(Illustration by Sebastian Bruknapp Sjem)
In my postdoctoral project Project: Chimera I explore how the fundamental aesthetic features of Black art forms (as presented by Tricia Rose) of flow, layering and rupture manifest in and are central to rap. I investigate how this is part of rhythmic structure, arrangements and music production through musical analysis, (auto-) ethnography and cognitive psychology. Theoretical and methodological approaches are derived from fields like music studies, literary studies, psychology/music cognition, linguistics and hip-hop studies.
Central concepts are composite auditory streams (from my PhD project), Albert Bregman's chimericity (an aspect of stream segregation) and Ragnhild Brøvig's opaque (and transparent) mediation.