The intersectionality of two genres is much more than meshing two separate sounds because subcultures, histories, and aesthetics are ingrained within those sounds. When conjoined, opposing genres can communicate with one another to compose something entirely new, while catering to their respective audiences, enabling multi-genre songs to serve as a melting pot where several groups can intersect. Rap songs that sample indie music are a primary example of this cultural junction. When plastered against the canvas of eccentric, “underground” indie sounds, rap’s powerful and poetic lyricism lures the ears of both indie and rap connoisseurs. This invites them to interact firstly with the popular and beloved indie song, and by proximity, recognize the poetics of rap. The reason this example renders a smoother “melting pot” interaction versus the vice-versa, is due to the malleable elements that the essence of rap music inhabits, which couldn’t be replicated in the aesthetics of indie music; it would be like listening to a fast, rhythmic hip-hop beat with Sufjan Stevens’ soft, soothing voice on top – a tad awkward.
Hip-hop and rap originated in the 1970s in the Bronx at local block parties and clubs, where the MCs or mic controllers used their voices to get the crowd’s attention while the DJ’s set played. Rap is poetic verse rhythmically performed over instrumental tracks. While considering this, we find that the role of MCs was to communicate with the audience in a way that allows them to interact with the sound through their words, meaning the poetics and lyricism of rap have always been the pearl of the rap genre. In essence, no matter what music is playing in the background, the rhyme and rhythm of the rapper gives the backbone to a rap song.
Movements like race riots and the Civil Rights movement during the ‘60s, gradually led to the rap genre being thoroughly saturated with political and sociological discourse – because rap is primarily a mode of communication to vocalize political outrage.
Indie music is any music that is made by an independent artist, which generally allows for them to experiment within their artistic spheres. Although today, the public consensus has designated a specific sound to “indie” or indie-rock. For example, bands like The Strokes, Modest Mouse, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc. This sound is like a quirkier version of traditional/classical rock music. The singing will not be like Nirvana’s grungy screams or Aerosmith’s high-note belting, but rather a shaky, almost sullen voice – like someone who sounds like they’re about to cry. For reference, any song by The Strokes. The indie-rock music itself has a specific and unique appeal to it as well, with the peculiar, dilapidated, guitar sounds and the implementation of other uniqueness that wouldn’t normally fit into rock or grunge, so these songs would then be categorized as “indie-rock”, “indie-pop”, and so on for their splinters of eccentrics.
Beach House – Shawn Brackbill
These two genres are vastly distinct and cater to different audiences for different reasons. Nowadays, we see rap culture at its peak in its very birthplace: clubs and parties, whereas indie music caters to instrumental and melody enthusiasts. The majority of it is catered to younger audiences, seeing as the artists themselves are younger creators who experiment with traditional genres.
Now, what does the conjunction of these two worlds mean, and what are the effects of this specific cultivation of rap lyricism over an indie sound? By incorporating another genre, not only would the rapper be catering to their personalized fanbase, but to those of these indie artists as well, allowing hip-hop’s political purposes to ripple across various cultural disciplines. With politics and protest being integral to the rap genre, that is what will be the targeted message put on a pedestal and showcased to the listeners; with the stitching of quirky instrumentals of indie music in their songs, just by playing the first few notes, they already have the attention of a completely different audience – the indie heads.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” from his good kid, M.A.A.D city (2011) album is not only one of my personal favorites from his discography, (a masterpiece by the way) but also a perfect example of how the melding of two distinct and immersive genres, indie and rap, can metamorphose into a contact zone, or a space where two cultures intertwine.
The indie song being sampled in “Money Trees” is “Silver Soul” by Beach House, an indie band that formed in Baltimore around 2004. “Silver Soul” (along with many other tracks curated by Beach House) is melancholically soothing, with sultry and wispy vocals of Victoria Legrand, the band’s lead singer. The short yet poetic lyricism in “Silver Soul“ imitates the feeling of a love that perhaps is unexpectedly more intense and intimate than one would have anticipated. This particular part of the song, in the fourth stanza, transmits these forbidden feelings as she sings, “It is so quick to let us in/We feel it moving through our skin/It’s a sickness, infinite quickness, yeah.” The “it” described in this song profusely mimics the feeling of love or the feeling of attachment to somebody, but perhaps is not necessarily what this person wants at the time. Perhaps, they are scared of this emotion creeping up on them, so the song ends with “it’s happening again” repeated about 10 times over, signifying that as much as we find it a “sickness” to love, it is consequently inevitable with time. Much like “Silver Soul”, there are many indie songs that will incorporate the simultaneous beauty and disturbance that the experience of love entails.
