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cmarkulin / hip-hop-humanities

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Project Update- 10-05 #2

Closed cdornn closed 3 years ago

cdornn commented 3 years ago

Project Update for Meeting on Tues. 10-05:

Today our group met for the second time. We finalized our list of artists down to twelve names: Tyler the Creator, Kanye West, Mac Miller, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Travis Scott, Vince Staples, Earl Sweatshirt, MF DOOM, A$AP Rocky, and Kid Cudi. It was then decided that of these twelve artists, five songs would be taken from their first album as well as five more songs from their latest, making 10 songs per artist. Potentially, we may use a random number generator to pick these songs so that we may avoid bias. In order to establish some organization for the many songs that we will be marking up, we decided on having individual files for each song, which we would then place in subfolders related to their respective artist.

MasonGobat commented 3 years ago

It is interesting that you are doing so many artists, as well as so many songs. I wonder though, if it would be helpful to include songs from an interim album so that perhaps a transformation can be seen as developing. This would add a lot more songs, so I can see why it is not an appealing idea. Is your research also going to look at the size of each artist, especially since some of those names I have never heard of and wonder if their popularity is less than others and what effect that may have?

naf51 commented 3 years ago

I like that you are considering using rng to determine the songs in each album, that would definitely prevent bias. I also think it would help your research question as well. Because it is random, you'll truly get a genuine look and see what their lyrics symbolize and reference. Going off of @MasonGobat, I agree that it would be interesting to see a song or two from an album in the middle of their career to see what the content was like. Because maybe his/her first album was unlike the rest of their later ones! Meaning, it might have had significantly different goals in mind.

ShaneMoniot commented 3 years ago

I agree a little bit with what both people before me said. I also find it interesting that you've chosen to do so many artists and songs. To build off of that, would it make sense to look at less artists but to look at all of their songs in each album? I know you said that you want to try to remove bias by using a random number generator, but I'm not sure there really is too much bias when picking songs from the albums themselves, and it might provide more context if you use all of the songs from the albums. If you want to try to eliminate bias I think a good way to do so would be to use a rng to select which artists you are going to look at.

victoriacosta commented 3 years ago

I agree with several of the points made above. If I'm understanding your research correctly, you're examining the evolution of an artist through their material. I would be less concerned about avoiding bias for certain songs, but instead concerned with getting as full a representation of the artist's recordings as possible in the time you have. I'm familiar with a few of the artists you're considering exploring, but I'm not sure of the depth of their individual catalogues. I think you may be better served by focusing on fewer artists with deeper discographies.

amm492 commented 3 years ago

This is such an exciting project, especially because the material probably hits home for most of you. I understand that want to see how the artists have grown by picking songs from their first album and their most recent, but have you guys thought about maybe finding lists, that have already been created, of their songs from least to most popular to see how/ where those fit in? I know this breaks away from your question a bit. What makes lyrics of newer songs better than others? Just some things to think about! Can't wait to see where this is headed!

dillshust13 commented 3 years ago

Wow, that's a lot of artists and songs. I'm positive that you'll have plenty of data to sift through with that sample size, but it certainly feels like quite a lot. I think you'll see the most growth from someone like earl sweatshirt, as compared to a few of the other larger artists. Avoiding bias is going to be hard in this project -- try to be careful in dictating what counts as a "change."