This Master’s Thesis researches the Danish hip hop album RØDDER from 2014, which consists of 10 rap songs built on 10 Danish poems. Each rap song is performed by a different Danish rapper, and the poems’ origins range from the 17th century to the 1980’s. RØDDER was released as a book containing the 10 poems, the transcriptions of the lyrics of the 10 rap songs and an album containing the rappers’ recitation of the poem, which they have interpreted, and, of course, the rap songs. Six of the total of twenty works were selected; three poems and three rap songs interpreting each one poem.
This resulted in three comparative analyses; here the original poem is analyzed in order to set the relation for the interpretative work of the rapper, which is then analyzed in comparison to the original. The analytic focus is imagery, intertextuality and the meaning of sound elements in the rap song.
This thesis also depicts the broad strokes of hip hop culture and hip hop history. In addition, the field of the scientific work of academic hip hop research is presented. The focus on hip hop is due to the rap songs being of great importance in the lyrical analyses and it is therefore necessary to understand the context of rap; hip hop.
In addition to the lyrical analyses, this thesis researches the intermediality of RØDDER. This concerns the word’s media, the sound’s media and the image’s media and the intricate relations between these. This is done in hope of better understanding of RØDDER’s true essence and the character of the work because RØDDER is a unique collaboration of poems, rap songs, artwork, a website, an educational goal, a concert etc. Therefore, it is of interest and importance to study how all of these elements play together and form the work that is RØDDER and in the hopes of doing just this, the multimediality is introduced. This term covers the total effect of the intermedial relations that is present throughout the work of RØDDER.
Lastly, it is discussed what constitutes a work through a theory of poetic performance introduced by Charles Bernstein in Close Listening. Poetry and the Performed Word from 1998. In the case of RØDDER, it is argued that the recitations of the poems, which is included on the album, add to the overall meaning of the work in question; the poem. This is due to the ever-changing character of the literary work, which is the case because of the different versions being representative of one or more aspects of the work but never the work as a whole. The idea of a work is then introduced to point out the endless opportunities that can arise from a work’s idea.