International Influence on Hip-Hop Music
For years, hip-hop music has been seen as a primarily American and British-dominated genre--with boom-bap and drill music setting the foundation for their respective region’s musical culture. However, recently, international music--namely, Asian, and Latin--is having an increasingly profound impact on hip-hop.
To understand traditional Asian music’s growing influence on hip-hop, it is critical to acknowledge producer Wesley Tyler Grass, commonly known as “Wheezy”. Wheezy is most notable for his early work with rapper Gunna, but has a wide discography including Drake, Travis Scott, and Meek Mill. Wheezy has established his sound on projects like Drip or Drown 2 by Gunna and Slime Language 2 by YSL Records to incorporate traditional Latin and Asian influences in his guitar, flute, and mandolin melodies. This is best displayed in songs like “Who You Foolin” and “ARGENTINA” by Gunna, which help establish the basis for the genre’s widespread interpolation of international musical genres.
Wheezy’s implementation of international melodies even led the way for Asian music’s drive in Drill music, a rap genre most popular in Brooklyn and the United Kingdom. Take “Whoopty” by CJ, which samples the vocals in “Sanam Re” by Arjit Singh--a Bollywood song. What makes “Whoopty” interesting is that, instead of an interpolation, where an artist simply builds off the idea of another work, the song directly samples “Sanam Re”, meaning it uses the literal audio from the original track. “Whoopty” increases the speed of the sample by 25% and pitches the sample up six semitones, which is half an octave. While the connection between the two songs is glaringly obvious--after all, they share the same primary melody--the sample was manipulated so it had enough distinction to change a romantic, Bollywood song to an almost violent-sounding Drill song.
It is remarkable to see how creatively musicians interpret various genres into their own sector of music. Wheezy’s novel use of Latin melodic components with his guitars and winds paved the way for other producers and artists to also interpret foreign elements. The inclusion of a slow, romantic Bollywood piece like “Sanam Re” in a piece as aggressive as “Whoopty” shows the vast influence of international music on hip-hop and the capabilities of musicians’ own interpretations. Interpolation and sampling have immense power to inspire creativity within artists and paired with the influences of international music, hip-hop is truly evolving into a far more inclusive genre.
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