During Week 10, I actually got to start the playlist that will be a supplement to the e-Zine. Although not all the songs will be included in my analysis, I’m starting to consider how to be selective in my song/album analysis and what to include in the e-Zine itself.
For this week, I sketched a draft of the e-Zine to start envisioning its structure. I also met with Beth Hoppe this last weekend to talk about the easiest way to create the e-Zine and discuss copyright since I’m planning to include clips, images, and lyrics.
Some of the questions for this week were based on the readings from last week. I was mainly considering how I want to tie in other cultures/countries and their part in the globalization of hip-hop culture in my analysis. Last week, I was thinking about the “Signatures of Hip-Hop” article and the way the author included how different parts of the world may relate to the “Black Experience” due to economic, social, and political similarities when living in urban/impoverished areas. This made me think of the reading I did for Professor Devgan’s class last semester, “The Globally Familiar” by anthropologist, Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan, and the movie Gully Boy (2019) which provides discourse on hip-hop culture in New Delhi, India and how young New Delhi men use rap to express themselves and comment on cultures. In addition to that, I thought about how hip-hop culture is also prevalent in the Philippines, drawing from the Black Experience to talk about issues with inequality, poverty, drugs, etc. I hope to find more examples of non-Western/non-American examples of rap and hip-hop culture to answer the question of how the globalization of hip-hop has included various narratives and how the digitalization of media has also impacted it.
In terms of data, I was able to observe the lyrics of “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (1982) as well as watch the music video. I isolated important lines/verses from the lyrics, and observed to see if they highlighted certain societal issues through the images/visuals in the music video. I also tried finding scholarly articles that analyzed the significance of the lyrics, however I only found op-eds from websites such as TheShadowLeague.com, spcifically dedicated to coverage about sports and culture that only discuss the cultural significance of “The Message.” I have yet to look at the other websites to see what they have to say, but for that song that is what I started with. Then, I did the same for Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly album (2015) [shortened to TPAB] and started with “Alright” and “i.” However, other songs without music videos such as “The Blacker the Berry,” “Mortal Man,” and “Wesley’s Theory” I had to just look at the lyrics. Luckily, I found scholarly articles that anaylzed TPAB and its cultural, political, and societal significance which I will be looking into for next week. The one issue I had for this week’s data is choosing which songs to specifically analyze from TPAB in my e-zine, because the entire album is woven to discuss societal issues and lived experiences of black Americans. So it has made me rethink the structure of my e-Zine and what I want to include in it.
For next week, I want to look into Childish Gambino’s “This is America” (2018), as it is one of the most analyzed music videos. I hope to read the scholarly articles about TPAB, as well as look into other significant songs from different eras. Lastly, I hope to looking into how digital technology & social media has helped with the production and distribution of hip-hop culture.