Freestyle and the Rap Commodity Griots Deejay Toasting

Freestyle and the Rap Commodity

Griots

Deejay Toasting

MC/Emcee • Master of Ceremonies • Microphone Controller • Early MCs just kept the party moving • By late 1970 s, MCs brought in a lot of bragging and boasting and party lyrics • By early 1980 s we see “message” rap

Early MCs • 1 st known MC, 1974 ish, Coke La Rock – • • Kool Herc's Herculoids Cowboy – GM Flash and 3 MCs / Furious Five – First to really rhyme and rock a crowd, routines Melle Mel – GM Flash and 3 MCs / Furious Five – Writing rhymes. . . song writing credit/publishing

“Rapper's Delight” • 1979, Sugarhill Gang (a “boy band”) • Best-selling 12” single of all time • NOT the first record with rapping (Fatback Band “King Tim III (Personality Jock)”) • 14 -minute record, played on many radio formats • Made emceeing into “rapping” • Made rap music global/glocal • Mass commodification of music

Rap is. . . • Commodified form of hip hop music – Turns live performance art into a sellable product • Hip hop comes from streets; record companies made rap • Written. . . rapper is an “author” • Displaces the DJ. . . started with “Rapper's Delight” – First musicians replicating DJ – Then producers

Blair (2004) • Youth subcultural expression into pop culture – Music that comes from socio-economic oppression • Using rap to sell other goods • Relates to rock and jazz; use of white appropriators to quell moral panics (i. e. Elvis) – • Run-DMC “Walk This Way” Marx's Alienation= something human is taken from us and returned as a commodity

Blair Cont'd • Hegemony=ruling class ideas rule society as “normal” • Gottdiener (1985): subcultural incorporation – 1. Objects produced for exchange – 2. User modifies object (bricolage); subcultural sign – 3. Producers capitalize and turn subcultural trends in to mass culture; sanitization • Once incorporated, the subculture ceases to exist • What does she say about rap in her study?

Eminem v. Juice • 1997 Scribble Jam Battle, Juice wins • 1997 Rap Olympics, Otherwize wins – • Led to Eminem getting signed Considered to heavily influence 8 Mile (2002) – Craig G wrote all the rhymes for Eminem's competitors in the film

NOTORIOUS (2009) • Infamous battle when he was 17

Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (2000) • Dir. Kevin Fitzgerald • Art of improv rhyming, ephemeral – • The original form of MCing Written vs. Freestyle – Written is business end, mass produceable • Spiritual • Outlet for anger, frustration, emotion. . . HEALING • Battling and cypher. . . bboy, DJ, graff