History of flow
Old school flows were relatively basic and used only few syllables per bar, simple rhythmic patterns, and basic rhyming techniques and rhyme schemes.
[60][66] Melle Mel is cited as an MC who epitomizes the old school flow –
Kool Moe Dee says, "from 1970 to 1978 we rhymed one way [then] Melle Mel, in 1978, gave us the new cadence we would use from 1978 to 1986".
[67] He's the first emcee to explode in a new rhyme cadence, and change the way every emcee rhymed forever. Rakim,
The Notorious B.I.G., and
Eminem have flipped the flow, but Melle Mel's downbeat on the two, four, kick to snare cadence is still the rhyme foundation all emcees are building on".
[68]
Artists and critics often credit
Rakim with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows near the beginning of hip hop's
new school[69] – Kool Moe Dee says, "any emcee that came after 1986 had to study Rakim just to know what to be able to do.
[70] Rakim, in 1986, gave us flow and that was the rhyme style from 1986 to 1994.
[67] From that point on, anybody emceeing was forced to focus on their flow".
[71] Kool Moe Dee explains that before Rakim, the term 'flow' wasn't widely used – "Rakim is basically the inventor of flow. We were not even using the word flow until Rakim came along. It was called rhyming, it was called cadence, but it wasn't called flow. Rakim created flow!"
[72] He adds that while Rakim upgraded and popularized the focus on flow, "he didn't invent the word".
[70]
Kool Moe Dee states that Biggie introduced a newer flow which "dominated from 1994 to 2002",
[67] and also says that
Method Man was "one of the emcees from the early to mid-'90s that ushered in the era of flow ... Rakim invented it, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, and
Kool G Rap expanded it, but Biggie and Method Man made flow the single most important aspect of an emcee's game".
[73] He also cites
Craig Mack as an artist who contributed to developing flow in the '90s.
[74]
Music scholar Adam Krims says, "the flow of MCs is one of the profoundest changes that separates out new-sounding from older-sounding music ... it is widely recognized and remarked that rhythmic styles of many commercially successful MCs since roughly the beginning of the 1990s have progressively become faster and more 'complex'".
[60] He cites "members of the
Wu-Tang Clan,
Nas,
AZ,
Big Pun, and
Ras Kass, just to name a few"
[75] as artists who exemplify this progression.
Kool Moe Dee adds, "in 2002 Eminem created the song that got the first Oscar in Hip-Hop history
[Lose Yourself] ... and I would have to say that his flow is the most dominant right now (2003)".
[67]
Styles
There are many different styles of flow, with different terminology used by different people –
stic.man of
Dead Prez uses the following terms –
- "The Chant", which he says is used by Lil Jon and Project Pat[76]
- "The Syncopated Bounce", used by Twista and Bone Thugs N Harmony[76]
- "Straight Forward", used by Scarface, 2Pac, Melle Mel, KRS-One circa Boogie Down Productions era, Too Short, Jay-Z, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg[77]
- "The Rubik's Cube", used by Nas, Black Thought of The Roots, Common, Kurupt, and Lauryn Hill[78]
- "2-5-Flow", a pun of Kenya's calling code "+254", used by Camp Mulla[79]
Alternatively, music scholar Adam Krims uses the following terms –
.
