All About Rapping

Jonathan McSpadden

ENG 1301-285

Mrs. Dz

November 15, 2011

Abstract

In this ethnographic essay I will explain to you the profession of rap. There will be points on what it takes to become a rapper and tips from people in articles, as well as a personal interview that I conducted.I will go through the criteria needed to become a rapper and will show you how timing is everything. I will reach into all of the data I have recorded to tell you about the everyday life of a rapper. You will learn how they prepare for songs and what drives them to continue rapping. I will also inform you on how rap has its own discourse community, and even more discourse communities inside of itself.

What do rappers do with their daily lives? How do they prepare for songs? How do these artist mentally prepare themselves before performing a concert or show? How do these artist become famous in the first place? What are the goals and characteristics of the rap discourse community? I have been conducting research in order to find the answers as well as increase my knowledge on almost every aspect of rap.

To many people, music is known for being able to comfort whatever mood you are in, whenever. For many teenagers living today, music is very important to them and can be included as a top priority in their lives. Genres such as rap and hip-hop are very common these days with the population that listens to music and are all around clubs and bars. Hip-Hop- and rap are also played at high school and college parties where the teenagers are inspired to do what the artist rap and sing about in their songs.Rap first began in the 1970’s and basically paved the way for itself by making it a new genre in the music world (Sullivan, R.E. 2003). People from ages as young as 5, to as old as one can live are proud listeners of hip-hop and rap; even though some rap and hip-hop may not be suitable for children at such a young age. As days, years, and decades pass the beats that rappers rap to change. If you were to look back and listen to older rap artists such as 2 Pac, you would notice how the beats sound old compared to the beats of today’s artist like Lil’ Wayne. Not only beats, but also styles are changing as well. When rap first began the topic was always about real life stories and controversial topics.

As the new era of rap began, rappers started to seem to rap about only money, sex, drugs, and violence. At this time, rap lost a good amount of listeners because they would have rather heard songs about current events happening today. As hip-hop picked back up over the year of 2011, a few people have explained ways to get into rapping as a profession. The problem with making rap as a profession is the fact that not many people at all actually make it big time. For a human being to become a professional rap artist would take a great amount of skill as well as effort. Not only must someone have the discipline and personal drive, but also they must have the money to afford recording equipment. But, nonetheless I believe that someone who is truly inspired to become a rapper can make it. I will take you into depths of my research to explain all about rappers.

The six characteristics of a discourse community are found in the rap community if research is done properly. The first characteristic is that the discourse community should have a common set of goals, which for rap would be to create music that a good amount of people enjoy (Swales, 2011). The second characteristic is that the community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, which the people in this community use cell phones and email to contact one another. The third characteristic is that the members of this community use their participatory mechanisms for feedback and information. The fourth characteristic is for the community is that is possess’ different genres, which rap continues to do by creating songs that comfort different moods (John’s, 2011).The rap discourse community complies with the fifth characteristic by having its own lexis. Rap has created its own slang and form of words in order to rhyme, which is creating their own lexis. “The sixth and final characteristic is to have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and experience in discourse communities” (Johns, 2011). The rap community has very many members including rappers, singers, producers, DJ’s, and even technicians for live concerts. After spending time looking through articles, I found many sources that included detailed information about rappers and how they were able to become rappers. I read what producers had to say and what they look at before signing a rapper to a record label. “Some look at certain characteristics such as originality and appearance, as others looks for someone who has the ability to rap very well” (Major Music, 2011). There are many different opinions on what makes a good rapper, but as long as a rapper possess the talent and characteristics that a producer is looking for then that artist has a greater chance of becoming famous. Certain characteristics that were talked about are appearance and timing. As bad as it sounds, appearance means a lot if you are striving to become famous in anything these days. But I disagree with this statement because there are many music artists that are claimedto not look “good”, according to the population today. But, appearance is not the only thing involved within the rap discourse community, because there is much more information to gain.

