Research: Trap Music

Trap Music 

Trap music is a genre that is gaining momentum through the growing sub genres of dance music cultures. Trap Music first emerged from South, using bass samples help compose tracks. Trap music first emerged from the South, using bass samples help compose tracks. Trap music are usually originated from the Roland TR-808 Drum machine. Originators of trap music, Southern rappers like Waka Flocka, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, Three 6 Mafia, and Manny Fresh. 

The new trap music movement/ EDM Trap genre-use techno, dub, and Dutch house. Sounds which incorporate with the inclusion of the original Roland TR-808 drum samples and vocal samples used by the originators. Impacted dance music.

The breakdown of trap music: 

1/3 hip hop (tempo and song structure are similar; most tracks are usually between 70-110 bpm with vocals sometimes pitched down. 1/3 Dance Music- High pitched Dutch Synth work, Hardstyle sampling, as well as a plethora of trap remixed of popular EDM songs. 1/3  dub, low frequency focus and strong emphasis on repetitiveness through a song. 

Modern producers of the new trap music genre include artist, RL Grime, TNGHT (Hudson Mohawke x Lurice), Flosstradomus, Baauer, Dj Sliink, Heroes x Villians, UZ, LOUDPVCK, gladiator, and Luminox. 

Trap is a hip-hop music subgenre that originated during the late 1900s/ and early 2000s from the Southern United States. Trap music is created through drum machines, layered synthesizers, and an overall dark, ominous/ bleak atmosphere. The term trap initially referred to planes where drug deals take place. In recent years it has been incorporated with pop and electronic dance music by variety of artists. 

Trap music is defined by its bleak and gritty lyrical content. Typical lyrical themes portrayed include observations of hardship in the “trap”, street life, poverty, violence and harsh experiences thatartist have faced in their urban city surroundings. Artists such as Future and Travis Scott are prime examples that work at varied tempos. 

History

The term “trap” is used to refer to the place where drug deals are made. The term orginated in Atlanta, Georgia, where rappers Cool Breeze, Dungeon Family, Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Ghetto Mafia, were some of the first to use the term in their music. 

In 1992, UGK’s “Pocket Full of Stones” wasone of the ealiest records to be released from their major-label debut Album “Too Hard to Swallow”. In 1996, Master P released his single “Mr. Ice Cream Man” from his fifth studio album Ice Cream Man. 

Critics stated to refer to rappers whose primary lyrical Topic was drug dealing, as trap rappers. David Drake of complex wrote, “the trap in the early 2000’s wasn’t a genre, it was a real place.” The term was later adopted to describe the “music made about the place.”

2000s

During the early-to-mid 2000s, trap music began to emerge as a recognised genre, after the success of a number of albums and singles with lyrics that covered topics about life in “the trap”, drug dealing and struggle for success. 

Several Southern rappers with drug dealer personas such as T.I, young Jeezy, Gucci, Mane, Yo Gotti, and Rick Ross produced, which helped expand the popularity of the genre, with trap records beginning to appear more heavily on mixtapes and radio stations outside of the South. 

The genre was developed in Atlanta during trap’s mid 2000s break through. Trap producers during the mid to late 2000s include DJ Troomp, Fat boi, Drumma Boy, Shawty Redd, D.Rich and Zaytoven. The first wave of the trap sound developed was influenced by earlier Southern producers such as Lil Jon, Mannie Fresh and DJ Paul. 

2010

By the end of the decade, second wave of trap artists, which top the Billboard hip hop charts. Trap producer Lex Luger produced more than 200 songs between 2010-2011. 

Included singles from popular mainstream rap artists such as Rick Ross, B.M.F (Blowing money fast). Kanye West, and Jay-Z, and Waka Flocka Flames “Hard in da Paint”. 

The trap sound has been heavy use of 808s, crisp snares, fast hihats, synth keys, and orchestration of brass, strings, woodwind, and keyboards. Luger is rated for popularizing the modern trap sound. 

Since 2010, modern trap producers have gained industry popularity; 808 Mafia, Southside, Sonny Digital, TM88, Young Chop, DJ Spinz, and Metro Boomin. Some producers expanded their range to other genres, such as contemporary R&B (Mike Will Made it) and electronic music (Araab Musik)

Throughout 2011-2012- records released by rappers such as Young Jeezy, Chief Keef, and Future. Jeezy’s single “Ballin” reached number 57 on the Billboard charts and was considered one of Jeey’s best tracks in some time. 

Future single, “Turn on the lights”- certified gold and entered at number 50 on Billboard 100. Keef’s “I Don’t like” and “Love Susa” generated 30 million views on Youtube. This created a new subgenre called drill.

Drill music is described as the sonic cousin to skittish footwork, Southern -fried hip-hop and the 808 trigger-finger of trap. Young Chop is frequently identified by antics as the genre’s most characterised producer. The sound of trap producer Lex Luger music is a major influence on drill. Young Chop identified Shawty Redd, Drumma Boy and Zaytoven as important artists for the drill movement. Kanye West produced remixs influenced by the trap native. Label: GOOD music, album Cruel Summer. 

2012

Trap music was notified as the sound of hip-hop. Since maintaining music charts, trap music has been utilized by non-hip-hop artists. For example, R&B singers such as Beyonce’s songs, “Drunk inlove”, “Flawless” and “7/11”- from 2013 album contained trap influences. 

