It’s younger than most, but footwork is a quintessentially American subgenre. Despite being perhaps the most distinct and formally rigid subgenre to emerge in America in the past twenty years, footwork contains multitudes; a vast expanse of styles and tones that exemplify the diverse reactions that music can evoke. Like hip-hop, footwork is not just a genre of music but a tightly affiliated group of cultural practices. hip-hop's four elements were rapping, DJing, B-boying or breakdancing, and graffiti tagging. Footwork's elements are similar: Music production replaces rapping, DJing emerges much the same, and B-boying is transposed into the eponymous "footwork" dance style. As in Hip-Hop, "battles" are popular, here taking place as competitive, …show more content…
(Arnold) His “Heavy Heat” is perhaps the quintessential footwork track, merging sparse drums with blastingly ominous horns and even more ominous pauses and silences to create a sonic effect like Hans Zimmer with a stutter. But the artist who brought footwork beyond its original tightly-wound enclave is DJ Rashad. Rashad's album Double Cup made music critics' end-of-the-year lists and attracted millions of listeners with a take on footwork that combined warm and bright synth strikes and gospel chord progressions with the familiar style of drum programming. The album managed to make footwork listenable without selling out its unique stylistic tics. The Double Cup song “Let U No” sounds like a three-layer cake: a hyperactive drum base excites and exhilarates, a smooth, R&B synth pad that sounds like the world’s smallest church organ relaxes and adds an element of funk, and the vocal sample, from Floetry’s single “Say Yes,” speeds up what is originally soulful and longing into starry-eyed and exhilarated; like a schoolgirl crush. The lyrics spiral out, their longing becoming almost absurd with repetition: “I’m about to let you know: You, you, you, you, you make me so, so, so, so, so so so, so so so, so so so, so so so, so so…” the sample loops, never reaching a conclusion. In a glowing review of Double Cup for Pitchfork, Larry Fitzmaurice …show more content…
More so than anyone in footwork’s original circles, the producer JLin has achieved a level of critical acclaim and institutional acceptance as a serious artist that would have been unthinkable to the genre’s young pioneers. Based in Gary, Indiana; a city close to, but distinct from, Chicago; JLin was employed at a steel mill when tracks of hers appeared on the major footwork compilation series Bangs & Works. One track, “Erotic Heat,” sounded different from anything the genre had previously produced, as if all the hip-hop and soul elements had been torn out of footwork, leaving a frenetic but isolated and industrial sound. JLin leveraged the track into a debut album, Dark Energy. On the cover, a flaming sheet of steel rises out of an endless grey void. JLin quit her day job but stayed in Gary even as she traveled the world, performing at both festivals and museums. Interestingly, despite its distinctly American roots, her music has been especially popular in the European dance and experimental music scenes. (Beta) In a Pitchfork profile, JLin strikes a humble but thoughtful profile as she Skypes with avant-garde musicians such as William Basinski. Basinski is most famous for his “Disintegration Loops,” which brilliantly elegize pre-2001 New York City in a series of eerie, soulful, and beatless repetitions of heavenly chords which, over the course of hour-long tracks,
The fast foot work in both Black Bottom and in tap dancing showed the similarities of the styles of dance. Although tap dance is less about the upper body, unlike Black Bottom and dances like the Charleston, and more about the movement of the feet and sound of the taps, there were obvious similarities between Black Bottom and tap. Tap dance and Black Bottom are fairly similar, only by adding metal plates to the bottom of shoes, creating “tap shoes”, the new style of dance was born. This style of dance however, focusing on the lower body movements and the sounds the tao shoes are making when they stick across the floor, is less about the movement of the arms and upper
Ferguson focuses on the importance of creativity and how much we can build off of each others ideas. Remixing is using tools already invented to build new products, it opens a door to an on going process of new inventions and ideas. Ferguson shows the importance and the huge effect remixing has on our music industry and even technology on today’s market. Remixing gives
Underground hip-hop is filled with groups such as The Pharcyde, The Roots, Jigmastas, and Jurassic 5 who use live instruments to not only enhance their lyrical talents, but also to give audiences a great show. All four of these groups are dedicated to preserving hip-hop culture. Emcees battle to prove they are iller, Djs do the same thing, and breakers, break dancers, poppers, whatever you want to call them, continue the tradition of mixing their dance art form of popping, locking and spinning using the music to help create different techniques.
The Sioux Grass Dance is considered to be the most popular style of Native American Music. As one dances to this music, they follow a pattern known as “toe-heel.” This consists of the individual placing the left foot in front of the right and repeating with the other foot. Each male dancer makes many personal variations of this dance resulting in a so...
