Two distinct approaches to timbre analysis exist, each with complementary strengths and limitations. First, music theorists from the 1980s adopt a positivist mindset and look for ways to quantify timbral phenomena, often using spectrograms, while avoiding any cultural dimensions in their work. Second, writings of the past five years focus on the…[Read more]

Notions of hip-hop authenticity often rely on the construction of the rapper as a black, masculine, heterosexual, cisgender man. Artists that fall outside of this “normative” identity, including black women, white men and women, and queer and trans individuals, employ performance strategies that engage with and challenge this construction in ord…[Read more]