Collaborations?

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. 

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?

Introduction: Em-Bubbly

Ever since I was in the third grade I knew I wanted to be an artist. Starting with drawing and broadening into painting, photography, poetry, graphic design and even fashion. I will attempt any art form once but as I have grown they have become more of a hobby then something I actually want to pursue as a profession. I signed up for this class not knowing much about hip-hop; except that it is an art form. I still believe hip-hop is poetry and art, with the beats, lyrics and movement coming together into one master piece. Today however I feel like a lot of main stream hip-hop has created a negative attitude towards the music and culture all together. I’m hoping this class will help re-connect me with the deeper meaning of hip-hop and its roots. 

I grew up in Tacoma, WA which was a city known for its ghetto’s. I was first introduced to hip-hop at a young age. I remember G-unit and Nas being all the rage with my friends in elementary school around the fifth grade. I never really felt out of place as my school was racially diverse, but I was the minority there. It wasn’t until middle school that I really got a look at where I lived. My parents moved me into a private school (as much as I fought them), telling me this was for the best as they wanted me to get an education. This was a whole new world to me. My class only had one black student and she was considered an outcast just because she had a different way of expressing herself through music and dance, something I actually understood. Hip-hop culture soon faded from my life all together as I went to a majority white private high school. Main stream hip-hop songs that played on the radio often but not always carrying a derogatory message, became all I knew. My friends I kept in touch with at the public high school made me realize this as they exchanged songs and talked of artists I did not know. The music they played had so much more meaning in the lyrics, it brought me back to the hip-hop I heard when I was younger and the racial diversity and reality of where I lived. 

Originally hip-hop was an art to me and I loved the personal messages of life, struggles, death, and even love. Somewhere between middle school and high school though I got sucked into the hype of the main stream songs on the radio and it lost a lot of meaning. I even stopped listening to it for about two year because I got tired of the repeated sex, drugs, and money messages. Hip-hop is poetry and the songs I love the most are those that come with a meaning; on the surface but also deeper in the song. I believe you can’t take this music for face value and I am hoping this class will help me find that understanding again and re-introduce me to the hip-hop music I once loved while teaching me new things about it and even the mainstream hip-hop.