1. Bridging Mathematics and Rap Song (Freestyling)
Oladimeji Ogunyemi* and Tong Wu#
Department of Mathematics
College of Science and Technology
Texas Southern University
3100 Cleburne Street, Houston, TX 77004
ABSTRACT
“Rap itself-the rhymes spoken over hip-hop music.” - Becky Blanchard
The basis of this project was to utilize the fundamental correlation between the
creation of rap music (free-style) and mathematics as an incentive towards
increasing the involvement of disadvantaged scholars in mathematical subjects.
The idea is to imbibe the pop culture as a mean of transferring pre-obtained skill
and knowledge (rapping) to develop interest in area of concern (Mathematics).
Spontaneous lyrical improvisation with creation of cohesive meaningful storyline
demands adequate mental capacity. Ability to instantaneously manipulate/blend
the basic elements of music (time, speed, tone, aesthetic, rhyme, pattern,
language, subject, and choice of words) cannot be limited to mere common sense.
Such ingenious artistic traits which include rapping require adequate mental
calculations that are in similitude to when performing mathematical manipulations.
Scientific evidences have proven that music has the capacity to engage both
hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere is known to be responsible for
logical and analytical processing, while the right on the contrast is responsible for
spontaneity and experimentation. The method adopted was to show how
knowledge of mathematics (rhythmic patterns) helped in creating the framework
for the entire intended rap song. Our main focus is to encourage scholars to
embrace and appreciate hip-hop music as not just a mere street element but as a
master tool that could be used to boost interest in the areas that requires
mathematical knowledge.
2. INTRODUCTION
The enormous public misconceptions surrounding the rap music had long been
traced back to the American popular media. These fallacies have been grossly
propagated through propaganda by those with limited historical understanding of
the hip-hop culture of which rap music stands out to be the leading component.
The act of associating modern music to all social ill can only be regarded as an
approach of redefining all our music schools (elementary to colleges) to be
factories where devil is the production personnel. It is technically bizarre to make
such ambiguous conclusions without proper investigation and scholarly evidences
from different school of thought. It is quite very easy to devote all our prejudices
on the lyrics of the rap music and be missing out in the absorption of the messages
being communicated by the rappers. Surprisingly, this sort of hypocritical treatment
of rap music should not caught us unawares because similar approach was
adopted in disregarding the aftereffects of almost four hundred years of slavery in
America. The fundamental message of the rap music before the commercialization
was to unify the black community most especially those that are politically and
socially disadvantaged. Rap is not just an ordinary art without substance; it is
deeply rooted in the African oral tradition brought by the slaves from their
homeland into the America. To better understand this historical link between rap
music and the African oratory practices, this writer made a tangible comment about
the griot:
Unique to Western Africa, the griot, or jeli, profession encompasses
many roles. Griots have been re - ferred to as historians and
storytellers, but there is no real word in the English language that
includes all of their functions. A traditional griot could do everything
from recounting history to composing music, to teaching students, to
acting as diplomats. They are genealogists, historians,
spokespeople, ambassadors, musicians, teachers, warriors,
interpreters, praise-singers, masters of ceremonies, advisors, and
more. Not every griot does all of these things, but these are all
examples of functions the griot profession embodies.
Hip-hop was pioneered in 1973 by a popular Jamaican-born Kool DJ Herc in South
Bronx (New York) but it was later developed through competitive efforts of a former
gang leader, DJ called Afrika Bambaataa in the South Bronx, New York City. The
Bronx community was predominantly occupied by poor black people who cannot
really relate to the subjugating music played by the mainstream media on the radio
at that time Instead; the people through creativity came up with a genre of music
that has been noted to be highly influential among youths. DJs create hip-hop
rhythm and music by blending or mixing together existing songs/records on the turn
tables. Hip-hop gave birth to breakdance, allowing dancers to move in a way that
replicate the energy and the rhythm of the song being played. Rapping like DJ
developed out of ingenuity and social circumstance. The functionality of Master of
Ceremony (MC) evolved from the DJ having a microphone to announce the details
3. of the next dance party (date, time, venue, VIP) and to acknowledge members of
the group, crew and audience. It is either the DJ will do the announcement or have
another person (MC) do it for him. The announcement became more creative in its
delivery by interjecting certain words repetitively in order to create what is
technically known as echo or delay effect. Embellishment of the spoken words
creates the path for the modern day rapping to emerge. The word “free-styling”
became a model for rappers whenever the lyrics or words of the rap were not
premeditated. It simply means the same with the word “improvisation” in jazz music,
creating phrase or line spontaneously. Additionally, history reveals that many
Western classical music composers in 17th and 18th century (Bach, Mozart and
Chopin etc.) imbibed this idea of improvisation or free-styling to showcase their
musicianship during performances and in many of their compositions. Rappers are
not mere artists but are messengers not limited to their communities alone but they
are group of creative minds who possess the unique ability of telling history in an
unconventional way. This community involvement of rap music confirms why Becky
Blanchard made the following comments:
Rap is commonly designated as “CNN for black people.” Rap could
be integrated into English and language arts curriculum as a form of
both poetry and drama. Allowing students to write and perform their
own rap encourages them to think critically, to practice writing in the
narrative form, to increase vocabulary, and to develop and
understanding of rhyme and rhythm.
METHODS
The team used Inductive method to transfer musical ideas (youtube videos) into
mathematical ideas. Prior knowledge of music helped in dealing with the
challenges faced while during the transcribing process. The randomly selected two
videos were converted into manageable format (MP4) in order to aid repeatable
listening and accessibility. Each video was sequenced and edited separately using
a digital workstation with Logic pro 9 and Finale 2011 (music notation software).
