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Octavio Herrera POM 193 December 11, 2013 The History of Hip-Hop and Spectral Analysis
Hip-hop began during the 1970s in New York City. As a surprise to most, it began without the use of words. It was simply DJs that sampled music at parties for others to dance to. Hip-hop came about when these DJs mixed funk, soul, and added percussion to the songs. The man who started this, DJ Kool Herc, is considered the father of hip-hop for his skill with using two copies of the same record to emphasize drum beats in his mixes. As his music spread and became more popular, the hip-hop culture was born. People began MCing, better known as rapping, over the beats made by producers. Along with rappers performing their verses on the instrumentals, producers chanted adlibs with them to create more excitement and crowd
involvement. This is when hip-hop began to spread like wildfire. Spreading from the east coast to the west coast and everywhere in between, groups began to form and the hip-hop subculture began to emerge. The hip-hop culture entitles more than just beats and raps; it includes
everything that the subculture helped grow as arts. This includes breaking (break dancing), graffiti, beat boxing, and street fashion. For the sake of physics, focus will be kept on the instrumental beats that are produced and the lyrical art. Both of these important characteristics, as well as the others, evolved over time. Not necessarily for the better or worse, for that is in the ears of the beholders. Needless to say, there are significant differences between old school hip-hop and new school hip-hip-hop. These differences include difference in instrumental style, bass lines, lyrical content, and fluctuation in tempo. Just as the dominant culture in society changes, so does the hip-hop subculture. These changes come about when new artists with unique styles
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influence others and start a movement. Although there are a lot of changes, the music has still been a source for a street subculture and it must be well-respected.
Hip-hop instrumental styles have changed quite a bit from old school to new school, but also retained many similarities. In old school hip-hop, most beats were made using samples from various songs. The technology that was available during this time period, the 1980s, allowed the producers to have layers of samples and re-sequence the different samples that were used. Many of these samples came from genres of music that would not be typically associated with hip-hop. For example, a father of hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash, was widely known for his samples of funk music. Samples were often looped throughout the songs, but technological advances soon allowed for more creativity and put power in the hands of the producer. Samplers such as the AKAI S900 pushed old school instrumental styles forward and helped hip-hop evolve. Along with extreme sampling, much focus was put on drum machines. Heavy 808 kick drum usage was popular for old school hip-hop, and is still used in new school. During the very early stages, much emphasis was put on the actual instrumental beats rather than actual lyrical content. This is due to the fact that hip-hop originated as dance music at parties, so the instrumental beats had to be worked on very hard and highlighted. With time, instrumental beats made some notable changes into the new school era of hip-hop. Instead of using samples all the time, producers began to use synthesizers more often, as well as 808 kick drum and sophisticated bass lines. However, the use of samples for beats did not deteriorate. Rather, it expanded to a variety of different genres. The samples not only come from funk and soul music these days, but more frequently derive from jazz, electronica, R&B, indie, gospel, and pop. This expansion of instrumental styles from old school to new school was made available by the technology the producers used. In this era of new school hip-hop, most of the production is computerized. This
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is what allows for the more advanced beats that are used now-a-days. Dr. Dre is known as one of the most influential producers of hip-hop of all time, for he has produced beats for decades and is considered a legend. Old school hip-hop beats are very repetitive due to the looping of samples that were used and fairly simple bass lines. New schools beats range much more and have heavier bass lines, which can both be attributed to the advances in technology. Hip-hop instrumental beats have changed over time, not necessarily for the better or worse, but this is natural for music and the world around us.
