Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time
Vox3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2019-2023
16.3M views · 10 years ago · explainer · evergreen
Vox breaks down how great rappers build rhymes, from Kurtis Blow's simple bars to Biggie's smooth flow and Kendrick Lamar's dense, fast delivery. It uses on-screen visualizations of rhyme structure.
HN recommends it as an accessible explanation of rhyme craft that works even for people who aren't hip hop fans.
6:00Rhyme: Why Eminem is one of the most impressive lyricists ever
Library of Alexandria
3.7M views • 13 years ago
3:53$stdout - Side Projects
stdout the rapper
18K views • 7 years ago
1:16:21Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music
Tantacrul
1.8M views • 3 years ago
27:11The Art Of Poison-Pilling Music Files
Benn Jordan
1.1M views • 1 year ago
11:07The music theory of V A P O R W A V E
Adam Neely
1.8M views • 10 years ago
0:51Sample Breakdown: Daft Punk - One More Time
TRACKLIB
2.2M views • 6 years ago
18:09Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop
Landon Proctor
7M views • 20 years ago
1:00:57DOOM: Behind the Music
GDC Festival of Gaming
1.8M views • 9 years ago
2:05Emily Howell - Track 1
Marco Pontello
377K views • 16 years ago
20:28The Most COMPLEX Pop Song of All Time
Rick Beato
8.3M views • 5 years ago
0:32Venetian Snares - Look (from Songs About My Cats 2001)
monotoniac
38K views • 7 years ago
17:41I made a talking banana
Useless Duck Company
622K views • 8 years ago
19:40How I Designed a Free Music Font for 5 Million Musicians (MuseScore 3.6)
Tantacrul
608K views • 5 years ago
9:57How Music Works 1 - Melody - Part 1
timegrinder
810K views • 18 years ago
5:13A$AP Mob - Yamborghini High (Official Video) ft. Juicy J
asapmobVEVO
180.4M views • 10 years ago
8:35Buster Keaton - The Art of the Gag
Every Frame a Painting
8.4M views • 10 years ago
19:42Using AI To Detect AI Music (and other music industry data-porn)
Benn Jordan
452K views • 1 year ago
5:52[Equation] - Aphex Twin Spectrogram
HappyQuark
476K views • 17 years ago
31:36Learn music theory in half an hour.
ANDREW HUANG
10.6M views • 7 years ago
2:25The Presidents discuss their top 5 animes
Bill
1M views • 3 years ago
4 comments from Hacker News
There will be a middle ground where the technology augments professional tools. If you can pull open an audio editor, start with 20 tracks and have the ai pull things I like from other songs AND modify each track to match as elements get added, you’ll start to see pros make some amazing things. Similar to how people with a photography background have a huge head start with midjourney. What you are describing will be more powerful when I can make a playlist of my 10 favorite songs AND write a sentence about why I chose each song, and what features of the song are worth preserving. Then it can be used to match me with existing or generated songs. Current gen streaming radio doesn’t have the context for why I like each song I like. Use the ai to take songs apart and understand their elements. This video is something I would like generative ai writing to understand. ▶ this video . This tools current rhyming isn’t any better than Kurtis Blow.
I remember back before the internet when "music discovery" rarely involved listening to music (except the radio). I would be so interested in music, but READING about music was a horrible hit-or-mostly-miss experience. I could read something like rolling stone and then be disappointed when the music didn't capture the emotion the description portrayed. Even word of mouth was hit-or-miss unless someone had a tape in the car. anyway... now we have infinite discoverability, and with youtube, you can get really interesting journeys like this deconstruction: ▶ this video
For those unfamiliar with MF DOOM, this video is a pretty good introduction to why he was considered to be technically brilliant. ▶ this video (Skip to 9:31 if the link doesn't take you there automatically)
One of the most educational and interesting explainer videos I've ever seen is Vox's "Rapping, Deconstructed". Please consider this required watching, even if you have no interest in hip-hop music: ▶ this video After you watch that, I suspect you'll hear this Kendrick Lamar track with new ears: link I know that while I am still very much a jazz/rock person, those videos expanded my perception of what was musically possible. No hyperbole on my end.