Rapping

Abstract: Shell exchanges between hermit crabs may occur after a period of shell rapping, when the initiating or attacking crab brings its shell rapidly and repeatedly into contact with the shell of the non-initiator or defender, in a series of bouts. There are two opposing models of hermit crab shell exchange and the function of shell rapping. The negotiation model views shell exchange as a mutualistic activity, in which the initiator supplies information about the quality of its shell via the fundamental frequency of the rapping sound. The aggression model views shell rapping as either detrimental to the defending crab, or as providing it with information about the initiator's ability or motivation to continue, or both. The negotiation model makes no predictions about the temporal pattern of rapping, but under the aggression model it would be expected that crabs that rapped more vigorously would be more likely to effect an exchange. Repeating the signal could be expected under either model. Crabs that achieve an exchange rap more vigorously, rapping is more persistent when a clear gain in shell quality may be achieved, and the vigour is greater when the relative resource-holding potential (or 'fighting ability') is high. These findings support the aggression model rather than the negotiation model. Contrary to the predictions of game theory, crabs that do not effect an exchange appear to signal that they are about to give up. The data suggest that rapping is performed repeatedly because the accumulation of all of the performances acts as a signal of stamina.

Abstract: Originating in New York City in the late 1970s, rap-a form of popular music that entails talking, or "rapping," to a rhythmic musical background-has proved to have wide appeal and staying power. Words and rhythm are the heart of rap.1 A vocalist (or vocalists) tells a story set to syncopation, and a disc jockey (DJ) provides the rhythm with a drum machine or by "scratching" on a turntable (rapidly moving a record back and forth under the needle to create rap's famous swishing sound). Rap lyrics concentrate primarily on the contemporary African American experience, and the music is aimed at a market consisting primarily, but not exclusively, of African American youth. Every issue within the Black community is subject to exposition in the rap arena. Hit rap tunes have broached touchy subjects such as sex, sexism, racism, and crime; however, as some rappers claim, their goal is different from that of rhythmand-blues artists. Rap artists, they contend, "don't talk the love stuff, but [rather] educate the listeners" (Henderson, 1988, p. R13). Indeed, in addition to entertainment, rap music provides a significant form of informal education for adolescents, one that extends far beyond the confines of the classroom and into their peer group circles. Whether rap is denigrated or applauded as an artistic product, it cannot be ignored as a dominant means of expression within contemporary African American adolescent culture. For Black youth in particular rap provides a powerful force for identity, solidarity, and emotional reinforcement.

Abstract: Yancy, Hadley, Give 'em Just One Mic: The Therapeutic Agency of Rap and Hip-Hop. Part I: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives. Hara, RAP: Requisite, Ally, Protector and the Desperate Contemporary Adolescent. Elligan, Contextualizing Rap Music as a Means of Incorporating into Psychotherapy. Lightstone, The Importance of Hip Hop for Music Therapists. Viega, The Hero's Journey in Hip-Hop and its Applications in Music Therapy. Veltre, Hadley, It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop: A Hip-Hop Feminist Approach to Music Therapy with Adolescent Families. Tyson, Detchkov, Eastwood, LaGrone, Sehr, Therapeutically and Socially Relevant Themes in Hip-Hop Music: A Comprehensive Analysis of a Selected Sample of Songs. Part II: Rap and Hip-Hop with At-risk Youth. Alverez, Beats, Rhymes & Life: Rap Therapy in an Urban Setting. Leafloor, Therapeutic Outreach through Bboying (Breakdancing) in Canada's Arctic and First Nations Communities: Social Work through Hip-Hop. Viega, MacDonald, Hear Our Voices: A Music Therapy Songwriting Program and the Message of The Little Saints through the Medium of Rap. McFerran, "Just So You Know, I Miss You So Bad": The Expression of Life and Loss in the Raps of Two Adolescents in Music Therapy. Ahmadi, Oosthuizen, Naming My Story and Claiming My Self. Lightstone, Yo Can Ya Flow! Research Findings on Hip-Hop Aesthetics and Rap Therapy in an Urban Youth Shelter. Ierardi, Jenkins, Rap Composition and Improvisation in a Short-term Juvenile Detention Facility. Donnenwerth, Song Communication Using Rap Music in a Group Setting with At-risk Youth. Part III: Rap With Clients in Specific Clinical Settings. Tyson, Hip-Hop Healing: Rap Music in Grief Therapy with an African American Adolescent Male. Steele, Beat It: The Affects of Rap Music on Adolescents in the Pediatric Medical Setting. Baker, Dingle, Gleadhill, "Must be the Ganja": Using Rap Music in Music Therapy for Substance Use Disorders. O'Brien, "Morphine Mamma": Creating Original Songs Using Rap with Women with Cancer. Dickinson, Souflas, Rapping Round the System: A Young Black Man's Journey through a High Security Hospital.

