OF MUMBLING

ern pioneering trap artists like Outkast, Cool Breeze and Ghetto Mafia.

Trap refers to the creating and selling of crack-cocaine, the “trap” being the dwelling within which it is manufactured, sold and smoked. This context provides a narrative framework much reminiscent of earlier gangsta rap records popularised in the late 1980s by Eazy-E and his crew NWA, yet pioneered in the early part of that decade by artists such as Schoolly D, Funkmaster Wizard Wiz and Ice-T.

These formative styles of gangsta rap might appear to celebrate drug dealing, pimping, gangs and the materialism of money, cars and jewellery.

However, records like Funkmaster Wizard Wiz’s Crack It Up and Schoolly D’s P.S.K. – What Does It Mean? serve as narrative-driven ethnographic and auto-ethnographic studies.

They are effectively social commentaries based on real events, people and experiences.

These narratives also intertwine strong metaphors as in IceT’s expansive Six in the Mornin, where Ice undertakes the role of the dealer narrowly escaping a bust, but takes solace in hip-hop as part of everyday life.

So is it mumble rap’s omission of clever, eloquent storytelling and wordplay that is disliked by the older hip-hop community?

The lackadaisical delivery and lyrically sparse approach that a majority of new wave mumble rappers such as Migos and Rich Homie Quanpractice clearly upsets fans of hip-hop’s golden era great emcees – the likes of Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and Q-Tip – whose flows (delivery) were paradigm-shifting, and whose delivery was precise and professionally effortless.

Furthermore, the socio-political awareness that eminent emcees like Chuck D, Poor Righteous Teachers and Tragedy Khadafi bring to the consciousness of hip hop is clearly absent from mumble rap. From Brother D’s How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise? released in 1980, consciousness has, to a greater or lesser extent, played a key role in the evolution of rap.

But what if the current cultural context is informing the production of mumble rap?

In the contemporary Western world daily life is fuelled by widespread consumption – of both products and images.

They, in turn, saturate social media in an attempt to raise social status, a process that is itself highly disposable, and filled with bite-sized snippets of communication.

To understand mumble rap, I think it’s useful to consider the thoughts of cultural theorist Paul Virilio.

He philosophises on the ideas of the dromosphere – the sphere within the evolution of humanity where speed inevitably causes the accident – and the picnolepsy – an almost epileptic consciousness generated by the perceived speed and immediacy of the world. Cultural cause and human experience are interlinked.

As the dromosphere becomes heavy with information, people’s physical experience slows down in a bid to absorb as much as possible. When life becomes devoid of speed, gaps appear between the slowing down and fast pace of information, triggering a picnoleptic consciousness. It is within these voids and this consciousness, I would argue, that mumble rap is created.

Mumble rap is a negotiation that offers relief from the invisible acceleration of life, yet concurrently praises the disposable production-consumption model that ignites this acceleration in the first place. It is creativity born out of boredom.

To this end, mumble rap represents much more than may at first appear. The picnoleptic experience is channelled through almost incomprehensible lyrical delivery, while locating certain tangible status symbols and narratives (such as acquisition of money, speeding cars, and overseeing drug deals) meagerly in the lyrical content.

Mumble rap offers the opportunity to reassess what is of cultural value. Like jazz and reggae, hip-hop has a rich musical culture.

Now nearing the end of its fifth decade, there is a place for all subgenres and agendas.

The old school needs to let mumble rap be what it wishes to be, and allow this new wave of rappers to do their thing, not forgetting the broader social context that may be exactly why these rappers mumble.

De Paor-Evans is the Principal Lecturer in Cultural Theory / School Lead for Research and Innovation, School of Art, Design and Fashion, University of Central Lancashire. This article was first published on The Conversation