ABSTRACT
The growing literature on hip-hop musicology has paid ample tribute to Akai’s range of MPCs, acknowledging their pivotal influence on rap production practices. The time line coincides with particular sonic priorities in Hip-Hop that can be grouped under the “boom bap” aesthetic — an onomatopoeic celebration of the prominence of sampled drum sounds programmed over sparse and heavily syncopated instrumentation. This chapter examines how MPC technology impacts upon the stylization of Hip-Hop as a result of unique sonic, rhythmic and interface-related characteristics, which condition sampling, programming and mixing practices, determining in turn recognizable sonic signatures. Through case-study analysis, it demonstrates how the mapping occurs and its implications for hip-hop production; but also how it may predict future practices within the genre. The “boom” and the “bap” would evolve to represent not only a drum-inspired onomatopoeia but an overarching “chopped”, manipulated and syncopated aesthetic founded upon the interaction of past records with new mechanistic sequencing.
