A Rhythmic Analysis of Rap - What Can We Learn from ‘Flow’?
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A Rhythmic Analysis of Rap - What can we learn from ‘flow’? A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Linguistics in the University of Canterbury by Iskandar Rhys Davis March 2017 Contents Chapter I: Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Purpose and goals of investigating rap rhythm ........................................................... 1 1.2 Hip-Hop roots .............................................................................................................. 2 1.2.1 MCs and DJs ........................................................................................................ 2 1.2.2 Where rap began .................................................................................................. 3 1.2.3 Progression of rap content ................................................................................... 4 1.2.4 The use of sampling ............................................................................................. 6 1.3 An introduction to flow ............................................................................................... 7 1.4 Rap arenas and their influence on rap style............................................................... 10 1.4.1 Different rap forms ............................................................................................ 11 1.4.2 The mainstream vs. underground debate ........................................................... 15 1.4.3 A move towards blurring the lines ..................................................................... 18 1.5 Rap regions, content and identity .............................................................................. 19 1.6 Rhymes and rhyme schemes ..................................................................................... 23 1.7 Summary & prospect ................................................................................................. 25 Chapter II: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 27 2.1 Rhythm & isochrony, outdated but not Outcast ........................................................ 27 2.2 Subsequent theories for characterizing rhythm ......................................................... 28 2.3 The Pairwise Variability Index ................................................................................. 29 2.4 Dorreen’s research, hip-hop studies and methodologies ........................................... 32 2.5 Rhythm research on New Zealand English ............................................................... 35 2.6 The PVI in singing and musical rhythm research ..................................................... 36 Chapter III: Methods ............................................................................................................ 37 3.1 Acapella data & Praat ................................................................................................ 37 3.2 Auditory analysis....................................................................................................... 38 3.3 Stress counts & syllable measures ............................................................................ 40 3.3.1 Stress counts....................................................................................................... 40 3.3.2 Syllables per second ........................................................................................... 41 3.4 Acoustic analysis & PVI scripts ................................................................................ 42 3.5 Patterning clips .......................................................................................................... 43 Chapter IV: Results ............................................................................................................... 45 4.1 Auditory analysis & flow descriptions ...................................................................... 45 4.1.1 Arthur ................................................................................................................. 45 4.1.2 Oliver ................................................................................................................. 46 4.1.3 Max .................................................................................................................... 47 4.1.4 David .................................................................................................................. 48 4.1.5 Eddie .................................................................................................................. 48 4.1.6 Joshua ................................................................................................................. 49 4.1.7 Summary Assessment of the rappers flow ......................................................... 49 4.2 Overall PVI measures................................................................................................ 50 4.3 PVI measures for patterning clips ............................................................................. 51 4.4 Stress counts .............................................................................................................. 54 4.5 Syllable counts .......................................................................................................... 54 Chapter V: Discussion ........................................................................................................... 56 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 56 5.2 A discussion of flow, and relevant elements of rhythm ............................................ 57 5.2.1 Rhythmic elements involved in flow ................................................................. 57 5.2.2 RQ3 – PVI Measures and their validity ............................................................. 59 Chapter VI: Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 61 6.1 Possibilities for future research ................................................................................. 61 6.2 Summary & final thoughts ........................................................................................ 62 References ............................................................................................................................... 64 Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 69 Acknowledgements The writing of this thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and help from my friends, family, and faculty members. I would like to thank my supervisors, Kevin Watson and Viktoria Papp, for helping keep me on track and offering their advice and assistance, always staying positive when deadlines draw near, and playing a large part in stimulating my interest in the field during my undergraduate years. I would like to thank Kieran Dorreen, who allowed me to make use of the data he gained in his own thesis, and saved me countless hours of manual transcription and annotation. Thank you to all the other members of the linguistics department, both students and faculty members, who have offered their advice and ways to better my research. I’d like to express my special gratitude to Martin Connor, who kindly allowed me to make use of his impressive catalogue of song lyrics in my thesis, that he has transcribed into musical notation. Thank you to my closest friends for helping keep me sane throughout the writing of this thesis, and the rest of my Masters year. Finally, thank you to my loving parents for their amazing support and guidance before, after, and during my entire university life, as well as their backgrounds in language that have most probably contributed to my pursuit of language research. ABSTRACT This thesis provides a novel investigation into the rhythm of rap, using data from six local Christchurch rappers. The background focus was to provide a linguistically-informed description of the hip-hop term flow, in which rhythm plays a major role. Prior theories on characterising rhythm were discussed to determine what would be the most suitable method for the analysis of rap. The Pairwise Variability Index (PVI) algorithm seemed the most suitable candidate, that characterised rhythm by measuring durational variability. An auditory analysis was carried out first, where I attempt to describe the flow of each rapper based on my perceptions, and the relevant aspects discussed in the thesis. The PVI algorithm was then used, using a script run through Praat, to produce metrics for each of the rappers in my data. Stress and error counts were also manually quantified and stress percentage was calculated for each rapper. Overall PVI scores from the data were higher than prior measures of NZE speakers, though the setting and performance of acapella freestyle is quite different to data examined previously. With the nPVI scores showing many correlations to the auditory analysis, results seem promising. A larger-scale perceptual study would yield considerably more validity for this notion however. Chapter I: Introduction 1.1 Purpose and goals of investigating rap rhythm This thesis investigates rap rhythm using the Pairwise Variability Index (PVI). Flow is a term well recognised in hip-hop culture;