Sam Nord-Stephens 12/9/12
Intro: Material records are all the materials found at an archaeology sight or used within a culture. This can consist of artifacts, built structures, garbage, plant remains, animal remains, drawings, music or audio, pottery, materials such as plastic or glass that are used for different functions, clothing, etc. Material records are used to better understand past cultures and allow archaeologists to infer or discover major characteristics of these societies. For instance by studying plants and food remains in certain areas, archaeologists can understand if the people who inhabited this area were healthy and had a nutritious diet. I am examining the audio part of my material record mainly because music is an essential aspect of my life. I listen and enjoy new and old music everyday. Specific genres correspond with my mood and can have major effects on my life, which help me progress through difficult times. I am specifically choosing to examine the different styles of rap within the hip-hop/rap genre of my itunes partially because this is my favorite genre and is the most abundant type of music in my library. Also I find it very interesting to examine styles of music and compare them to other styles. The main differences between old school rap and new school rap are flow, production, rhyming techniques and styles, and subject matter. Flow is the way in which an MC delivers his lyrics on a beat. If you have flow, your rhythms and rhymes correspond nicely and ride well with the beat. Very old school rap in the 80’s had mostly basic flows that used only a few syllables per bar and had basic rhyme schemes. As time progressed into the 90’s flow became more complex and this is exemplified in rappers such as Nas, Big pun, Biggie Smalls, AZ, members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and many more. In new school rap some flows are very complex while others are beyond basic. Rappers such as Gucci Mane and Waka Flaka Flame exemplify basic flows whereas rappers such as Curren$y, Big K.R.I.T, and Kendrick Lamar are examples of some complex flows. Aside from flow the subject matter between the two eras were not very different except old school rap was a little more hardcore meaning they talked about gangs, violence, and drug deals more often. The production of old school rap usually consisted of darker, rawer drum kits than new school rap drum kits, which have more samples and sometimes sound very electronic. Some of the best producers of the old school like Dj Premier and alchemist used intricate samples. Overall the two eras are very different and have their highs and lows. However most people regard old school rap as having better flows, rhymes, styles, and production.
Hypothesis: My prediction was that 74 percent of the hip-hop/rap genre of my itunes would be new school and 26 percent would be old school. This was mainly because most of the music I listen to is new school rap, which heavily influenced my projection. There was no reason for such a specific prediction, I just based it on my memory of my itunes and assumed the ratio would be in the ballpark of 70 to 30 or 75 to 25.
Methods: I took the time to scroll down my entire itunes and determine which artists had an old school style and which ones had a new school one using my knowledge about the differences between the two styles. I did not record the number of songs I had for each artist. I counted every artist as one no matter the amount of songs I had by them.