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Good things come in threes: triplet flow in recent hip-hop music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2019

Ben Duinker
Ben Duinker*
Affiliation:
Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Strathcona Music Building, 555 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1E3 E-mail: Benjamin.duinker@mail.mcgill.ca
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Abstract

MCs (rappers) such as Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Big Sean and Young Thug use triplet rhythms in their rapping, a practice that is known as triplet flow. This paper argues that the prevalence of triplet flow is one of the most aurally salient features of contemporary hip hop, and exemplifies the popularity and influence of the Atlanta-centred genre of trap music through its sparse, slow beats. Three types of triplet flow are defined – mixed, phrasal and total – and are used to explore how various songs and artists active in the late 1980s and early 1990s provided the stylistic blueprint for triplet flow's recent explosion in popularity. With the aid of a 50 song mini-corpus, the paper concludes with a general survey of stylistic characteristics common in many songs featuring triplet flow, and further analysis of two of these songs in order to illuminate the creative, rhetorical and virtuosic potential that underpins this ostensibly simple style of rapping.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , October 2019 , pp. 423 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

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