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Transcription: [00:20:13]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Since we talked about the art of rhyme and verse making in the Black community just before the last workshop, I don't think we need to repeat that material.
[00:20:20]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}

Rather what we'll do is go directly into what makes up a rap; where it fits in the community, where raps are performed, and most importantly, what are the different kinds of rap.

[00:20:31]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
You know a lot of folks when they hear rap over the radio or on records, at clubs, they think "oh that's a rap, that's a rap." They don't define what makes up a rap,
[00:20:38]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
they don't think to break it down into the various styles and to recognize the real artistry that goes into-into the works that we're hearing.

[00:20:49]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
The best way to start probably is to talk about where raps are performed, and for this I'm gonna ask Lazy Smurf.
[00:20:58]

[[inaudible talking]]


[00:20:59]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Yeah where do you all at the International Playgirls, where do you perform the raps?
[00:21:06]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
We perform raps at parties given by teenagers, different production bands, hotels, halls, houses, sometimes [[laughter mid word]] when you have um what we call a ghetto blaster, do it on the corner!
[00:21:24]

[[laughter]]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
(in the background) Radio is a ghetto blaster


[00:21:27]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}

And um if you don't know, a radio is a ghetto blaster.

[00:21:33]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
So it's something that is both something done on the street, as a street art, as well as in clubs, and in more formal situations.

[00:21:40]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}

Well it started as a street art and it developed into um a higher art, going into the clubs.

[00:21:50]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
The history of rap is somewhat clouded. A lot of people say that rapping is a new form, others will trace rapping to the whole tradition of rhyming within the black community
[00:22:02]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
and more specifically to the tradition of rhyming disc jockeys over the radio from the 1950's,

[00:22:09]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
from the early 50's onward in the Black community on radio stations there's been a tradition of the disc jockeys doing rhymed introductions and rhymed closings.

[00:22:19]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
In a parallel tradition in the Caribbean, there's developed an entire tradition there called toasting which is simply the tradition of the-the DJ, what started off as the radio DJ and the club DJ beginning to talk over the rhythm tracks.
[00:22:34]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
It seems that the combination of those two forms led to the development of rap as we know it now.
[00:22:41]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
How is it that raps are composed?
{PAUSE}
[00:22:45]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
MC Caesar
[00:22:46]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Now we need to cut the reverb here for a second.
[00:22:49]
{SPEAKER name="MC Caesar"}

Well, you take a lot of rhyming words and you put em together and you take words with the same endings and you put em together in sentence form to say things that you mean or you know, like bring, across a message.
[00:23:04]
{SPEAKER name="MC Caesar"}

And you do it to the rhythm, you can write em to rhythms or you can just say em a capella and that's how you make em.

[00:23:13]