Transcribing KRS-One

In my most recent dissertation interview with Toni Blackman, I asked how a non-rapper like me might approach rap songwriting with music education students. The best approach, of course, would be to just invite Toni herself to come in and teach it, but I wanted suggestions for what to do when that’s not possible. She recommended giving the students some scaffolding: rather than having them work from a blank page, have them write their own lyrics to an existing rap verse. Specifically, she recommended using KRS-One’s flow from his iconic first verse in “Step Into a World (Rapture’s Delight.)”

A rap flow isn’t just a rhyme scheme or a rhythmic structure; it’s a melody too. The pitches might not be confined to the piano keys, but they are specific nonetheless. Asking students to write this way is therefore much the same as giving them an existing melody and having them write new lyrics for it. Using this particular KRS-One song is especially appropriate, because it begins and ends with new lyrics written to the tune of Blondie’s “Rapture.”

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Is it okay to post tracks with unlicensed samples?

I am not a lawyer, just a guy who studies hip-hop academically. But I’m married to a lawyer, and have spoken to various music industry people and done a lot of reading on this. My advice is to go ahead and post tracks with uncleared samples, even though doing so is technically illegal.

Flute in Simpler

Understand that you are not allowed to use samples without permission, even if you are giving away the track for free, and even if you give credit and say you aren’t intending to infringe anyone’s copyrights. But posting tracks with uncleared samples is “illegal” the way jaywalking is illegal. It is very unlikely that doing it will get you into any trouble. Entertainment lawyers cost money, and the copyright holders have better things to do than go after indie artists who aren’t profiting off their samples. The chief copyright attorney for a major publisher told me that they don’t go after random people on the internet, because there’s no upside, and it attracts negative publicity.

If your track does blow up, and you want to release it on a major label, or license it for a TV show or movie, or otherwise make real money from it, then the situation changes. At that point, you will absolutely have to negotiate a sample clearance, both with the songwriter(s) and the owner(s) of the master recording (usually not the same people). You or your label can use a sample clearance service, or hire an entertainment lawyer. I do not recommend trying to do this on your own. The clearance might take the form of a one-time fee, a percentage of royalties/publishing, or both. Depending on who you sampled and how well-resourced they are, this might be a big up-front payment or a major percentage of your publishing. So you or your label might decide that it doesn’t make sense to go through with the clearance. At that point, you will have to replace the sample or withdraw the track from circulation.

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Ethnomusicology and world music

Writing assignment for Ethnomusicology: History and Theory with David Samuels

People like me listen to world music to hope for and imagine a world without imperialism. I’ve sampled Central African pygmy music in my own work, and while I do a better job of attributing my sources than Deep Forest does, I’m motivated by the same impulse.

Timothy Brennan attributes the popularity of African diasporic music among white people to our unconscious desire to resist imperial capitalism. The same is true of world music.

More than just expanding tastes, world music characterizes a longing in metropolitan centers of Europe and North America for what is not Europe or North America… It represents a flight from the Euro-self at the very moment of that self’s suffocating hegemony, as though people were driven away by the image stalking them in the mirror (Brennan 2001, 46).

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Hip-hop top 100

I was asked on Quora to give a list of my favorite hip-hop songs, because what better source is there than a forty-year-old white dad? (I am literally a mountain climber who plays the electric guitar.) I did grow up in New York City in the 80s, and I do love the music. But ultimately, I’m a tourist in this culture. For a more definitive survey, ask Questlove or someone. These are just songs that I like.

Run-DMC

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Why is there so much Auto-Tune on everything?

See also an explanation of how Auto-Tune works

When we talk about Auto-Tune, we’re talking about two different things. There’s the intended use, which is to subtly correct pitch problems (and not just with vocalists; it’s extremely useful for horns and strings.) The ubiquity of pitch correction in the studio should be no great mystery; it’s a tremendous time-saver.

Auto-Tune

But usually when we talk about Auto-Tune, we’re talking about the “Cher Effect,” the sound you get when you set the Retune Speed setting to zero. The Cher Effect is used so often in pop music because it’s richly expressive of our emotional experience of the world: technology-saturated, alienated, unreal. My experience with Auto-Tune as a musician has felt like stepping out the door of a spaceship to explore a whole new sonic planet. Auto-Tune turns the voice into a keyboard synth, and we are only just beginning to understand its creative possibilities. (Warning: explicit lyrics throughout.)

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