Abstract: Over the past three decades, Hip Hop has developed as a cultural and artistic phenomenon affecting youth culture around the world. For many youth, Hip Hop reflects the social, economic, political, and cultural realities and conditions of their lives, speaking to them in a language and manner they understand. As a result of both its longevity and its cogent message for many youth worldwide, Hip Hop cannot be dismissed as merely a passing fad or as a youth movement that will soon run its course. Instead, Hip Hop must be taken seriously as a cultural, political, economic, and intellectual phenomenon deserving of scholarly study, similar to previous African American artistic and cultural movements such as the Blues, Jazz, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Arts Movements. The essays in this special issue undertake such scholarly historical analysis of Hip Hop. According to many Hip Hop aficionados, Hip Hop culture consists of at least four fundamental elements: Disc jockeying (DJing), break dancing, graffiti art, and rapping (emceeing). (1) Since its emergence in the South Bronx and throughout the northeast during the early and mid-1970s, Hip Hop has encompassed not just a musical genre, but also a style of dress, dialect and language, way of looking at the world, and an aesthetic that reflects the sensibilities of a large population of youth born between 1965 and 1984. (2) This broad characterization of Hip Hop may seem imprecise to some, but it reflects the Hip Hop community's refusal to be singularly defined or categorized, and demonstrates the dynamic nature of Hip Hop as a phenomenon that many hip hoppers believe must be felt, experienced, and communicated. Since Hip Hop's birth about 35 years ago, very few academic historical studies have examined the phenomenon. It has been over a decade since the publication in 1994 of Tricia Rose's now classic, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America and Robin D. G. Kelley's Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. Rose's treatise was the first to provide an extensive historical study of Hip Hop. While focusing primarily on rap music, Rose examined the historical development of Hip Hop and its impact on youth culture, and she anticipated many of the present-day discussions about black female rappers. While Kelley's study did not focus solely on Hip Hop, he linked Hip Hop to black history and located Hip Hop along a continuum of black working-class culture. Rose and Kelley's works remain invaluable in the field of Hip Hop history and have helped lay a solid foundation for contemporary historians' investigations of Hip Hop. (3) The most recent historical study on Hip Hop at the time of this writing is journalist Jeff Chang's huge 500-page work, Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation. Literary in style, Can't Stop, Won't Stop offers an engaging text filled with valuable historical data. Based on many interviews, Chang's work offers an oral and narrative history of Hip Hop and is destined to become a classic in the field of Hip Hop studies. (4) A number of other works have also contributed immensely to providing an historical foundation for the scholarly study of Hip Hop. David Toop's Rap Attack 3 is an updated version of his classics Rap Attack 1 and Rap Attack 2. One of the earliest historical analyses of Hip Hop, Toop's volume traces Hip Hop history through personal interviews with the movement's pioneers. Rap Attack 3 brings Toop's trilogy up to 1999 and provides a somewhat nostalgic reflection of 1970s and 1980s Hip Hop. Lacking the rich historical contextualization and insightful interpretive frameworks of Rose and Kelley's texts, Toop's volume provides an interpretation that seems in sync with Hip Hop, mainly because much of the text was written in close contact with the Hip Hop community. Another similar work is Alex Ogg's, The Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap. …