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Professor Chris Dean Writing 2 Ace June 11, 2007 Bay Area: How The Latest Bay Area Music (“Hyphy Movement”) Is Reaching To Students At UCSB Abstract. This research is aimed at the latest Bay Area hip-hop that is slowly growing and becoming noticed by the people of Southern California. The “hyphy” movement, or the Bay Area hip-hop, has become the latest unique style of music and so far it has only become recognized by certain parts of Southern California. The “hyphy” movement, to some extent has become a cultural force. Its style has opened up a huge group of young followers that perform what takes part in the “hyphy” movement to use it as a representation of being from the Bay Area. It consists of things such as getting ‘hyphy’, listening to Bay Area hip hop that relates to getting ‘hyphy’, and using the slang words that go along with it. Ultimately, this paper was done to look into the possible reason(s) as to how this new type of hip hop has reached the attention of a number of students at UCSB. Method. Twenty-Seven students who attend UC Santa Barbara participated in a survey containing eight questions related to the latest in Bay Area hip-hop. The questions asked were aimed at obtaining a considerable reason as to how the latest Bay Area hip- hop is reaching students at UC Santa Barbara. The surveys were only asked to be done by students who actually attend UCSB. Results. The results are looked at in two different situations considering that they were two different questions. Students primarily began listening to Bay Area music on the radio and most students believe that other students at UCSB are going to become a little more familiar with the latest Bay Area hip-hop from the students coming in from Northern California. Discussion. With this research, the implications are that due to the radio, more students are becoming familiar with the latest in Bay Area music. However, if there was a bigger participation in this survey the results could possibly change.
Introduction Lately it looks as if a large amount of students from UCSB are getting to know a little more about the latest Bay Area music being performed by artists such as E-40, The Pack, Federation, and Keak da Sneak, which only happen to be some of the many artists that are actually out there. Students who originally come from Southern California mention the idea that many of them did not even hear about Bay Area hip hop before the came they came to UCSB. Recently, however, some students have mentioned that when returning home, quite a few younger people are beginning to talk about Bay Area hip hop. Aside from this, another question comes into consideration: Where are the youths who are not attending college at this time getting to know about hyphy music? Hyphy is a mixture of getting hyper and fly—and it means to “get stupid”; the term hyphy originally comes from the Bay Area commonly used by youths who live there. If many do not know now, the Bay Area hip-hop is making an influence amongst those at UCSB because students are . What exactly are the possible reasons that the “hyphy” movement is spreading? For now, the details still vary for the students at UCSB because the subject is currently taking place.
A lot of times when going to parties, students cannot go to one without listening to a Bay
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Area song without the word hyphy being mentioned in it. Artist like Mac Dre’s “thizz face” and E-40’s “put your stunna shades on” are being imitated by more students at UCSB than most people may think.
The hypothesizes in this research is: the main reason why Bay Area hip-hop is reaching out to students at UCSB is because the students from NorCal bring in the style of Bay Area hip hop and the music with them. This could imply that the more NorCal students that come into UCSB will broaden the recognition of Bay Area hip-hop. In addition, it could be supposed that all people from NorCal listen to the latest Bay Area hip hop, which in that case continues to open up the movement to those students at UCSB who do not yet know about the “hyphy” movement.
Background
The ‘hyphy’ sound and slang has become contagious, but it is still taking a while to reach nation wide attention. Artists are working to make it happen for them and some journalists have brought to mind that it gain a wider popularity after some work as well.
In the newspaper article “Hyphy Heats Up” by Jim Farber, the following is mentioned: In fact, hyphy's youthfulness may be its strongest calling card.”It’s fun music," says Peters. "It's all about being outlandish and showing your personality to the nth degree."—All it really needs now, says Caramanica, is a homegrown producer to hone that sound and make sure hyphy becomes more than mere hype. “If they can come up with a Timbaland or a Neptunes, someone who can trademark the sound,” he says, “then this goes national.” For the time being, the Bay Area artists are doing what they can to get their self out there. Only a few hits like E-40’s single “Tell Me When to go” and the Pack’s “Vans” have gotten the most notable plays outside of the Bay Area. According to the article “Hyphy Heats Up,” Keak da Sneak, the rapper who originally came up with ‘hyphy’, is still waiting for a record deal with a major label. In the article “Hyphy spreads slowly” Keak da Sneak quotes, “I can…grind it out,” he says. “For me to sign a deal” with a major label, “it’s got to be worth it.” Then we have an artist like E-40 who has managed to do well. Kate Patterson’s article “E-40 the ambassador of the Bay” she says: Like many Bay Area artists, E-40 has struggled to get his music heard. Just why the Yay’s music faded from the spotlight is hard to pinpoint. Whether it was the lack of local-friendly radio, a loss of interest from major labels, the emergence of other regions, or even the theory that Bay music died along with Tupac, 40 has managed to pull through the dry spells, securing a major label deal and releasing numerous albums without ever sacrificing his unique sound. Noticeably, many of the artists of the Bay Area are lacking the opportunity E-40 received just as it is clearly as stated in Patterson’s article, it is hard and it is for sure what the exact reason is why they lost the spotlight.
