Pynchon's rap

[jbor]

> Since the major parallel that Pynchon sets up throughout M&D is 1760s
> (the period that encompasses the bulk of the novel's action)/1960s
> (the period of the youth and larger counter-culture rebellion to
> which P does in fact allude so often throughout the novel), I think
> it's a stretch to call this a reference to rap music, which is not a
> 60s phenomenon. Isn't the South Philly sound an offshoot of Motor
> City R&B anyway?

I didn't think these parallels and allusions (it's funny how there's
suddenly an acknowledgement that references to 20th Century cultural
manifestations exist in the novel) were restricted to the 1960s. In fact,
the impression I got was that they were very much post-60s. There's that
Goth woman all dressed in black, for example: very 70s/80s.

And if you're talking about the songwriters and producers Gamble & Huff and
'Philly Sound' r&b and "soul" acts like The O'Jays, Harold Melvin and the
Blue Notes, Lou Rawls, MFSB and the like, then it'd definitely be the 70s.

http://www.70disco.com/mfsb.htm

The Parliament/Funkadelic stuff hails from about the same time, and you've
got posses like Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, and the Furious Five ('White
Lines' beats 'The Message' hands down imo) rising to prominence as well.
Pynchon is describing a musical "Succession", a "Secret History of a Musick
yet to be", and songs like Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' 'Wake Up
Everybody' has the lyrical intensity to make it a direct influence on much
of the "Negroe Musick" -- rap, r&b, hip-hop and the like -- which has
followed, just as the vocal stylings of Lou Rawls on 'You'll Never Find
(Another Love Like Mine)' -- half-growled, half-sung -- provide yet another
point of departure.

I'm spinning H. Melvin & The Blue Notes gorgeous 'To Be Free Who We Are'
(1975) on the turntable now as an antidote to the hatred and lies which
Millison spews out in the rest of his post.

best