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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
Reimagining The Collective: Black Popular Music And Recording Studio Innovation, 1970-1990, Will Fulton
Reimagining The Collective: Black Popular Music And Recording Studio Innovation, 1970-1990, Will Fulton
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation examines developments in the production practices of black popular music in the recording studio from 1970 to 1990. The year 1970 marked a transition in the recording practice of popular music that had a distinct impact on styles marketed as R&B, soul, and funk. Multitracking in the 1950s and 1960s had paved the way for a transformed production process, one initiated by Les Paul’s and Sidney Bechet’s overdubbing experiments in the 1940s. The collective sound of instrumentalists and vocalists heard on records no longer resulted from live-to-tape recordings of group performances, but was increasingly the product of constructed …
The Mad Science Of Hip-Hop: History, Technology, And Poetics Of Hip-Hop's Music, 1975-1991, Patrick Rivers
The Mad Science Of Hip-Hop: History, Technology, And Poetics Of Hip-Hop's Music, 1975-1991, Patrick Rivers
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
In 1979, the first commercial recordings of hip-hop music were released. The music's transition from the parks and clubs of the Bronx to recorded media resulted in hip-hop music being crafted and mediated in a recording studio before reaching the ears of listeners. In this dissertation I present a comprehensive investigation into the history of the instrumental component of hip-hop music heard on recordings, commonly referred to as beats. My historical narrative is formed by: the practices involved in the creation of hip-hop beats; the technologies that facilitated and defined those practices; and the debates around these two aspects that …