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My name is Menda Olufemi Francois and I am a Brooklyn native but currently reside in the conservative, high-brow city of BOSTON! How appropriate, yes? I am a poet/spoken word artist, Mistress of Ceremony, and teacher, and dreamer.
I am a feminist interested in hip hop scholarship(again, how perfect!), particularly the culture's music, i.e. rap music, and the ways in which this musical genre's use of the spoken word manipulates the voice to convey as well as elicit certain emotions and behavioral responses.
In rap music, because it is an oral art form, the aural is key, so how does the speaker's accent(regional, like Midwest rapper Nelly or Southern rapper T.I.), delivery(fast like Bone Thugz and Harmony vs. slow and syrupy like Ma$se), vocal registers (high/low pitch)(among various other aesthetic and poetic elements) impact the listener's reception of what the speaker is saying?
Does any of this criteria impact how we "hear" the music? Hearing someone coo an expletive in a slow and flirtatious fashion versus hearing the expletive shouted in an angry manner, does this affect the psyche? And if so, how does it impact our behavior, both internal and external?
This is say(ask) how would the two separate experiences inform our understandings and conceptualizations around the word and its usage and how does this translate into a consequent/subsequent embrace or rejection of the word?