Week 1 Discussion

What is one hip hop song that resonates with you? This can be a song from any era, ranging from the old school to the current day. Type the name of the song, the artist, and include a link to the song (Spotify, Youtube). For example:

A song that resonates with me is ‘Scenario’ by A Tribe Called Quest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6TLWqn82J4). (Links to an external site.)

Then, answer the following:

1. What resonates with you about this song/artist?

2. What are two things from week one’s lecture and readings that help you better understand what this song/artist is doing? (i.e. the dozens, toasting, comedy, poetry, sampling/reusing preexisting music, etc). Cite two examples taken from two different readings. These can include the assigned readings (each chapter from Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop can count as a different reading for this assignment) as well as the additional readings found in the Week One module.

Don’t worry about works cited. Just use in-text citations. For example:

In Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco, Peter Shapiro writes, “This elongation and elastication of the funk was the disco aesthetic in a nutshell” (Shapiro 35).

3. Lastly, how do you hope to inform your hip hop listening experience this quarter? (In other words, what do you hope to learn?)