The hiphopification of pop: hip hop aesthetics in mainstream popular music

This is the script of a paper I gave at the Royal Musical Association 58th Annual Conference, hosted by the University of Durham, on 8 September 2022. Introduction Hip hop is the most popular genre of music in the United States, with a comparable lead in the UK and Europe. Since the mid-2010s, Nielsen Music, … Read more

Beats to Quarantine to: Lofi hip hop music and virtual community during the COVID-19 pandemic

This is the script of a paper I gave at the Challenge and Change in Popular Music IASPM UK/I Conference, hosted by the University of Liverpool on 31 August 2022. It is a more concise version of my longer data analysis in two parts on lofi hip hop during COVID-19 (part 1, part 2). Introduction … Read more

All the way up: hip hop’s global emergence as the leading popular music genre in the age of digital streaming

This is the script of a paper I gave at the Climates of Popular Music: IASPM 2022 Conference, hosted online by Daegu University on 9 July 2022. It makes reference to the research published in my data-driven analysis of annual top 100 albums, Hip hop’s hold over Top 100 albums, 2000–2020. Introduction When, in 2016, … Read more

One Fortnite Only: virtual hip hop concerts in video games

This is the script of an invited research seminar I gave at the University of Bristol on 1 February 2022. In April 2020, the video game platform Fortnite announced a special in-game event called Astronomical. Billed as a ‘virtual concert’ featuring hip hop artist Travis Scott, the event series broke records, reaching a global audience … Read more

Hip hop’s hold over Top 100 albums, 2000–2020

The story of hip hop’s commercial success in the 21st century is one of a steady decline followed by a striking ascent. At the turn of the millennium, hip hop held a major presence on the charts, but never accounted for more than a sixth of the best-selling albums. By the end of 2020, hip … Read more

MusicID Digital Research Fellowship Awarded

I’m delighted to announce that I have been awarded the 2021 MusicID Digital Research Fellowship. In MusicID’s news post, founder and CEO Roger Press is quoted as saying ‘The Committee thought Dr Gamble’s submission was targeted, interesting, showed a clear methodology, and would make the best use of the MusicID platform. We also appreciated that Dr … Read more

Towards an ethical model of social media data analysis for internet music studies

This is the script of a paper I gave at the conference Information Overload? Music Studies in the Age of Abundance, hosted online by the University of Birmingham on 8 September 2021. For more info, see the UKRI AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellowship Music and the Internet: Towards a digital sociology of music. Introduction Scholars … Read more

How do rap lyrics address the internet?

How do rappers address the internet? I’ve identified five broad trends: embracing the internet as an educational and performative space; dismissing social platforms as fake, inauthentic places of activity (usually contrasted with a ‘real’, ‘offline’ life); viewing the web as an arena for confrontation or disrespect, often mockingly so; using social networking sites to pursue or maintain sexual relationships; and criticising the internet as a source of privacy violations or producing negative psychological effects. As an introductory analysis, this look at how song lyrics implicate online practices, digital technologies, and specific platforms enables a clearer picture of artists’ and listeners’ contextual understandings of the internet and its place in everyday social life.

How Music Empowers publication

My book, How Music Empowers: Listening to Modern Rap and Metal is published today by Routledge (Taylor & Francis). This book was written before the Digital Flows project began, and will be of interest to hip-hop listeners and creatives, as well as popular music academics more generally. Here’s the blurb: How Music Empowers argues that … Read more

Beats, Online, and Life: lofi hip hop during COVID-19 (part 2)

For the first post on lofi hip hop before and during COVID-19, please see here. Lofi as a genre, and its antecedents To what extent can lofi hip hop be considered a genre, and to what extent do its producers, curators, and listeners participate in a virtual community? At present, there is a broad understanding … Read more