Collaborations are very common in contemporary hip hop. Rap artists feature others artists on their songs, their albums, and in some cases even work together to produce an entire album like Watch The Throne- which is a collaborative album created by Jay-Z and Kanye West. Usually an artist who is being featured on another rappers' song is given one or two verses of the entire song to rap over. Also there is no limit to the number of artists that can be featured on one song, as evidenced by Drake's 'Forever' song, which features Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Eminem.
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| Watch the Throne |
These are examples of ingenre collaborations. Basically, these collaborations that I have talked about are all created by hip hop artist working with other hip hop artists. But hip hop collaborations are the most interesting when they are created between artists from two different genres, which is also common. Over the past years we have seen collaborations between; Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson, Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj, Nelly and Tim McGraw, B.o.B and Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Adam Levine, Busta Rhymes and Stevie Wonder, and Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.
These collaborations are more interesting because they illustrate the intersections of music genres. Typically, it is a rap artist working together with a country or pop artist to create something that still sounds like hip hop. Now that's not to say that singers like Stevie Wonder and Willie Nelson need to rap on the songs that they are featured on, but they do have to change some aspect of their style in order to make the song hip hop. Meanwhile rap artists have to figure out how they can fit a singer into their song. Obviously rap artists know how to collaborate with singers, this has been done before, but I think it is easier for a rapper to co-produce a song with an R&B singer than a country or pop singer.
Multigenre Examples:
Kanye West ft. Adam Levine
50 Cent and Justin T
Lil Wayne and Bruno Mars
*Questions:
Is it easier for a rap artist to make a collab song with an R&B artist than a pop or country singer?
A wide array of possibilities exist for collab hip hop songs. What does this say about the versatility of hip hop?
What is your favorite collab song?
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