Beginning of Hip Hop Part 2

Look at the guitar chord charts above the musical notation, indicated beside the red arrow. How many chord changes do you count throughout this excerpt of the song? 

How many guitar chord changes do you count throughout this excerpt of the song? 

Discuss as a class:

• As a guitarist, Bo Diddley would often play just one chord throughout an entire song. What other musical elements does this allow him to focus on? 
• What relationship might one repetitive chord have with a repetitive (or looped) beat on a Hip Hop track?

In addition to his rhythm-driven musical style, Bo Diddley also differed from his contemporaries in terms of his lyrics. Distribute Handout 1: Lyrical Comparison

Play the first minute of Chuck Berry performing “ School Days ” (1957). Take notes on the key images presented in the song.

10. Next, listen to an audio clip of Bo Diddley performing “Who Do You Love” (1956). As you listen, take notes on the key images presented in the song.

Discuss as a class:

• What types of images are evoked in each song?
• Which song do you think has imagery that would be familiar to a 1950s suburban teenager? Which images may seem foreign or strange to typical teenagers?

11. Some historians believe that “Who Do” in the title of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love,” was meant to be a play on the word “hoodoo,” a practice of folklore and spirituality found in the Deep South, where Bo Diddley was born. Distribute Handout 2: Hoodoo and Zora Neale Hurston. Invite student volunteers to read aloud, alternating paragraphs.

Discuss as a class:

• What are some images from Bo Diddley’s recording of “Who Do You Love” that you think might be related to hoodoo? 
• Zora Neale Hurston explains that “ Africa Hoodoo, or Voodoo, as pronounced by the whites, is burning with flame in America with all the intensity of a suppressed religion.” Why would hoodoo be unfamiliar to most white, mainstream audiences?

12. Display the following quote on the board and ask a student volunteer to read it aloud:

In summary, write a paragraph answering the following:

• According to the music historian Ned Sublette, how does Bo Diddley, a “first-generation” Rock and Roll artist, relate to the genre of Hip Hop?