Mitchell Ohriner
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190670412
- eISBN:
- 9780190670443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190670412.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, Popular
Throughout his career, Talib Kweli has been called an “off-beat rapper.” Despite that highly derogatory comment, this chapter connects Kweli’s non-alignment with the underlying beat to earlier ...
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Throughout his career, Talib Kweli has been called an “off-beat rapper.” Despite that highly derogatory comment, this chapter connects Kweli’s non-alignment with the underlying beat to earlier Afro-diasporic rhythmic practices. Kweli’s voice moves away from the beat through four distinct processes: phase shifting, swinging, tempo shifting, and deceleration. The last of these, while a hallmark of the rhythm of speech, has little relationship to the rhythm of music with a mechanically regulated beat. By documenting the non-alignment between flow and beat in a particular track (“Get By”), the chapter shows the novel way in which Kweli inserts rupture into the flows of his verses, extending the aesthetic values of hip hop into the rhythms of his flow itself.Less
Throughout his career, Talib Kweli has been called an “off-beat rapper.” Despite that highly derogatory comment, this chapter connects Kweli’s non-alignment with the underlying beat to earlier Afro-diasporic rhythmic practices. Kweli’s voice moves away from the beat through four distinct processes: phase shifting, swinging, tempo shifting, and deceleration. The last of these, while a hallmark of the rhythm of speech, has little relationship to the rhythm of music with a mechanically regulated beat. By documenting the non-alignment between flow and beat in a particular track (“Get By”), the chapter shows the novel way in which Kweli inserts rupture into the flows of his verses, extending the aesthetic values of hip hop into the rhythms of his flow itself.
Sohail Daulatzai
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816675852
- eISBN:
- 9781452947600
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816675852.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
“The same rebellion, the same impatience, the same anger that exists in the hearts of the dark people in Africa and Asia,” Malcolm X declared in a 1962 speech, “is existing in the hearts and minds of ...
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“The same rebellion, the same impatience, the same anger that exists in the hearts of the dark people in Africa and Asia,” Malcolm X declared in a 1962 speech, “is existing in the hearts and minds of 20 million black people in this country who have been just as thoroughly colonized as the people in Africa and Asia.” Four decades later, the hip-hop artist Talib Kweli gave voice to a similar Pan-African sentiment in the song “K.O.S. (Determination)”: “The African diaspora represents strength in numbers, a giant can’t slumber forever.” Linking discontent and unrest in Harlem and Los Angeles to anticolonial revolution in Algeria, Egypt, and elsewhere, Black leaders in the United States have frequently looked to the anti-imperialist movements and antiracist rhetoric of the Muslim Third World for inspiration. This book maps the rich, shared history between Black Muslims, Black radicals, and the Muslim Third World, showing how Black artists and activists imagined themselves not as national minorities but as part of a global majority, connected to larger communities of resistance. This book traces these interactions and alliances from the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power era to the “War on Terror,” placing them within a broader framework of American imperialism, Black identity, and the global nature of white oppression.Less
“The same rebellion, the same impatience, the same anger that exists in the hearts of the dark people in Africa and Asia,” Malcolm X declared in a 1962 speech, “is existing in the hearts and minds of 20 million black people in this country who have been just as thoroughly colonized as the people in Africa and Asia.” Four decades later, the hip-hop artist Talib Kweli gave voice to a similar Pan-African sentiment in the song “K.O.S. (Determination)”: “The African diaspora represents strength in numbers, a giant can’t slumber forever.” Linking discontent and unrest in Harlem and Los Angeles to anticolonial revolution in Algeria, Egypt, and elsewhere, Black leaders in the United States have frequently looked to the anti-imperialist movements and antiracist rhetoric of the Muslim Third World for inspiration. This book maps the rich, shared history between Black Muslims, Black radicals, and the Muslim Third World, showing how Black artists and activists imagined themselves not as national minorities but as part of a global majority, connected to larger communities of resistance. This book traces these interactions and alliances from the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power era to the “War on Terror,” placing them within a broader framework of American imperialism, Black identity, and the global nature of white oppression.
