ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Negus’ position is an important starting point due to its assertion that meaning in music is negotiable and therefore not fixed. It looks at the birth of rock ’n’ roll and the rebranding of rap as hip-hop as instances in the development of what has been labeled “black music” in America. Many of the same forces resurface in Byron Hurt’s documentary that examines rap music, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. Hurt’s interviews are powerful indicators of how popular music forms can be subject to a semantic overhaul in the course of their commercial development. While the music industry has interest in the effort to reconfigure salsa for commercial exploitation, the migrant Puerto-Rican musicians responsible for bringing the music to the US understand an additional, political significance. Reggae music provides another example of a genre whose signification shifts as migrant Jamaican communities bring their stock of songs to the UK in the post-WWII rebuilding effort.
