Rap Music Diffusion and Graph Theory
The main point of this article was to discuss the diffusion of rap music and hip hop from the apartments of 1520 Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx, NY to a global music genre with listeners spanning all continents. I think this diffusion demonstrates the power of local bridges in spreading novel information. For instance, the article describes how in the 1980s, 59.3% of new rap artists resided in New York City, making that the current epicenter of rap music. By the 90s, the genre had expanded to not just other major metropolitan areas, but also smaller urban areas such as Atlanta, New Orleans. By the 2000s other cities with many rappers included Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis. The author points out that this was due to rappers in other metropolitan areas adopting their styles from NY, and then smaller urban areas adopting their styles from these metropolitan areas. For instance, Schooly D was the first rapper outside of NY metropolitan area as he was located in Philadelphia, but had ties to NY via a filmmaker so was connected to NY rap scene in that way. Another example of the power of local bridges in rap is crossovers between rap and other genres such as rock. Run DMC and Aerosmith’s collaboration on Walk This Way allowed the network of audiences who listened to rap to expand.
Additionally, this article discusses rap feuds that arose between East and West coast rappers and the importance of locality in rap as the credibility of a rapper is based on their connection to a specific geography and the identities of that geography. Here we can make the connection to concepts in class pertaining to the structural balance theorem, which states that a graph network is balanced if all edges are friends or if there are two groups, x and y, in which every node within these groups are friends, but all edges between x and y are enemies. In the case of rap music, especially in the 90s, all east coast rappers were friendly, would frequently collaborate, and dissing west coast rappers (nodes in the other group) was something that occurred regularly. However, later on in the 2000s, the East Coast network became imbalanced due to the death of Notorious B.I.G. which sparked a battle over who would be the new King of NY. The nodes within the East coast no longer all had friendly ties. Ultimately, the spread of rap music is a great example of elements of graph theory as it helps to explain how the genre became a worldwide phenomenon.
Sources: French, K. (2017). Geography of American rap: rap diffusion and rap centers. GeoJournal, 82(2), 259-272.