Humanities Homework Help
Humanities Homework Help. Cultural Connections: Applying Cultural Features in Contemporary Rap Music
SHORT ASSIGNMENT
” Accept to begin, that tradition is the creation of the future out of the past.”
-Henry Glassie
Students will select a rap song or songs that were released in the last 6 years.* Avoid R&B or pop songs. The emphasis is on rapping performances for this particular assignment. Identify four different African American oral traditions discussed in Chapter 4 and lecture: toasting, boasting, ritual insults/playing the dozens, and call-and-response technique. I stress that you should select a rap song (or songs) that has more rapping elements than R&B- or pop-singing styles. To complete the assignment you might have to use more than one song and more than one artist. Start looking for potential songs early but wait until you get a sense of how your instructor addresses these oral traditions in class. The assignment is not due for a while.
- (5 points each): Follow the template attached to these guidelines below. Select the specific lyrics that address the verbal art form in question. Explain your rationale in [brackets]. NOTE: if you use genius.com or some other website or source, you must acknowledge whomever you are paraphrasing. Therefore, include a Works Cited page.
- LEARNING OUTCOME: Completing this portion of the assignment students will apply what they have learned about African American narrative and verbal art tradition recast in a modern context. Students will gain an understanding of the symbolic expressions and narrative conventions that are used in hip hop lyrics.
- *Here is a suggestion. Students tend to neglect women artists. For the sake of diversity (and to make your essay stand out among the most commonly selected artists) examine the lyrics of female artists, for example, M.I.A.’s 2012 song, “Bad Girls.”
Template: A Very Generic Model Follows Below; I found 3 in one song.
You may draw from up to 4 different songs.
Example:
Boasting is typically the easiest. The others might be more cumbersome. While it is more manageable to find three different songs, I will give you an example in which Jay Z displays elements of three of these verbal art traditions in his 2013 song “Tom Ford”:
Name of song: “Tom Ford”
Name of artist or group: Jay Z
Recording details: Magna Carta Holy Grail (2013)
Boasting: The artist boasts of his prowess in the hook [“Number don’t lie, check the scoreboard”] referring to his records sales and perhaps his marketability, and in the verses “Hands down got the best flow, sound I’m so special/Sound boy burial [MC slang for “killing” the competition; also, sounding is another name for ritual/verbal dueling (for example, “Your Momma” routines) and could be understand as a ritualized insult.], this my Wayne Perry flow [a metaphor likening his lyrical skill to the notorious, killer gangster Wayne “Silk” Perry]” (Note to reader, I did not know the Wayne Perry Reference so I consulted RapGenius).
Name of song: “Tom Ford”
Name of artist or group: Jay Z
Recording details: Magna Carta Holy Grail (2013)
Toasting: The song’s title suggests that it is a song about Tom Ford, and it is in minor ways about the high-end fashion designer; however, the song can also be read as a celebration of all the baaaaaaad folks coming out of Houston, Texas including his wife Beyoncé and her family and even Tom Ford who live there as a boy: “Riding clean fix your hair in my Crown/ Bad Bitch [Complimenting his wife Beyoncé’s prowess], H town [Houston]/ Keep it trill [referring to Beyoncé as “Third Ward Trill” in the credits of this song]”. Like toasting narratives, “baad” is not meant as a pejorative term—quite the opposite. Baad men and baad women are the heroes of toasting narratives; like Shine who was able to survive the sinking of the Titantic and swim to NYC, or Annie Christmas who was stronger and fiercer than the toughest men and still sexually alluring.
Name of song: “Tom Ford”
Name of artist or group: Jay Z
Recording details: Magna Carta Holy Grail (2013)
Ritual Insult: The song, in its entirety targets, trap music artists; i.e. southern trap music rappers that reinforce stereotypes: “Clap for a nigga with his rapping ass/Blow a stack [he can afford to spend money frivolously] for your niggas with your trapping ass [those behaving like minstrels]” The song does not really fit the definition of a “dis rap” because he is not calling out any one artist in particular, but “trapping” suggests an attack at Trap Music-makers like T.I. and Rick Ross and frivolous songs like “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)” (2010) .
Name of song: “Bossin’Up”
Name of artist or group: Kid Ink feat. A$AP Ferg and French Montana
Recording details: Almost Home (Kid Ink EP) (2013)
Call-and Response: The call-and-response technique appears in the chorus: “[Call] Bossin’ up, [Response] add it up/[Call] Bossin’ up, [Response] add it up.” The chorus functions to add to the boasting lyrics of the song that celebrate Kid Ink’s prowess.
WORKS CITED
Jay Z. “Tom Ford.” *Genius*. Genius Media Inc. Web. 10 February 2015.
Kid Ink feat. A$AP Ferg and French Montana. “Bossin’ Up.” *Genius*. Genius Media Inc. Web. 10 February 2015.
Rubric
Cultural Connections Rubric
| Criteria | Ratings | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeBoasting |
|
5.0 pts |
||
|
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeRoasting |
|
5.0 pts |
||
|
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeRitual Insulting |
|
5.0 pts |
||
|
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeCall-and-Response |
|
5.0 pts |
||
|
Total Points: 20.0 |
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