Article: The Blues, Rap, And ChatGPT: Part One
I'm sure most of you have heard about the new ChatGPT and the various views, ranging from embarrassingly uncritical raves to it being a third column for the AI conquerors who'll destroy humankind. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle; there's no doubt it'll be misused, but from my initial exposure to it, it looks like the next wave in search engines. It also has the feel of a paradigm shift and could profoundly change the tech landscape.
I know it's new, but think it will be a great quick and dirty tool for research tasks. However, if you're aiming to write a definitive essay on a subject above the level of regular Internet web content, then using a standard search engine to follow up on every reference is still the best way. It's best to do that anyway to doublecheck the Chatbot's output as it does express opinions and interpretations and hedges a lot. It made some statements that aren't correct and gives kinda sorta maybe nice sounding non-answers for conclusions.
The fact that it occasionally gives out false information makes it Internet-ready, so I'm not sure what the fuss is about. It lies less than humans and doesn't project insufferable fake virtue. However, as the software improves, I imagine it'll soon create text that makes it indistinguishable from politicians and Hollywood Publicity Departments. The wrong facts here and there are harmless in an early draft; a good writer should check sources anyway and is assumed to have a point of view, so the Chatbot doesn't need to provide one.
I've been working on a piece about the connection between blues, particularly from the 20s to early Rap, and decided to see what the Chatbot would say.
I'm going to present the answers the Chatbot gave to my questions, and after each one, I'll comment on the provided info. One thing, unless you want bland High School report style writing, this Chatbot won't give you a piece that can be cut and pasted onto a pro-level web page. It'll give you a good rough draft and do some of the heavy lifting.
The idea of using pre-generated copy for news and features isn't new. Newspapers got most of their national and international content from UPI or AP stories which were rewritten or edited by a reporter if not run straight from the feed. Most news organizations who still employ human beings will, if not already, use AI to generate on-time copy and maybe change a few words to make it read better. Political bias can be easily programmed in, so the transition should be seamless.
My initial point and I stress that it's a specific observation, is that there are similarities between early blues from the 20s and 70s rap music that originated from the African American street scene and the Sugerhill Label. I'll give you the Chatbot answer in bold italic, followed by my observations, any corrections, and my own opinion. Interestingly, my Grammarly software asserted that the Chatbot's output had several errors (which I didn't correct).
Question: Tell me about the similarities between Rap music and Blues.
"Rap music and blues share several similarities in terms of their origins and themes. Both genres developed from African American communities, with blues emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and rap emerging in the 1970s. Both genres often deal with themes of struggle, hardship, and the experiences of marginalized communities. Additionally, both rap and blues often rely heavily on the use of improvisation and storytelling in their lyrics. Some notable similarities include the use of call-and-response and the emphasis on the performer's personal experiences and emotions."
That's an excellent standard answer that fits the modern view of both genres. Still, as someone who's listened to Blues since my teen years, I would say that the first half of the answer reflects a bias that Blues is purely about struggle and oppression, which is a view that emerged in the 60s when the demographic of the performers and audience began to include whites. That's a nuanced observation, and I stress that my view is strictly my opinion. The main reason the definition changed is starting from the 60s, the audience demographic began to shift, and most of the studies and documentation about the Blues were written by white scholars, writers, and record collectors.
Most of those attempts to create a historical record were balanced. In other words, while there is no doubt that African Americans are and were oppressed, that didn't result in one-dimensional art. The Blues was a music form encompassing the full spectrum of entertainment and social expression. The range is vast enough that any opinion about the music can be both right and wrong and subject to dispute or the need to add scope.
I remember writing an article for my Delta Snake Review in the 80s, which listed all the subjects covered by Blues songs in the 20s and 30s and found well over a hundred. The themes ranged from having a good time, lousy time, booze, drugs, historical events, animals, philosophy, politics, sociology, religion, and the full range of sexual preferences. More than a few of the female singers were bi or gay. Unfortunately, most of these themes were bowdlerized out of the canon in the mainstream 60s reissues of blues records (though not in the small label releases).