I looked through many more articles explaining characteristics of rappers and how they conduct themselves on a regular basis. I would spend hours on the computer searching through databases to find the right information that I needed. I

conducted research on websites indicating they had information about rap.There was information about how rap became a discourse community back in the day, and information about how these artists became members of the rap discourse community.I had interviewed a young rapper/producer living in Houston who has his own recording studio with a producer helping him make beats, as well as producing beats for him. I was not able to sit down with him personally, but I was able to contact him via Skype. His name is Alex Mayo and is a friend from high school that is now on his way up to the big leagues. He is striving to become famous and informed me on how he prepares for songs and how he prepares for live shows and gigs. He increased my knowledge of how rappers prepare for songs by going into depth about energy and timing. I used to think that all artists just wrote their own original lyrics to either beats from other songs, or original beats made by producers. But, after hearing about the energy it really changed my perspective. It allowed me to understand how rappers prepare for songs and what their mindset is. He informed me on who is already in this discourse community and explained how newcomers become apart of the discourse community. The newcomers in the rap discourse community know the appropriate language and adopt it into their vocabulary. Alex Mayo told me, “When I first started rapping and producing I had to learn from people with expertise about how everything worked” (Mayo, A. 2011). He explained that he had to understand the timing and tempo of beats and rappers rapping to gain more expertise. After continuing to discuss the topic of rap, he talked about how he was able to gain the equipment necessary to remain involved in the rap discourse community. “I had to spend a lot of my money on sound equipment for my recording studio. It took up a lot of my time working in order to pay everything off,” said Alex Mayo (Mayo, A. 2011). He has been working very diligently and seems to be on the right path to maybe one day become someone full of expertise in the rap discourse community.

I have heard many questions about rap as a discourse community. See, rap has not always been around. It was first discovered in the 1970’s among a group of African Americans who began to rhyme lines together (Adams, T. 2006). These rappers would rap about things happening in their daily lives as well as rap about controversial topics currently happening in their day. There were songs that could have fit in with other discourse communities relating to politics and such because of the lyrics in the songs. They would write about topics that intrigued others to listen, which also helped increase the size of the discourse community because it allowed people from other communities to relate to the rap discourse.It wasn’t until later that Hispanics and Caucasians joined into the rap discourse community. As they continued to create songs they would create their own form of words and use slang. This is what helped classify rap as a discourse community by creating their lexis. As more and more newcomers would come into the community they would learn the lexis from hearing raps. After they would learn the lexis of the rap discourse community, it would help them further their experience by creating raps and songs using the community’s slang and vocabulary.As long as someone raps, then they are eligible to be classified as a member of the rap discourse community because they share the same basic goals.

When looking back at some of the questions asked, the one that sticks out the most to me is how did these rappers become famous in their discourse community? How were they able to become the wisest of their community and very well known? As I recall all the information I had accessed previously, I found different answers from different producers and former rappers. Once an artist possesses the criteria needed to become apart of the rap discourse community, they strive to become better at what they do in order to obtain a higher income. According to one article I read into there are just about 3 different ways to increase your salary as a rapper. According to Wendy Day, one way to become someone with higher expertise in your community is to, “Get put on by an established artist, but bear in mind that you may only be as successful as that artist” (Day, W. 2000). If someone who already has experience and credibility in the discourse you strive to be apart of, then they can help you become better known by drawing their personal fans to you. For example, the artist Drake created a record label and signed a new artist by the name of The Weeknd. Because Drake is very popular throughout the rap discourse community, all of his fans tuned into to The Weeknd’s songs. And since Drake likes The Weeknd and fans like Drake, it puts the thought into fans that they too will enjoy what The Weeknd sings and raps about.

As I read more about how rappers can increase their income and become famous in the world and their discourse community, I found out about creating a buzz. The author of one article said, “You can post your music on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to create a fan base”, (Moore, I. 2011).If you do create an artist page for Facebook you can add friends and spread your music a whole lot easier. By having your music on a social networking site, it helps make you more visible to people with resources who can make you famous in the rap discourse community. This also a way to communicate with other people from your discourse community, because almost every single human being that is famous has a social networking page. Artist will connect via Twitter, and tweet about how to obtain beats from different DJ’s and producers. It also helps these artist communicate with each other in case one artist wants someone else to feature on a song.

