pynchon-l-digest V2 #1922

[Doug Millison]

No direct reference to rap music, but "jbor" certainly does spin out 
a fine-sounding string of signifiers from these M&D references to 
rock and roll and  "Negroe music",  yes it's easy to imagine rap 
music in there somewhere. Pynchon may in fact have been thinking 
about rap music when he wrote that South Philadelphia Ballad-singers" 
M&D passage, who knows? Pynchon's writing is so rich, practically 
every sentence gives you some allusion you can follow, and lots of 
P's references and allusions lead to very interesting places indeed, 
as for example Charles Hollander has shown in his detailed readings 
of Pynchon's stories, COL49, and other works.  P writes about all 
kinds of music -- classical, pop, jazz in GR; jazz in V.; rock in 
COL49, Vineland, M&D; etc. -- and I hope somebody does come up with a 
direct reference to rap, and demonstrate one more dimension of the 
encyclopedic nature of his work.

"South Philadelphia Ballad-singers" surely has more to do with the 
Philly sound than with rap. What the O'Jays and Harold Melvin & the 
Blue Notes (I'd add Curtis Mayfield and many others) --  known as 
singers because they sing, as opposed to rappers who rap, i.e. talk 
-- have to do with rap music I'd like to hear, apart from the fact 
that they share with the rappers (who came along later in the 80s) a 
common African-American musical heritage. Obviously, the R&B, soul, 
funk masters pass along  influences to the rappers but musically 
they're after vastly different game; you hear this quite clearly when 
a contemporary rap quotes an old school ballad,  the difference in 
musical texture, harmonies, rhythms, lyrical sensibility.

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