Book

Rhymin' and stealin' : musical borrowing in hip-hop

Williams, Justin A., author

Overview

Rhymin' and Stealin' begins with a crucial premise: the fundamental element of hip-hop culture and aesthetics is the overt use of preexisting material to new ends. Whether it is taking an old dance move for a breakdancing battle, using spray paint to create street art, quoting from a famous speech, or sampling a rapper or 1970s funk song, hip-hop aesthetics involve borrowing from the past. By appropriating and reappropriating these elements, they become transformed into something new, something different, something hip-hop. Rhymin' and Stealin' is the first book-length study of musical borrowing in hip-hop music, which not only includes digital sampling but also demonstrates a wider web of references and quotations within the hip-hop world. Examples from Nas, Jay-Z, A Tribe Called Quest, Eminem, and many others show that the transformation of preexisting material is the fundamental element of hip-hop aesthetics. Although all music genres use and adapt preexisting material in different ways, hip-hop music celebrates and flaunts its \"open source\" culture through highly varied means. It is this interest in the web of references, borrowed material, and digitally sampled sounds that forms the basis of this book--sampling and other types of borrowing becomes a framework with which to analyze hip-hop music and wider cultural trends

• Publisher: University Of Michigan Press
• Subject: Hip-hop. / Rap (Music) History and criticism. / Hip-hop / Rap (Music)
• ISBN: 047203619X, 9780472036196

Item info:

1 item available

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Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
ML3531.W546 2014	1	BOOK	GENERAL