Hip-Hop is in todays times is considered to be a cultural movement in todays generation. The five elements of Hip-Hop starting off with the beat boxer, Deejay, next is the Master of ceremonies also known as the MC or Rapper, break dancing, graffiti, and knowledge and style. Recognizing myself as an African American male growing up in the suburbs I was always a sight for sore eyes, not in a sense for being ugly or due to my pigment of skin it was do to the pigment of my skin but how I dressed compared to the other kids growing up. Noticing the brands that I wore were different in Style from the predominantly white school population, clearly showing that we shopped in different stores. Style Defined by Webster’s Dictionary is a particular way
Notably, hip-hop is the culture from which rap music emerged. According to Keyes, rap music is a musical form that makes use of rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular, which is recited or sung over a musical soundtrack (Rap Music and Street Consciousness, 1). Rap is a combination of MCing and DJing, which are two of hip-hop’s four
...n to the musical background. By not using any fancy accompaniment, the group shows that the power and effectiveness of their music need not necessarily be enhanced by any studio tricks commonly used in today’s hip hop and popular music in general. Wylie even comments on the effectiveness of this simplistic approach in raising issues to his listeners: “R you ready for the relevant rapper/rampaging never running/with knowledge I’m stunning/and gunning/down ridiculous rhymes/that rely on Romper Room beats/no knowledge? Why?”
Hip hop is both a culture and a lifestyle. As a musical genre it is characterized by its hard hitting beats and rhythms and expressive spoken word lyrics that address topics ranging from economic disparity and inequality, to gun violence and gang affiliated activity. Though the genre emerged with greater popularity in the 1970’s, the musical elements involved and utilized have been around for many years. In this paper, we will cover the history and
The longevity of Hip-Hop as a cultural movement can most directly be attributed to its humble roots. For multiple generations of young people, Hip-Hop has directly reflected the political, economic, and social realities of their lives. Widely regarded as the “father” of the Hip-Hop, Afrika Bambaataa named the cultural movement and defined its four fundamental elements, which consisted of disc jockeying, break dancing, graffiti art, and rapping. Dating back to its establishment Hip-Hop has always been a cultural movement. Defined by far more then just a style of music, Hip-Hop influences fashion, vernacular, philosophy, and the aesthetic sensibility of a large portion of the youth population (Homolka 2010).
Ballet, a form of dance has been around for many years and did not start in America. Ballet has made its mark around the globe and many have and still are enjoying the art and entertainment that the ballet brings. Ballet is known as being the “core” of the other forms of dance as in modern, contemporary and even hip hop. People enjoy the form of dance on an everyday basis at family functions, parties and even just being home alone and many do not know that the dances they particularly like all originated from ballet. The history of ballet has been put into nine well defined sections the Renaissance Period, the Baroque Period, the Classical Period, the Pre-Romantic Period, Romantic Era, the Russian Classics, the Ballet Ruses, Ballet in Europe
Hip hop dance first originated in the 1960's and the 1970's one of the main birthplaces of hip hop was in one of New York City's poorest ghetto quarters the South Bronx. Hip hop dancing started with DJs coming into the streets with huge speakers kicking off what is now known as block parties. A man, who is known as the father of hip hop, "DJ Kool Herc" Would remix songs by making longer instrumental breaks between verses as long as he pleased by repeating the same breaks on a turn table this allowed more time for the street dancers or "B-boys" which stood for "Break-Boys" to show off their dancing skill. The hip hop moves combined Complex rhythms and a down-to-earth movement style. Most of these B-Boys dancing was acrobatic, or what kid no-a-days call Breakdancing but true "Break dancing" is completed how it was in the 1960s with insanely long instrumental breaks and incredible dancers battling it out with both footwork moves and acrobatic moves.
This chart draws its inspiration from the chord changes of Benny Golson’s “Killer Joe” and the feel/harmonic ideas from Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon.” Written in a fast 4/4 tempo, rather than a slow double-time feel tempo. This allows the rhythms to be more easily read by young musicians. The drums play a funk half-time eighth-note feel, which provides the underlying funk feel to the chart.
Being on the cutting edge of bizarre, alternative music is an elite privilege, complete with buzz words to exclude the mainstream. The music makes or breaks the scene. One rave deejay explains to Rosen and Flick (1992), "A great rave or techno record is like a religious experience. A bad one will give you a headache
From its conception in the 1970's and throughout the 1980's, hip hop was a self-contained entity within the community that created it. This means that all the parameters set for the expression came from within the community and that it was meant for consumption by the community. Today, the audience is from outside of the community and doesn’t share the same experiences that drive the music. An artists’ success hinges on pleasing consumers, not the community. In today's world, it isn’t about music that rings true for those who share the artists' experiences, but instead, music that provides a dramatic illusion for those who will never share the experiences conveyed. This has radically changed the creative process of artists and the diversity of available music. Most notably, it has called in to question the future of hip hop.
Foster, Edward Halsey. Understanding the Beats. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Second Printing, 1992