Don’t Sweat the Technique : A Performer’s Guide to Hip-Hop and Rap

In this present age, aspiring performers, musical artists, and singers of all kinds engage with hip hop and hip-hop stylizations. Turn on the radio today and you will hear music from the likes of Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, and Billie Eilish—songs you might place into the generalized category of "pop singers." However, many top 40 pop tunes of today derive their musicality, style, and sound from hip hop, often employing hip-hop stylized vocalizations. This is even the case with contemporary musicals like Hamilton and In the Heights. In Hip-Hop and Rap Music: A Performer’s Guide, Melissa Foster equips aspiring performers, musical artists, singers, and hobbyists with the tools and knowledge needed to appreciate the rich art form and perform it with genuine authenticity and fluency. Part 1 provides a rich tapestry of important considerations for performers, including the development of hip hop; a roadmap to different styles; a brief introduction to the political, social, and racial context of hip-hop’s emergence; and an investigation of hip hop’s vast influence on contemporary music. Each performer must find an authentic, holistic way into the stylisms, physicality, parlance, and sound of hip hop that will resonate with both their lived experience and their bearing, and understanding hip hop’s rich background is a vital first step towards this. Part 2 presents a wealth of practical exercises and techniques designed to condition a performer to meet hip hop’s technical demands and facilitate hip-hop performance stylisms. This section delves into vocal techniques to address such building blocks as inhalation, breath management, articulation, movement and grounding, rhythmic control and ownership (including an in-depth look into finding the ‘pocket’ which is crucial to hip hop), pitch, resonance, storytelling, riffing (in both a musical and holistic approach), vocal health, and microphone techniques. Part 2 will also include interviews and tips from various hip-hop artists and industry professionals which will bring to life and reinforce the challenging nature of the form’s requisite skills. Hip-Hop and Rap Music: A Performer’s Guide will equip performers with the tools and knowledge vital to approaching authentic and masterful performances of hip hop.