Blogging on Cobb 2 & 3

Chapter 2 of Till the Break of Dawn talks about the stylistic changes in Hip Hop over time. One thing really interested me, and that was the perpetual split in Hip Hop between political/Lyrical Hip Hop and party music Hip Hop. I always thought that they were distinct but in reality the book really helped me see how the best political, or lyrical Hip Hop needs to be good music, good to party too. They give the example of the message, the song white lines is another one that I think proves the point the book makes. It keeps going into music now, the best deep hip hop was deep hip hop backed by good musical production. What is Illmatic without Pete Rock or DJ Premier's production. Even if its not "dance music" Hip Hop lyricists depends on good production to not only allow for maximum impact of their words, but to make it appeal to people it has to be good musically. Also this joy in music allows for us to not only temporarily forget being poor or struggling, but also to take it on, on our own terms.



Chapter 3 was talking more about actual styles used in hip-hop and their origins. The passage I liked in this showed me something I didn't see before, the way that hip hop and R&B come from a similar origin and how in the early days hip-hop performers sang hooks, and at the same time later on R&B songs featured cameos from various MC's . I also see the links between the concept of flow in jazz and the concept of call and response in blues lyrics, and their presents in hip hop. This is something I haver seen but never really thought much about, but play a very important role in Hip Hop musically.