Reharmonization and recontextualization in Kanye West’s ‘Famous’

The author demonstrates the musical richness of Kanye West’s song ‘Famous’, describing its dense interplay of rhythms, harmonies, timbres, vocal styles and nested chains of intertextual reference. Hip-hop is at odds with the performance-oriented traditions of American music education. By developing an appreciation for this producer-driven art form, educators can find ways to make their own practice more culturally relevant and open to student creativity. Students can approach cultural artefacts and texts the way that producers approach recorded music, looking for fragments that could be appropriated and repurposed to form the basis of new works.