« Le sens du mot flow » : analyse de la signifiance du rap par le texte et l’interprétation vocale

Abstract

This article starts from the premise that the notion of ‘flow’, though widespread among rappers and rap critics, is the object of varied definitional strategies. The objective is to integrate it into a study of the specific meaning, in an artistic context, of rap. Drawing on approaches of flow as technique, artistic individuation or aimed at representing precise parameters of vocal expression, I suggest that flow can be understood as the specific name of rap performance itself. Necessarily text and voice, it points to the signifying possibilities of the genre.