The lyrical content of hip-hop varies quite a bit from old school to new school and everywhere in-between. Although not all lyrical content is the same during a time period, the overall content is able to be analyzed because of the cultural movements that were happening. The lyrical content of hip-hop during the stages, around the 1970s, when it was being created was limited to DJs chanting things like “Go!” “Jump!” “One! Two! Three!” An example of a popular song that contains lyrics of this sort is the classic “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang. However, as time progressed, the general lyrical content began to change. During the 1980s, instead of having simple chants, a young African-American and Latino generation developed lyrics that expressed their feeling of oppression. Young black and Latino males rapped about their social, cultural, and political views. A popular album that portrays the general views of the hip-hop culture of the 1980s is “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” by Public Enemy. As implied by the title, these views became rebellious. By the late 1980s, this culture of rebellion quickly created Gangsta Rap, a form of hip-hop that was promoted extreme masculinity and violence. This type of hip-hop is the most widely known all over the world because of the cultural movement that came along with it. With the release of N.W.A’s legendary album “Straight Outta Compton,” gang violence and rebellion exploded in places like southern
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California, especially Los Angeles. Gangsta Rap continued into the next decade, which saw the most famous hip-hop feud of all time: East Coast vs. West Coast. The East Coast did not “show love” to the West Coast by not playing West Coast music on the radio and not giving their rappers credit. Soon enough, the West Coast began to retaliate by taking shots at the East Coast in their music. A huge rivalry between the West Coast record label Death Row Records and East Coast label Bad Boy Entertainment ignited. Rappers Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. were originally friends in the music business, but as this rivalry escalated, they were soon each other’s worst enemy. Both of these rappers fired shots at each other lyrically, and soon enough real bullet shots were fired at both of these legends of hip-hop. The murders of Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. have a lot of conspiracy theories behind them and it seems like the public will never know what really caused all of it. Their deaths further added fuel to the fire that was the Coast rivalry and
advanced Gangsta Rap. Although it would not be considered as a positive advance, Gangsta Rap became very popular during the 1990s and slowly died out entering the new millennium. During the 2000s, hip-hop turned into a mainstream genre. Violence is not a huge dilemma with
mainstream hip-hop, rather it is made to make and brag about money rather than express feelings of oppression. However, there is a huge world of underground hip-hop that embodies the street culture like old-school hop used to. Rappers that are known to promote the progress of hip-hop are Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Lupe Fiasco, J. Cole, and many others. Although some of the lyrical content of mainstream hip-hop these days contains money, sex, and drugs, there are a great portion of rappers that explain the struggles of young minorities and the environment they were raised in. The general changes of lyrical content of hip-hop can be seen with the culture changes that come along with it.
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Using a MATLAB, we were able to use a new and improved form of spectral analysis techniques to analyze the fluctuations of three different components of music from 14 hip-hop songs. Six of these songs were old school and eight were new school hip-hop songs, with artists varying from N.W.A. and Notorious B.I.G to Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z. The three different components of music that we were able to analyze were amplitude fluctuations, frequency fluctuations, and tempo fluctuations. More than anything, I wanted to see the general differences that exist from old school to new school hip-hop. Amplitude fluctuations measure the changes in loudness that a song has. When analyzing amplitude fluctuations, in these songs, the results showed that songs did not change very much. The 14 tracks stayed within a range of 0.45899 to 1.24530 on a spectral exponent scale using beta. The song fluctuates less in a characteristic as the spectral exponent is closer to 2.0000. However, the results showed that there was not a general trend for old school rather than new school. Rather, all 14 tracks did not fluctuate a lot when analyzing loudness.
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songs, however, seemed to have more fluctuation. These ranged from 0.54220 to 1.68615. The explanation for the wide range of tempo fluctuation in new school hip-hop songs is related to new synthetic beats that are used. Many new school producers have advanced technology that allows them to control every single moment of their song, thus allowing them to speed up or slow down their beats. This accounts for the low spectral exponent in the songs that fluctuate in tempo. Although a lot of new school songs range widely in tempo, some tend to use some more old school style beats. For example, in the song “Hip-Hop Saved My Life” by Lupe Fiasco, the spectral exponent was similar to that of an old school song. This is due to the use of an old school style beat. Many new school artists tend to use instrumental beats similar to old school songs because that is the type of music they grew up listening to. The wide range in tempo fluctuation is due to the different styles of new school artists and producers. Many have a heavy old school influence, which leads them to loop samples in their instrumental beats. Others enjoy making a new school movement, which leads them to create beats that have a notable amount of fluctuation in tempo.
It is interesting to see all of the different changes that a genre of music endured over a few of decades. Not only did the changes in culture and society cause these various changes in hip-hop, but hip-hop also had its effects on culture and society. The changes associated with the evolution of hip-hop during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries included
instrumental styles, bass lines, lyrical content, and tempo fluctuation. Hip-hop, as will all genres, will definitely continue to evolve as time passes by and it is exciting to think about what the future holds.
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Sources
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<http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/socialsignificance.htm>.
Errede, Steven. "Measurement of Complex Sound Fields." University of Illinois, Champaign. Lecture. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
<http://courses.physics.illinois.edu/phys406/Lecture_Notes/P406POM_Lecture_Notes/P406POM_Lect13_Part2.pdf>
Errede, Steven. "The Fractal Nature of Human Music." University of Illinois, Champaign. Lecture. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
<http://courses.physics.illinois.edu/phys406/Lecture_Notes/P406POM_Lecture_Notes/P406POM_Lect15.pdf>
Flores, Lucien J. "Examining the Roots and Growth of Hip-Hop." Student Pulse, 05 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
