ABSTRACT
The post-mortem sampling of the voices of deceased rappers in hip-hop derives from a complex mix of factors: the ubiquity of sampling and other forms of intertextuality in both official and unofficial releases, and subsequent rappers who want to lament rappers and others, while potentially wanting to add themselves to a canon or lineage of rappers. The female voice may include sobbing, falsetto, sighs and other vocal techniques that have come to signify lamentation. In post-Second World War popular culture, the presence of strings, such as the use of Barber's Adagio for Strings for funerals and in films that contend with death, have become a sonic feature of more contemporary laments. The age of recording and digital reproduction means that the voice of the rapper, and the voices of others, will continue to be invoked, producing ever-shifting entities which continue to provide meaning throughout hip-hop's stylistic developments and historiography.
