Segmentation, Phrasing, and Meter in Hip-Hop Music

Abstract

This article proposes a theory of flow (the rapped vocals of hip-hop music) segmentation, phrasing, and meter that considers the way linguistic, syntactic, articulative, and corporeal aspects of rapping engage with vocal rhythm and its grouping structures. While flow is organized into phrases, hip-hop beats (the sampled or instrumental accompaniment) typically express a periodic, looped, highly repetitive metric structure against which these flow phrases operate. The patterns of metric alignment and non-alignment generated between flow and beat layers imbue hip-hop music with nuanced variety, especially at sub-sectional formal levels.

Metre, grouping, and event hierarchies in music: A tutorial for linguists

“…Where linguistic texts do dissociate from rhythmic groups, they are not particularly likely to align with any putative metrical ‘constituent’. These tendencies can be observed in complex textsetting in many Western genres (see examples in Dell, 2015; Duinker, 2021; Heetderks, 2022; Murphy, 2016; and Temperley, 1999), and they mirror the properties of rhythm‐metre mismatch in non‐vocal music.…”

Injury, Affirmation, and the Disability Masquerade in Ye’s “Through the Wire”

“…;Adams 2016; Adams 2020;Duinker 2021;Krims 2000;Manabe 2019;Ohriner 2017;Ohriner 2019), and this brief comparison indicates that the spectrum of ability suggested by the voices and bodies present is another axis of possible inquiry. to his use of her song and legally cleared the sample, she later told interviewer Andy Cohen that "when it came out [here Chaka Khan imitates the high-pitched, sped-up hook] I was pissed.…”