Mathematic Facts

Abstract

CONTEXTUAL STATEMENT
This piece is a song featured on Specifik’s album Eighty3, commissioned in 2015 and since its release in the summer of 2016 has received airplay on The Pioneers Radio Show, Kane FM and widely across internet radio, and performed live in a range of different music contexts including Berlin’s Cassiopeia and hardcore punk venue, K19.
The research question that ‘Mathematic Facts’ investigates is twofold: First, it challenges the formulaic 92bpm / 4-bar stanza verses trope found in contemporary global hip-hop sound. Percussion samples are split, and by utilizing the latter half of each sample, a disorientation of apparent delayed bass and snare drums create an atmospheric swing that beguiles the listener and invites a questioning of tempo. The sonics are metallic, murky and distinct, which make way for a series of interlinked themes which support the vocals.
Second, its lyrics expose hip-hop’s contextual myths of urbanism, attesting to the presence of the regional-rural – a subject rarely addressed. Through lyrics such as: "My grind is on the resist the crumble / Through toil I'm digging dirt to reach the soil, salt of the earth / I've already smurfed so I stare through screens at others who do / I mix voodoo with wicca now my rhymes are thicker", the author presents the socio-cultural status of the regional-rural artist. By connecting observations of religion, medieval and astral life with textures of the earth, contemporary socio-cultural issues are addressed. The lyrics continue to explore the chasm between medieval and contemporary life as metaphor for the void between urban and rural, and the invisibility of rural artists. Exposing the fallacy of hip-hop’s urbanism, ‘Mathematic Facts’ confirms regional-rural hip-hop’s coexistence with contemporaneous global hip-hop production, reinforcing the author’s argument in ‘Urban Myths and Rural Legends: An Alternate Take on the Regionalism of Hip-Hop’ (2020).
[299 words]