The importance of the sequencing software was to create the music notations
needed to translate each video into mathematical form. The main task lies in
translating by hear the rhythmic contents of all the parts that made up each song.
Because the focus of this research has a lot to with the frequency of the words as
dictated by the rhythm. This process was initiated by sequencing the drum beat
which was originally done by beat boxing in Mos Def’s video. Beat boxing is an
integral part of the hip hop culture and it entails producing a regular percussive
sound with the parts of the body (mouth, hand and gently slapping the chest with
the hand) in lieu of electronic drum sound samples. The entire music performance
was digitally reproduced (sequenced) through a midi controller (M-Audio
Keystation 61 es) connected via USB to a notebook (Macbook). The preloaded
Logic pro 9 software created a pathway for the midi signals sent through the
keyboard (midi controller) to be converted digitally into music notations. In addition,
4. the logic pro 9 afforded the team the opportunity to edit and remix the digitized
sound. Knowing that the logic pro 9 has its own limitations when it comes
comprehensive music notation editing, finale 2011 a music notation software was
involved to increase precision and accuracy of the musical notes. The same
procedures were followed for the second song, White kills freestyle. Although, the
previous song by Mos Def has lesser elements when juxtaposed with the second
song and that can be seen in figures 1 and 2. Both Music scores generated from
the above procedure were translated into chart and tables with the aid of Microsoft
office suite (Word and Excel) as shown in figure 3 and 4. Rap music used here
have constant rhythmic pattern such that some bars were deleted without losing
the structure. But this removal of bars might become problem should the message
of the rap be the focus. The bars were deleted using Un = 2n+1 to determine the
1st, 2nd, 3rd…..and last bar to be eliminated.
ORIGINAL MUSIC
White Boy Kills Freestyle and Mos Def Free-styling}
TRANSCRIPTION TO MUSICAL NOTES
White boy kills freestyle-figure 1
6. White boy kills freestyle-figure 4
The figures below (5 and 6) are quite important because the reversibility of the
process was tested and confirmed with the creation of the final theme song titled
“Life Matters.” The scores were generated from the mathematical aspect and
later scored using finale 2011 and logic pro 9.
7. MUSIC CREATED FROM REVERSE PROCEDURES
Life Matters vocal-figure 5
Life Matters full score-figure 6
8. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
We found a bridge between music and mathematics. We started by listening to
randomly selected music, (transcribed) the music to the paper music, then
converted the paper music to the numerical table, and finally converted the
numerical table to the graphical chart. These steps are reversible for the benefit of
those (mathematics lovers) that preferred working with numbers. It is quite
amazing how musical ideas of rappers were translated into mathematical model
(table and chart). The significance of this research is to confirm the need for proper
evaluation and consideration of natural abilities of scholars as tool that can help in
increasing number of scholars suffering from mathofobia.
On an average, many American scholars still lag behind their counterparts in some
other developed countries as indicated by the statistical result released by pew
research center on February 2nd 2015. This huge deficiency in mathematics
performance can be compensated for by increasing interest in the subject through
grassroots movement and programs. One of such movement is to create an
educational incentives for naturally endowed citizens to be encouraged, mentored
and tutored in such a way that will open up their mind and sub consciousness to
their giftedness in the area of ability to process mathematical information. Rappers
have been investigated scientifically to possess outstanding mental ability but little
has been done by the educational system in tapping into this gray area.
Surprisingly, educational system that supposed to be a neutral institution solely
devoted to the betterment of all people of the land has found itself caught up in
sociopolitical prejudice and preferential treatment. This political entanglement has
prevented the entire system from structural readjustment that will allow for
creativity and innovation in the area of math tutoring. It is my view that both music
and mathematics departments should be allowed to work together in order for help
create a lasting bridge between the two extremes. For American scholars to rise
in the math and science rankings then there is need for music or other social
science programs/fields not to be considered as an escape from fields that require
mathematics. We are not agitating for a system that will condole impenitent
attitudes form nonchalant scholars but what we are hoping for is an educational
system that would be holistic and wholistic in their approach to selection, tutoring
and mentoring of potential scholars. I will suggest that is time in our nation to
include student’s giftedness in our admission questionnaire. This approach will not
only give an idea about students’ previous academic endeavor but will afford
institutions of learning to detect to what degree is the plasticity of the students’
brain. In the present dispensation, many scholars have given up mathematics
because the system has failed to realize that student who have ability create to
logical freestyle rap might have undetected intuition for mathematics.
9. CONCLUSION
Sound music, paper music, the numerical tables and the graphical charts are in
equivalent relation. A musician is at the sound music end and mathematician is at
the numerical end. We used graphical charts to bridge the musicians and
mathematicians. Our effort was to debunk the idea that many people are born with
deficiency in learning Mathematics. I am of the speculation that some of the
rappers, disadvantage students and music enthusiasts would do better in
mathematics should they find some form of encouragement to help them realize
the abundance of abstract thinking capability at their disposal. Same ability of
dealing with abstract structures is much more dependent on in dealing with
mathematical problems. Probably, institutions of learning need to create
curriculum that can help musically gifted disadvantaged scholars to cross the
socio-political barrier preventing them from learning or appreciating mathematics.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) of the College of Science and
Technology at Texas Southern University supported this study. Special thanks to
Dr. Hyun-Min Hwang (director 2016 SURP) and Professor Tong Wu (mentor-
mathematics department).
REFERENCES
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