What follows is the musical transcription in notation of the vocal rhythms from Tribe Called Quest’s song, “Scenario.” It includes verses by many different rappers from the TCQ posse, including most prominently Q-Tip and the very famous verse by Busta Rhymes.
Martin Connor is a music teacher & writer from Philadelphia, PA, with a music degree of high distinction from Duke University who is currently studying for a master’s degree at Brandeis University in Boston, MA, while focusing his research on the vocal melodies of the rap genre. He has contributed freelance articles to HipHopDX, Complex, and Pigeons and Planes, and had multiple articles from his website, www.RapAnalysis.com go viral on BET, The Source, XXL, and MTV. He teaches rap lessons online through the music school LessonFace, and has a book, The Artistry Of Rap Music, forthcoming from the McFarland Publishing House, scheduled for release in late 2017, as a follow-up to his 2014 contribution to their anthology "Eminem & Rap, Poetry, Race." He welcomes all comments, compliments, insults, and restaurant suggestions at [email protected].
"Flat back first this" I hope you realize he's not on the exact 8th notes here..
Also, Busta doesn't start the 5th divisions at the beginning of a new bar it falls Syncopated
Yeah, those rhythms are definitely wrong. I've gotten more and more accurate over time, as you can see here:
http://www.rapanalysis.com/2015/01/rap-analysis-raps-rhythms-transcribed.html
But absolute accuracy, as those new transcriptions above prove, doesn't always mean that you understand rap better. That's why simplifications, like the ones sometimes found in these earlier transcriptons, can actually be more helpful sometime. Feel free to email me at [email protected] and let me know what you think 🙂
Thanks KC!
Peace,
Martin