The Bay Area artists do not give the impression, however, that they are going to quit. The
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Methods
Data was collected from twenty-seven students, all who attend UC Santa Barbara. All of the surveys were done online, basically stating that the majority of the information about the respondents was anonymous. Gender and age cannot be presented within this research. In order to obtain accurate results, only students who attended UCSB were asked to volunteer to take the survey because only respondents from UCSB are significant. A messaged was provided for the surveyors informing them the reason for the survey, that it was completely anonymous, and that only those who are from UCSB, were possible respondents to take the survey.
All twenty-seven surveys consisted of the same questions. The following were asked:
1. Are you from the Bay Area? __Yes __No
2. Have you ever heard of the new hip-hop known as Bay Area music? __Yes __No
3. Where did you begin to hear the latest Bay Area music? __In the Bay Area __On the radio __At UCSB parties __Keak da Sneak Performance (Storke Plaza)/E-40(Extravaganza) __Other (please specify)
4. Order from 1-4 what you think is making you and other people at UCSB become a little more familiar with the latest Bay Area music and the culture of it? (1 being the most common reason) __Radio __Media __Parties __Students coming for nor cal who bring the Bay Area hip-hop to so cal
5. What is the most you can associate, so far, with Bay Area hip-hop? (Check all that apply) __getting “hyphy” __thizz face __putting your stunna shades on __ghost riding the whip __getting stupid __getting dumb
6. When Bay Area artists like Keak da Sneak and E-40 came to perform on the UCSB campus, did you or did you not choose to attend the show? __Yes, I did __No, I did not
7. Why did you or why did you not choose to attend either of the two performances?
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8. In general how much do you interact with people from the Bay Area that are familiar with the “hyphy movement” also known as Bay Area hip-hop? (With 5 being the greatest and 1 being the least amount of time) __1 Least amount of time __2 __3 Equal amount of time __4 __5 Greatest amount of time
Results
A striking comparison comes across when looking at the graphs. The results here are stated as clearly as possible to indicate the possible generalization of the Bay Area hip- hop The first graph comes from question number 4, and accounts for the rating in percentages, on the reasons why students of UCSB thought the number one cause for the latest Bay Area hip hop is being recognized. The number one reason came from Northern California Students bringing the latest Bay Area hip hop to UCSB. The percentage came out to be 65.4%(17 students). When looking at question number 4, students were asked to order from 1-4 what they think is the is main reason why students are getting familiar with the Bay Area music, with the number 1 being the first reason.
Rating the Causes for Familiarity with the Latest Bay Area Hip-Hop Table 1.
70 60 50 Reason1 40 Reason2 30 Reason3 20 Reason4 10 0 Radio Media Parties NorCal Students
Turning to this graph, which came from question number 3, the results changed compared to number 4. This indicates that most students first began to hear the Bay Area music from the radio and UCSB parties came in second. The percentage for those who listened to it on the radio was 40.7%(11 students) and at the UCSB parties it was 37%(10 students).
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Where did you first begin to hear latest Bay Area music? Table 2.
45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Radio The Bay UCSB parties performances other
What was interesting here is that compared to the first graph, parties became a popular pick compared to listening to Bay Area music on the radio. This is significant because it could be that when determining how the Bay Area music is becoming more noticed by the students it must have started on the radio and moved its way to parties where more students would be able to listen to it. The radio and parties could partially be replacing the role students from Northern California have on exposing students in Southern California to the Bay Area music.
Discussion
What would have been more helpful is if this research received a larger number of students who would have taken the survey. To put into consideration, the majority of the surveyors were an in-group. The implications that were first suggested were that Northern California students are the primary reason why the latest Bay Area music is stretching out to Southern California. From looking at this research, the outlook on the latest Bay Area music so far seems to be more of a California phenomena. The whole nation still does not seem to notice a lot about the latest in Bay Area music. From the background research it is clearly stated that the Bay Area needs a great producer to open up higher opportunities for artists.
First to begin with, the latest in Bay Area music has not reached mainstream radio and looking at the results from this research, most students first began to listen to Bay Area music from the radio. What exactly is the primary reason for the Bay Area hip-hop reaching UCSB students? To conclude this study, the radio station takes the main an affect on the exposure of the latest in Bay Area hip-hop to students at UCSB. Although changes could occur on the study if more students participated in the survey, it is relevant to think that the radio actually has more of an impact than students from NorCal. If you were to take a group of students and indicate whether they listen to the radio station or hang out with people who are from the Bay Area, it is most likely that you will get more students who listen to the radio stations. Not all of California knows of someone who is from the Bay Area, so in that case, radio stations are the main support as of yet.
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Work Cited Braiker, Brian. “California’s Latest Sound: ‘Hyphy’.” MSNBC. 14 Jan., 2005. 31 May. 2007