The 20-30s Blues was also about rebellion and often characterized as "Devil Music" by the mainstream church, and as said in a previous blog entry, that was a theme that came up in classic blues songs like Robert Johnson's Hellhound On My Trail.
A short overview of the Blues would be; that it was part of the more extensive African American Music and Entertainment culture, and the Blues artists were primarily from rural areas like the Mississippi Delta (though every region had a distinctive style). While these artists were performing and recording, there was also Jazz from Louis Armstrong (which continued with artists like Duke Ellington) and other artists. Back then, a "Blues" was a particular type of song or instrumental that used a specific scale. In technical terms, a standard eight-note scale with the third and seventh notes flatted to create a "minor" feel. It was a common number in Jazz and didn't sound very similar to Delta Blues slide or ragtime.
To understand what happened to Blues and how it led to rock and roll, one has to look at how African American popular music evolved, from Blues and Trad Jazz to BeBop, Big Band, to Soul and Rap. That's a general description and omits dozens of developments like Funk, Hendrix-influenced Black Rock and Funk, and of course, Blues which became racially diverse.
The link between early Blues and Rap was that both involved vocal improvisation over what Rap artists call a "beat." In the case of the Blues, that meant a "vamp" or rhythmic music on a guitar that the singer sang over. It was a popular form in impromptu concerts in Jook Joints and clubs and a form of dance music. African Americans, like everybody else, enjoyed entertainment. The blues were also supposed to make you feel good too.
The sixties were a vital era for Blues. Here's was Chatbot said,
Question: How did the blues change in the 60s with white artists and audiences coming in
"In the 60s, the blues underwent significant changes as white artists and audiences became more involved in the genre. This led to a broader interpretation and commercialization of the blues, resulting in a fusion of blues with other genres such as rock and roll. The blues became more electrified and the use of amplified instruments became more prevalent. Additionally, the blues began to be performed for larger and more diverse audiences, which influenced the way the music was performed and the lyrics that were written. This period marked the beginning of blues-rock and marked a departure from traditional rural blues styles."
That's a good answer and perfect for a piece with space or word restrictions. The answer is more complex than that, of course. I would add:
The 60s was a significant era for Blues. So much of the urban Black audience had moved on to R&B and Soul (and Jazz, etc.), which was as natural an evolution as whites moving on from Folk and Big Band, and it became mainly a club-level scene that was still full of vigor and innovative artists. That split the Blues into two main camps; from the hard-edged electric music flourishing in places like Chicago to the older artists from the 20s-30s who were beginning to be "rediscovered" in Folk Festivals and small label recordings. That "rediscovery" label must have annoyed more than a few African Americans, I would think, as the more correct term would be an introduction to a new generation or revival. We'll get more into that in Part 2.
The usual historical line is that the English discovered the Blues and created their own brand that reintroduced the music to America. That's true, but it's more complicated than that. Among the earliest blues that made it to England via old records was 20s jug band music by artists like Gus Cannon, which helped start the skiffle craze, where young men who later formed groups like the Beatles, and got early exposure to music and performing. After that came the stream of other blues and jazz records, and artists like Muddy Waters found an enthusiastic audience for their music.
That, plus the emergence of Elvis in the 50s, changed the course of blues and R&B in America, and that history is out of the scope of my article.
Obviously, I didn't ask the Bot to write an entire article. That's my job as a writer, but exploring how this new tool can assist has been interesting. It could be useful to publications that want to generate a lot of content without dealing with writers or deadlines and want to crank out copy on trending subjects. It also looks suitable for creating bio and introductory sections for the beginning and end of articles and interviews (if the subject doesn't provide one), and straight news items.
So, Chatbot agrees there's a connection, and in Part 2, we'll see what it says about early Rap.
Al Handa
2025
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