proto-rap

plural proto-raps · alternative protorap

1. uncountablePerformance art forms that served as precursors to rap, especially those that feature rhythmic spoken or half-sung lyrics.

   It opens with a W.H. Auden poem that is read with the urgency and the rhythm of the piston on a steam engine. It sounds like proto-rap.

   2014, Tom Zoellner, Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   They make much ado over Bob Dylan as a proto-rap pioneer, and taunt Public Enemy for being "unable to locate even one pure black source" (begging Chuck D's own question in "Fear of a Black Planet": "Who is Pure? What is pure?").

   1995, Russell A. Potter, Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism, →ISBN

   Some of this soul and funk music that fed into Blaxploitation films conveyed a serious political message, which was evident in some of the films' music, while there was also a connection to proto-rap culture.

   2015, Kevin J. Donnelly, Magical Musical Tour: Rock and Pop in Film Soundtracks, →ISBN

   Rick said our original version from '75 was “proto-rap”—since Steven's lyrics were halfspoken, halfsung, and we had this solid beat

   2016, Marc Myers, Anatomy of a Song: The Inside Stories Behind 45 Iconic Hits, →ISBN

2. countableA specific piece or performance delivered in such an art form.

   Another source of rap, this one closer to home, was George Clinton's funk; we heard a proto-rap at the beginning of “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk).

   2008, Michael Campbell, Popular Music in America: And The Beat Goes On, →ISBN, page 286

   2 more examples

   From 1965's triumphal 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' onwards, Brown's music discarded more and more of the conventional devices of Western song structures and concentrated ever more strongly on the holy science of THE FUNK and THE GROOVE: propulsion created by the meshing of seemingly independent instrumental scraps which were juxtaposed to form a tensile, interactive pulse over which Brown would deliver his trademarked grunts, screams and exhortatory proto-raps.

   2012, Charles Shaar Murray, Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-war Pop, →ISBN

   During the presidential forum, instead of our candidate delivering a speech, the collective performed a song, a proto-rap actually, written by the fiery New York ghetto trio the Last Poets.

   2014, Bill Reynolds, Life Real Loud, →ISBN