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Bounce: Rap Music and Local Identity in New Orleans
Over the course of the twentieth century, African Americans in New Orleans helped define the genres of jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, and funk. In recent decades, younger generations of New Orleanians have created a rich and dynamic local rap scene, which has revolved around a dance-oriented style called "bounce."
Hip-hop has been the latest conduit for a "New Orleans sound" that lies at the heart of many of the city's best-known contributions to earlier popular music genres. Bounce, while globally connected and constantly evolving, reflects an enduring cultural continuity that reaches back and builds on the city's rich musical and cultural traditions.
In this book, the popular music scholar and filmmaker Matt Miller explores the ways in which participants in New Orleans's hip-hop scene have collectively established, contested, and revised a distinctive style of rap that exists at the intersection of deeply rooted vernacular music traditions and the modern, globalized economy of commercial popular music. Like other forms of grassroots expressive culture in the city, New Orleans rap is a site of intense aesthetic and economic competition that reflects the creativity and resilience of the city's poor and working-class African Americans.
Hip-hop has been the latest conduit for a "New Orleans sound" that lies at the heart of many of the city's best-known contributions to earlier popular music genres. Bounce, while globally connected and constantly evolving, reflects an enduring cultural continuity that reaches back and builds on the city's rich musical and cultural traditions.
In this book, the popular music scholar and filmmaker Matt Miller explores the ways in which participants in New Orleans's hip-hop scene have collectively established, contested, and revised a distinctive style of rap that exists at the intersection of deeply rooted vernacular music traditions and the modern, globalized economy of commercial popular music. Like other forms of grassroots expressive culture in the city, New Orleans rap is a site of intense aesthetic and economic competition that reflects the creativity and resilience of the city's poor and working-class African Americans.
- GenresMusic
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 16, 2012
45 people want to read
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June 23, 2019
I love New Orleans music, but was only marginally interested in bounce, New Orleans' local flavor of hip hop, before reading this book. I will readily admit that I only picked this one up because I know the author. I was unsure how much of it I really wanted to read, but when I skimmed through the first few chapters, they seemed interesting enough so that I decided to at least read those.
Well, once I started, I couldn't stop. Matt (sorry, I know him too well to call him anything else) has produced a well-written, straightforward history of the newest musical style to arise from the cultural/artistic gumbo of New Orleans. The writing is not overly academic, and is thankfully free of theorizing - the music and its development is described as it is and was. In the first couple of chapters, he gives just enough background about the city and its culture so that the rest of the book will make sense to those readers who don't know much about New Orleans. And he does it so well that he doesn't bore those of us who already know NOLA well. In fact, if I wanted to recommend a three-page summary of the origins and early development of jazz to a novice, I just might use the relevant passage in Bounce.
Any good writing about music makes you want to hear the music, and by that measure, Matt's book is a success, as far as I am concerned. I've been exploring many of the recordings that he describes. I like some of the tracks more than others, but I know have some new favorites to add to my list of New Orleans music that I love. I'll certainly never be able to get J Ro J's "Let's Jump" out of my head - I love the sampled tuba bass line, the second-line "buck jump" beat, and the sense of innocent fun it shares with much early rap music - and much New Orleans music of all styles.
Well, once I started, I couldn't stop. Matt (sorry, I know him too well to call him anything else) has produced a well-written, straightforward history of the newest musical style to arise from the cultural/artistic gumbo of New Orleans. The writing is not overly academic, and is thankfully free of theorizing - the music and its development is described as it is and was. In the first couple of chapters, he gives just enough background about the city and its culture so that the rest of the book will make sense to those readers who don't know much about New Orleans. And he does it so well that he doesn't bore those of us who already know NOLA well. In fact, if I wanted to recommend a three-page summary of the origins and early development of jazz to a novice, I just might use the relevant passage in Bounce.
Any good writing about music makes you want to hear the music, and by that measure, Matt's book is a success, as far as I am concerned. I've been exploring many of the recordings that he describes. I like some of the tracks more than others, but I know have some new favorites to add to my list of New Orleans music that I love. I'll certainly never be able to get J Ro J's "Let's Jump" out of my head - I love the sampled tuba bass line, the second-line "buck jump" beat, and the sense of innocent fun it shares with much early rap music - and much New Orleans music of all styles.
Displaying 1 of 1 review