Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Hamid, Kabir
Language:	English
Published:	Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK 2002
Subjects:	Literature Music hip hop hip-hop music literature lyrics language lingusitic English
Online Access:	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1411127767

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spelling	ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-oberlin14111277672021-08-03T06:27:26Z Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop Hamid, Kabir Literature Music hip hop hip-hop music literature lyrics language lingusitic English <p>I grew up listening to hip-hop music. Although I lived across the country from its birthplace, I would immerse myself in its sounds during the day and especially at night when my brother would play tapes before we fell asleep in our bunk beds. At a certain point in high school, I became obsessed with the music's lyrics. I was continually astonished by the cleverness, rhyme ability and edginess of the emcees I listened to. My admiration for hip-hop music developed alongside my admiration for the great authors I was reading at that time: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Hesse and Virginia Woolf, to name a few. It was clear to me that English literature and hip-hop music used words in radically different ways. These divergent ways of employing language were reflected in the pedagogical fact that hip-hop would never end up in the classroom while English literature remained one of its fixtures.</p> <p>In college, I began to visit www.ohhla.com (short for "original hip-hop lyrics archive"), a website almost wholly devoted to transcribing the lyrics of hip-hop songs. At first, I was surprised that many of these lyrical transcripts, especially those that were abstracted from songs that I had never heard, seemed to lose something in translation. Without the voice of the emcee to infuse the words with life and the beat to enter into a synergistic relationship with them, the lyrics seemed simplistic and, at times, even nonsensical. However, as I continued to examine these transcripts, I began to engage with them in new ways; I saw the patterns between them, the similar things that they stressed and played with, the skill and artistry reflected in the tum of their phrases. I began listening to more underground emcees, who are mostly signed to independent labels and consequently given an almost unlimited amount of artistic freedom. While I discovered this music, I studied transcripts of its songs on www.ohhla.com. becoming increasingly impressed with what I found.</p> <p>This paper represents my attempt to fill a gap in the discourse surrounding one of the most interesting musical and linguistic forms to come around in quite a while. Retrospectively, my project is the fruit of a seed that was planted in high school; I wished then that hip-hop would gain the pedagogical attention that my favorite books received. This thesis is the fulfillment of that wish and my attempt to marry two very compatible entities: the study of English language and literature and the lyrical form and content of hip-hop music.</p> 2002 English text Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1411127767 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1411127767 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.
collection	NDLTD
language	English
sources	NDLTD
topic	Literature Music hip hop hip-hop music literature lyrics language lingusitic English
spellingShingle	Literature Music hip hop hip-hop music literature lyrics language lingusitic English Hamid, Kabir Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop
author	Hamid, Kabir
author_facet	Hamid, Kabir
author_sort	Hamid, Kabir
title	Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop
title_short	Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop
title_full	Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop
title_fullStr	Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop
title_full_unstemmed	Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop
title_sort	word is born: critical gaps and the poetics of hip-hop
publisher	Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK
publishDate	2002
url	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1411127767
work_keys_str_mv	AT hamidkabir wordisborncriticalgapsandthepoeticsofhiphop
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Word is Born: Critical Gaps and the Poetics of Hip-Hop

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