dictates what Toni Morrison’s debut novel constantly tells us all that beauty is and is not. But Adviser/Manager “The Bluest Eye,” published we are not beautiful if we do beauty is a subjective ex- Nicole Turner in 1970. not have blonde hair or blue perience—that is, a mental I enjoyed reading this nov- eyes or even a skinny phy- phenomenon that differs Editor el because it explores themes Wright sique. -
Elizabeth Campbell Johannah Fisher
Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington High School February 2017 Edition By: Elizabeth Campbell What is love? As Valentine’s Day rolls around, I ask myself this question. To me, love is a feeling you get when you find someone you would do anything for. It’s when you would do anything to protect that per- son, and care for them no matter what obstacles you face. Love is unconditional and has no limits. Love never ends; it only grows stronger. I’ve been lucky enough to experience love, and it is the best feeling. Love is a feeling that is hard to come by, but once you find it, you are changed forever. I found love about one year and six months ago. My boyfriend’s name is Timothy, and he is my best friend. He has helped me understand what love truly is. We care about each other, and we put each other first. When you are in a relationship, you have to consider how your actions affect the other person. We enjoy our time together be- cause every minute is precious. Relationships aren’t perfect, but if it’s love, you work for it. Not everything is perfect though. Some- times there are arguments, but they never come to the point where we question our love for one another. Our love is unconditional. We don’t isolate ourselves from the world like some couples do. We enjoy our time with each other, but we make time for our friends as well. We have the best times together; we’re con- stantly laughing and joking around with each other. -
Afro-Pessimism, Black Life, and Classical Hip Hop As Counter-Performance Kevin Eubanks
Eubanks: After Blackness, Then Blackness: Afro-Pessimism, Black Life, and JOURNAL OF HIP HOP STUDIES . After Blackness, Then Blackness: Afro-Pessimism, Black Life, and Classical Hip Hop as Counter-Performance Kevin Eubanks Just as Frank Wilderson cites the propensity of the black performance to obscure and evade black life and reality and calls for a more “direct reflection” on the “ghosts and grammar” that haunt the enactment of black subjectivity, Jared Sexton’s critique of Fred Moten’s optimism lies in the latter’s emphasis on the “fugitive ontology” of blackness, an ontology that has the black always on the run from the structures that govern a priori the anti-black world into which it would pretend to escape. Consequently, the challenge of afro-pessimism is to imagine, amidst the afro-pessimist negation, a black movement that is not or other than performative, something more than a “narrative strategy hoping to slip the noose of a life shaped by slavery,” but instead a more visceral apprehension of and engagement with the structural violence against blackness as “a grammar of emergence and being.” The question I would like to answer here is whether in Hip Hop one can discern just such a movement and apprehension. Black life is not lived in the world that the world lives in […]. That’s the whole point of the enterprise at some level. It is all about the implications of this agreed-upon point where arguments (should) begin, but they cannot (yet) proceed. — Jared Sexton, “The Social Life of Social Death” (2011) I know the price of life. -
Motion for Partial Summary Judgment
Case 1:18-cv-01554-PAE Document 94 Filed 07/12/18 Page 1 of 25 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK LINA IRIS VIKTOR, a/k/a NATASHA ELENA Civil Action No.: 1:18-cv-01554 (KBF) COOPER, ECF Case Plaintiff, - against - KENDRICK LAMAR, a/k/a KENDRICK LAMAR DUCKWORTH; SOLANA IMANI ROWE, a/k/a SZA; TOP DAWG ENTERTAINMENT LLC; INTERSCOPE RECORDS; UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP RECORDINGS, INC. a/k/a UMG RECORDINGS, INC.; RADICALMEDIA LLC; DAVE MEYERS; DAVE FREE; FREENJOY, INC.; BUF, INC.; and JOHN DOES 1-8, Defendants. MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT MANATT, PHELPS & PHILLIPS, LLP 7 Times Square New York, NY 10036 (212) 790-4500 Attorneys for Defendants Kendrick Lamar Duckworth p/k/a Kendrick Lamar; Solana Imani Rowe p/k/a SZA; Top Dawg Entertainment LLC; Interscope Records; UMG Recordings, Inc.; Dave Friley; Dave Meyers; BUF, Inc.; and Freenjoy, Inc. Case 1:18-cv-01554-PAE Document 94 Filed 07/12/18 Page 2 of 25 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PRELIMINARY STATEMENT ................................................................................................... 1 FACTUAL BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................ 3 LEGAL STANDARD .................................................................................................................. 14 ARGUMENT ............................................................................................................................... 15 I. PLAINTIFF IS NOT ENTITLED TO DISGORGE -
Week 10, June 3 First, a Bunch of Review, Starting at the End of Lecture 7
Week 10, June 3 First, a bunch of review, starting at the end of lecture 7. "Today": 1. Trap and Drill 2. Fashion 3. Dance 4. Storytelling revisited 5. SD At some point today: Pick one song we've heard, and make a connection to a theme in the history of Hip Hop as we've encountered it. themes like: the dozens, diss tracks, humor, vulgarity, political engagement, relationship to commerce, race, etc. What is the relationship? Why is it interesting? After 2004 • Full scale collapse of the music industry ◦ Napster, suit with RIAA, rise of legal streaming (Spotify) ◦ How did the collapse effect Hip Hop, which had, by now, become the dominant popular form? • Questions about Hip Hop over the last 10 years ◦ Have the demographics of music changed? ◦ What's the relationship, now, between Hip Hop and mainstream culture? ◦ Is the music more politicized now than 10 years ago? Adjustments in the Hip Hop market in the last 10 years • Mixtapes • Shifting relationship to street culture • The internet • Local scenes, local dance • Decline of radio (1996 Telecom Act) • Increased corporate relationships with high fashion, other mass commodidies Mixtapes • Originally, promotional tools for DJs • Became a useful career-building tool for many artists, providing black market revenue, street credibility and exposure • Also a primary venue for experimentation and dispute: a much faster moving medium than official albums, served theole r that live performance might serve in other genres • Relationship between the music business and mixtape scene has always been complicated. • Strictly speaking, they're illegal, but the industry usually turns a blind eye, and even uses them as promotional materials sometimes.