Functions of Expressive Timing in Hip-Hop Flow

Abstract

Expressive timing in hip-hop flow concerns the practice whereby an MC (rapper) inflects their flow rhythms on a minuscule scale not easily representable with standard musical notation—how far “ahead” or “behind” the beat they rap. Mitchell Ohriner (2019) positions expressive timing as an integral part of hip-hop flow and discusses it in detail. This paper complements his work by surveying flow timing across the broader hip-hop genre. Three broad practices of expressive timing in flow are identified. Swung timing subdivides the tactus unequally, similar to a common jazz drum timekeeping pattern. Lagging timing refers to the patterned delay of flow rhythm in relation to the underlying instrumental or sampled beat. And conversational timing pertains to flow performances that resemble rhythmic patterns idiomatic of spoken language. Theoretical and notational concepts developed by Fernando Benadon (2006, 2009) and Ohriner (2019) are used to illustrate the extent to which a flow performance involves these approaches to expressive timing, and propose analytical methods for these approaches that highlight their functional and rhetorical appeal. Expressive timing is investigated in light of Signifyin(g) in African American music (Samuel Floyd Jr., 2002), groove-based expressive microtiming (Vijay Iyer, 2002), Afrocentric models of rhetoric (Ronald Jackson, 1995), and narrativity.