Kendrick Lamar performs “Money Trees” for the first time at a Best Buy in Union Square, NY. (2012)
Much of Kendrick Lamar’s music has been known to be saturated with political discourse due to the incorporation of his experiences living in Compton, CA, which is infamous for being historically crime-ridden and saturated with gang violence as a low-income community. In “Money Trees,” Kendrick Lamar grapples with his newfound fame and fortune as a Hollywood rapper while reminiscing on the violence experienced at a young age. The music opens with the interpolation of a slowed and reversed variation of “Silver Soul”, which is immediately detectable within seconds. The opening verse in “Money Trees” draws you into the world that Kendrick Lamar was surrounded by throughout his childhood, and what he finds most comforting or nostalgic.
“Hot sauce all in our Top Ramen, ya bish (Ya bish, ya bish)/Park the car, then we start rhymin’, ya bish (Ya bish, ya bish)/The only thing we had to free our mind (Free our mind, free our mind)/Then freeze that verse when we see dollar signs (See dollar signs, see dollar signs)”
Eating Top Ramen and rapping beside your friends seems like such a simple life, one that is now worlds away from where Kendrick Lamar is now, yet he is still able to recall it vividly and by proximity, transport us to this time that he knows so well. The moment in which they “freeze” at the sight of dollar signs could be genuine amazement or wonder at being in the presence of fortune, as kids who grew up in a low-income neighborhood; which generates emphasis on the distance between being able to walk red carpets, and having to eat TopRamen (we’ve all been there). Perhaps the most addictive and catchiest line, is the chorus, “It go Halle Berry or hallelujah/Pick your poison, tell me what you doin’/Everybody gon’ respect the shooter/But the one in front of the gun lives forever.” The duplicative looping of this line throughout the song, underscores his principal message: whether you go from a world like Compton to conversing with Halle Berry, there will always be some type of villainy that lurks between these worlds which is the “poison” that he speaks of. The final line of this stanza, is his epistle to the listeners: that the perpetrators always get some form of recognition whether for nobility or notoriety, but the victims are the ones who truly become immortalized either through their strength to persevere from the horrors of violence; or because their names will be echoed and stained in the media and the minds of those who acknowledge the injustice.
Kanye West Performs “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead” on SNL (2013)
Before recent mental health issues and spewing bigoted delirium, Kanye West was a musical genius, one of the brightest producers and rappers of his generation. His song, “New Slaves” from his sixth studio album, Yeezus (2013); is lyrically and sonically riveting in every moment. The song he samples in the outro (and perhaps the most beautiful part of the song) of “New Slaves” is unexpectedly, “Gyöngyhajú lány” by Omega a very underground, psychedelic and dreamy song. Within the first verse of “New Slaves”, Kanye West wastes no time. Kanye’s vernacular is extremely provocative with every line of the song, not only is he eliciting shock, but reflection with the polarizing remarks he makes. The sudden conversion in tonality is mesmerizing. Throughout the song, Kanye retorts statements such as: “Doin’ clothes, you would’ve thought I had help/But they wasn’t satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself.” – symbolizing a modern-day servitude where a capitalist society purposefully and viciously abuses its workers. He also raps, “I know that we the new slaves, I see the blood on the leaves.” a reference to Billie Holiday’s famous anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit” (which he also samples in this album). Finally, the last minute and a half of the song, he inserts Omega’s cathartic “Gyöngyhajú lány”, as if to say that regardless of the capitalist and consumerist practices that have demeaned and dehumanized African Americans, he won’t let this fight ruin him. There is a fascinating and artistic irony in the way Kanye goes from intense, shock-inducing phrases up until the last minute of the song, where he completely shifts the tone from absolute rage towards the culprits to comforting the wronged. In the “New Slaves” outro, Kanye muffles “I can’t lose, no, I can’t lose/’Cause I can’t leave it to you/So let’s get too high, get too high again” over “Gyöngyhajú lány”, and it sounds and feels like he, and people like him, will continue to fight against the degradation and arise victorious.
Kendrick Lamar has consistently and proudly advocated justice for victims within communities like the one he grew up in. Police brutality, gang violence, racial discrimination, systemic poverty, and racism are just some of the few topics Kendrick Lamar has been vocal about since the early days of his career. Rap as a style has various components to its instrumentalism, many of it being rooted in turntablism and dance; along with this, rap also has extremely meticulous poetics, which is what encompasses the genre overall. The implementation of indie/alternative sounds, which are traditionally unconventional within the rap environment, contrives a fresh contact zone where individuals of both cultures interface with not just one another, but the deeper implications behind the movement of each respective subculture. In other words, people who don’t normally listen to rap become knowledgeable of its rhyming schemes and how that functions with poetics to produce political commentary, tactfully layered on rather quirkily sentimental sounds.
Written by Jessica Balderas
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