# [Lupe Fiasco presents “Rap Theory & Practice: an Introduction”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBHRsYhYb-o) Okay, this video looks dope. # What are/is RAPS/RAP? ![[22-12-16 Rap Intro 1.png]] My answers: R Real A Answers P Properly S Said R Rich A Apes P Proliferating S Sex R Regular A Actual P Prayers R Rowdy A Arsenal P Performance R A P Performance SOSA - [[Society of Spoken Art]] A group Lupe Fiasco was part of, or participated in somehow. The original definition of RAPS that they made was Rhetorical Anthropological Philosophical Structures. They built a curriculum exploring this specific definition of Rap. Recently, it was Relationships, Associations, Parallels.... and didn't mention the final S. ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 2.png]] # Shapes and Details ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 3.png]] This is the basics of Rap. The metaphor is a Bodybuilder. To be a bodybuilder you need to get into "shape." Big lifts, to build the shapes. To be a pro, you need to focus on the details. Specific exercises to build smaller muscles that flesh out the details. ## Micro-Decisions ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 4.png]] Micro-Decisions may consist of stretching or extending specific vowels in words to achieve or regulate certain tones moods or temporalities. ## Macro-Decisions Big shapes. Big ideas. The most important Macro-Decision: Surprise! ### Surprise ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 4.5.png]] ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 5.png]] >[!QUOTE] Heath, Bell, & Sternberg, 2001 > "Surprises not only influence individuals' attention, learning, memory, attitudes, and behavior; they can also have larger scale social influences. This is because people seem to be interested in sharing surprises with others." --- People seem to be interested in sharing surprises with others. Because if information isn't surprising, it's not very interesting. If you already know the answers, you're not interested because you're not going to learn anything new. Or, you assume you're not learning anything new. Surprises must trigger a dopamine response. We're constantly looking for new things, new surprises. Things we didn't know existed. LEARNING IS FUNDAMENTAL! And that's why Lupe says Rap is a teaching tool. If that's the case, then so is comedy. [[Comedy is a teaching tool]]. --- The fundamental, primal, pieces of life. Everything you learned was by surprise. Surprise is a key component to rap. This is similar in Comedy where you want to tell two stories in one line to create a punchline. ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 6.png]] >[!QUOTE] Norenzayan & Atran, 2004 > "Stories with surprising elements tend to degrade and change less as they are passed along than stories without surprising elements." ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 7.png]] >[!QUOTE] Tiedens & Linton, 2001 > "surprising information has been shown to impact what we remember and to facilitate transfer of learning strategies; inducing an uncertain mood like surprise has been found to lead to more systematic processing which might aid learning..." Rolex is a 501c3 Rap is a great teaching tool. Rap teaches you how to Dance, Dress, Walk, Talk, Think. How many people intentionally use it as a teaching tool? Do you do it for fun? Or for money. >[!QUOTE] [[Society of Spoken Art]] > Rappers know how to do it, but they don't know what they're doing, because Rap wasn't formally trained. The real test for Rap is "Does it work in a strip club?" ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 8.png]] >[!QUOTE] Rainer Reisenzein, Gernot Horstmann, Achim Schützwohlc 2016 > "Surprise is evoked by unexpected (schema-discrepant) events and its intensity is determined by the degree of schema-discrepancy... Unexpected events cause an automatic interruption of ongoing mental processes that is followed by an attentional shift and attentional binding to the events, which is often followed by causal and other event analysis processes and by schema revision." s --- Wow, that is a really fancy way to say Surprises make you think differently, and shift your focus. THE UNEXPECTED! This may be similar to the blog post he wrote a long time ago about the [[Art of Distraction]]. Wow, this nigga been smart. --- #### The Repetition-Break Plot Structure (Story Time!) ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 9.png]] He used the example of the Three Little Pigs Story. The first two houses were blown down, but the third was not because it was made out of bricks. Therefore, breaking the pattern. He asks where else we've seen it? Verse - Hook - Verse - Hook - Break He characterizes the basic structure as: Training - Training - Habituation - Habituation - Divergence Key changes is songs. Best examples of the repetition-break plot structure: 1. Stan 2. Jonylah Forever 3. Sing About Me Are these all [[Eminem]] songs? Well, Stan is. ##### Stan He breaks down the Story of Stan, which apparently I've never listened to or understood, gonna play it now while I'm typing up these notes. Ohh, shit this song has Dido on it, I definitely know this tune but I had no idea he sampled it that's crazy. Anyway, first verse is a letter from Stan to Eminem, second verse is a more aggressive letter. Then the third verse is a recording of him kidnapping his girlfriend and driving her off a bridge. The third verse is subversive enough, breaking the pattern of the first two letters. But there was a 4th verse where Eminem responds to his first letter. As he was writing the letter he realized that the author of the first letter is the same person that killed his girlfriend. lol. Pretty fascinating. The layering and complexity of this Repetition break, of something very simple as in the three little pigs. It's the same basic concept. If you can do it, you can have a best selling record like Eminem too lol. ##### Jonylah Forever A song by [[Lupe Fiasco]]! Based on a true story about a 6 month old that was murdered in Chicago. SHOT 6 times, gunman was trying to kill her father for stealing a playstation. Song was about Jonylah growing up, smart, med school, opens a free clinic, and she saves a little girl. She saved herself. ##### Sing About Me The [[Kendrick Lamar]] joint! Maybe one of my favorite Kendrick songs fr fr. Fucking love this song. It's 1am and I want more popeyes. That chicken sandwich earlier was Goooood af. But everything's closed. I'm about to warm up a tortilla and eat that shit raw lol. Anyway, Sing about me. Let me try to break it down before I hear Lupe's answer. It's a 12 minute song that has several verses rapped from perspectives of different people speaking to him, about some issue they're having with him or problem they have. The first verse didn't get completed, the person got shot before they finished. I'm gonna get snacks. Second verse is about someone who had a problem with "[[Tammy's Song]]" on his [[Section 80 ]]Mixtape. The ending of this verse ends with the writers voice fading away after saying, "I'll never fade away." The third verse is Kendrick himself, maybe responding but more just telling his perspective. No he's definitely responding. He's asking for us to promise we'll sing about him when he's dead, the way he's sang about other people's stories previously. Because, maybe our stories deserve to be told. Then there's a skit, and the song pivots into a new section called "Dying of Thirst." not sure if Lupe's gonna cover that part but this is also a break in the pattern after the first three verses. Different beat, different theme, but still the same track. # Fundamental Rap Primes ![[22-12-17 Rap Intro 10.png]] ## Surprisal ## Rhyme ## Metaphor ## Tone ## Etc # Q&A Okay that was basically the end. Then there's a Q&A section. >[!QUESTION] What's your process for writing? When you have a block? > > Lupe doesn't believe in Writer's Block. He believes there are times where you shouldn't write. > > Maybe you need new experiences. > > If you enjoy words and the process of analyzing words and new ways to see them, there are always new works to be made. New ways to break words down. Find new meanings. > >[!QUESTION] Do you freestyle? > > Sometimes. > > Time stamp for this is around 1:09:00, he does a little audible flow and then adds words / rhymes to the flow afterword. > > He says that if your vocabulary is small, you won't be able to do it. > > [[Freestyling is a process of building your vocabulary]]. >[!QUOTE] Lupe Fiasco > Mastery of the basics is mastery, period. >[!QUESTION] How do you build a world for your albums? > > You're always building a world. He borrows / invades from other worlds. > > He starts with a word the thinks sounds cool. > > "paper tiger" > > And branch off from there. This is similar to how we use [[Source]] in comedy. # Notes & Thoughts Okay, truly this video was beautiful and I'm fucking STOKED! I want to make an EP. I'm going to revisit my old stuff, and write some new shit with it. New concepts, because I actually had some bars back in the day. Creation never stops. # References [Lupe Fiasco presents “Rap Theory & Practice: an Introduction”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBHRsYhYb-o)