The third way to increase your experience and expertise in the rap community is to sell your own product. “If you are able to sell your own units, then it makes producers realize they wont waste their money signing you because your music can obviously sell”, said Ehlrich (Ehlrich, B. 2010). Being able to sell the music you created is a big plus. It can boost your reputation very easily with members already in the rap discourse community and can be a stepping-stone to great success.

I had to reread many articles and analyze them in depth to fully understand all the goals and characteristics of the rap discourse community. I looked into the pros and cons of a newcomer signing a deal to become apart of a record label, which can also be known as another discourse community inside the rap community. Many articles will tell you what you need in order to not get screwed by some of these record labels. Some will want to give you almost nothing for your talent and take all the money that you truly deserve. Others said that signing with certain record labels could help boost you to a higher ranking in the discourse community of rap. One article said that it would very wise to have someone with you who knows a lot about entertainment contracts to look over the contract and let you know everything about it.By doing so, it almost assures that you will not be getting ripped off as long as you find the right deal.

I studied not only how to increase salary, but also on what these artists do with their lives. In the daily life for rappers, most of them are traveling non-stop. They board planes early in the morning and arrive in the state or city they are performing in that night. Some decide to take tour buses instead of planes for personal reasons, but the fact of the matter is they are constantly on the road. While on tour, some artists have recording studios or booths on their bus to continue creating tracks. Some artists work extremely hard non-stop to please fans and to acquire more money, while others will create an album and “fall off.” In other words, the rappers who “fall off” are artists who no longer create hit songs that please the audience and members of the rap discourse community. When artists know they have a show coming up, a lot of people wonder how they mentally and physically prepare themselves. When I asked Alex Mayo via Skype he told me, “Before a show I make sure I know the lyrics, obviously. Next I figure out what I am going to wear to have the appearance of a rapper. As I go out on stage I just have the mind set to go crazy and keep the crowd entertained while I perform” (Mayo, A. 2011). After finding the answer from on artist I moved on to see how other artists handled their shows. After everything I had researched I found that almost all rappers go on stage knowing those fans want to see you. The concert itself represents a discourse community of people all sharing the interest to listen to the rapper on the ticket they paid for, so why be nervous?

When these rappers are not on tour, a lot of them still work hard everyday. But everyone takes a break every once in awhile whether it’s a couple weeks or even a month. But, after looking into databases I found that taking too much time off from music could damage you. It is possible that it might take awhile to get back in the groove of writing, rapping, and producing. As time passes on, more discourse communities grow inside one another. For example, when you look back a decade there is a noticeable difference in the type of beats and raps. If you are considered a member of the rap discourse community, then it is easy to hear different instruments in the beat. You can tell how its gone from actual instruments in the old school beats, to new futuristic sounding beats. There are synths as well as big bass and even sirens in beats now, and it will only continue to grow. The people who have experience and expertise in the rap discourse community changes just as much as the beats. As the new era of beats and rappers create more communities inside of rap discourse, different people will be known as the old-timers depending on the discourse community.

After delving into my research of the rap discourse community, I believe that every question was answered that I needed to know. It is easy to understand how the people in the rap discourse community relate to the goal and characteristics of a discourse community. Rapping is almost like a typical job besides the fact that the more famous you are the more income you will receive. But, they all have things to work on whether it’s writing lyrics or finding somewhere to record. For rappers that create their own beats it is much harder because creating a beat that is catchy and sounds good takes time. And as the rap discourse community continues to grow more communities inside of it, more people will be involved in it. The people with the experience will eventually pass on their expertise to people who were newcomers just the other day. The rap discourse is a never-ending cycle of people growing from new artists to famous artists to possibly even legendary artists. As long as there is a common set of goals, ways to communicate, participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, has genres, as acquired a lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content, the rap discourse community will always be there.