Search results

This paper builds upon a new era of research seeking to understand variability in how desirable outcomes result from engaging rap music as a health enhancing artifact. More specifically, the study explores the music mediated pathways to individual and community well-being. The study emphasizes female music engagement. Quantitative methods are used to examine listening habits and preferences associated with empowering rap music engagement among a female sample of 202 university students using an a priori established path analysis model. Results echo prior research that suggests the functional value of music in helping to define the self independently and articulate one’s social identity within the context of community (Dixon, Zhang, & Conrad, 2009; Hill, 2009; Travis & Bowman, 2012). Specifically, results suggest that among females in this sample, (a) their appropriation of rap music can be empowering, (b) specific factors play a significant role in determining the difference between females that feel more or less empowered from their interactions with rap music, and (c) female listeners were more likely to appropriate rap music for personal and community growth if it was their favorite music type, if they listened often, and if they tended to listen alone more often than with friends. These research findings offer promising routes for more in depth qualitative analysis to help uncover the nuances of preferred engagement strategies and to help define the subjective lived experiences that lead to feeling empowered by music to act toward positive change for oneself and others. Practical results indicate the possibility for gender-specific education, therapeutic or empowerment-based programs that utilize rap music as a rubric.

This chapter investigates the dynamics of teenage girls' musical.ly productions in relation to microcelebrity inspirations and (non)aspirations, and centrally details the mixed methodologies involved in the research process. The analysis focuses on the flow of the musical.ly app as evidenced through the walk-through method and young girls' engagements with the platform as solicited through personal observations and two small focus group discussions.

When musicians collaborate, a conversation takes place. They may not necessarily come from the same background, or even speak the same language, but when they listen to each other play and musically engage with a mutual respect and openness, a true improvisational and conversational collaborative flow is created. No single person controls how the work develops: the direction of the flow of this musical output is collectively determined through all the participants’ contributions. This creative process sees the participants as sonic explorers navigating and traversing the contours of a cross-cultural landscape, allowing unique moments of sound to be the catalyst for the (re)creation of new fusions and possible future collaborations. Presented as a discussion between composer Dr Jeremy Mayall and renowned taonga puoro practitioner Horomona Horo, this chapter looks at how their collaborative creative practice-based research projects have developed and reveal the sorts of musical interactions that transpire when performer/composers from both Western contemporary and Indigenous music backgrounds are given the opportunity to spend time together and collaborate. In this chapter, Horo and Mayall reflect on the processes that have informed their collaborations since meeting in 2008, and how their ongoing practice has developed through a range of projects that serve as case studies and discussion points throughout. This chapter aims to explore the centrality of relationship building and the impact that this kind of cross-cultural engagement can have on the ways in which musicians from different backgrounds can thrive.