In May 2015, trap music once again surfaced the top of mainstream music charts as New Jersey rapper Fetty Wap’s hit single “Trap Queen”, was number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. 

Fetty Wap singles, “My Way” and “679”, also reached the top 20 of the Billboard 100 chart, making him the first male rapper to have 3 songs in the top 20 of the Billboard, since Eminem in 2013. Brooklyn-based rapper Designer gained major recognition in 2016 upon the release of “Panda”. 

The commercial success of trap songs also began to be assisted by Internet memes, as was the case of Rae Stemmurd and Gucci Manes “Black Beatles” reached number one after the exposure through the Mannequin challenge. 

In 2015, a new movement of trap music referred to as “Latin Trap” began to emerge. Spanish language trap, Latin trap- which details hustling, sex, and drugs. Latin trap artist; Fuego, Anuel AA and Bad Bunny. Ozuna, De La Ghetto, Bad Bunny, Farruko and Messiah.

EDM development

In 2012, a style of electronic dance music (EDM) incorporated elements of trap music and began gaining popularity. Most of these new subgenres combined snare and hi-hats typical to hip hop music sub-bass and slow tempos of dubstep. Creating dirty, aggressive beats, and dark melodies. Electronic music producers such as Diplo, TNGHT, Baauer Keys N Krates, Bro Safari, Luminox, RL Grime, Flosstradamus, and Yellow Claw. This genre saw the use of techno, dub, and house sounds. 

In the late half of 2012, these trap examples increasingly popular and made noticeable impact on the American electronic dance music scene. Trap music has found internationally, especially in South Korea. In November 2014- South Korean boy band released their single “Good Boy”- it incorporated strong elements of trap and electronic flavours. 

Pretty Girls like trap music

Pretty Girls like trap music, is the fourth studio album by American rapper 2-Chainz. It was issued on June 16, 2017, by Def Jam Recordings. The album features guest appearances from Jhene Aiko, Drake, Gucci Mane, Swae Lee, Migos, Nicki Minaj, Monica, Pharell, Quavo, Travis Scott, Trey Songz and Ty Dolla Sign. The album’s production was handled by FKi, Honourable C.N.O.T.E, Mike Will Made It, and Murda Beatz. The album was supported by a nationwide concert tour, as well as pop up shops. 

2-Chainz alluded to the album showing growth and maturation. 2-Chainz stated it will maintain its edginess while also elevating trap music. 

Louis Farrakhan

An American religious leader, African-American activist and social commentator. “As I met 2 chainz a few minutes ago-as I gazed into his face- I felt that I was in presence of royalty.”

Trap music roots back to the early Clinton years and its been in presence in rap’s mainstream in various forms since at least the beginning of the first Iraq war. 

Top 5 Elements of Every Trap Beat

808 Bass

*Long Bass notes- in Synthesised/audio form. 

*Play the root notes of your chord progression.

*Add distortion- to expand it even more. Distortion: twist, warp, bend, curve, disfigurement

*Distortion- the action of giving a misleading account or impression, the idea of history- taking something, out of context. 

Kicks

*The element is required to make the 808 starts.

*Short and distorted

*Place it at every bass note at the beginning.

Snare and Snare Rolls

*The snare usually hits ¾ of every bar. 

*Creates a unique sound. 

*Adapt claps to create something more innovative. 

*Popular snare, “Young Chop Snare”.

*Snare rolls are a couple of snare hits

*Set 1-16

Hihat Rolls

*Most trap beats have a hihat hit for every 1/8 of a bar

*faster part.

*A faster variation

Chants

*known for the chances every ¼ of each bar

*An example is “Desiigner, Panda” the ‘rah’ chants is his trademark. 

Culture- wars (music articles)

*hip-hop cultural barrier-shows the change in the genre. From Goodie Mob and Outkast to Killer Mike and Future. 

*Atlanta is where hip hop originates

*Migos top the Billboard Hot 100 with “Bad and Boujee”, the Album C.U.L.T.U.R.E debuted No1 in the Billboard 200. 

*Future became the first solo artist in history to release two albums which debuted at No1

*21 Savage signed a deal with Epic Records where CEO. LA.

*Reid founded LaFace Records.

*New corner- SahBabii.

Sanbabii-anthem. “Pull up wit Ah Stick”- slang for a semi-automic weapon a reminder of Atlanta’s national ranking with the highest gap between rich and poor. 

*Trap culture explores the historic income inequality, shifting racial demographics, and equally enigmatic identity crisis. 

*This inequity has helped cultivated trap-rap innovation economy from Atlanta perpetually feeds. 

*Artist- Ti, Jeezy, Gucci Mane.

*New age flavours- 21 Savage, Rae Stemmurd pop trap athems

*Trippy psychedelia of Young Thug.

*Trappers today are likely to rap about using drugs as they are selling them

Noisy- Atlanta- documentary about trap culture. 

As secondary research, I watched the episodes of Atlanta to understand the culture of trap. 

Ended up having serious consequences. Footage from the Migos episode was used to deny the group member offset’s bond after the trio was arrested on gun and drugs charges following a performance at Georgia Southern University. 

Secondary Images

Atlanta

Brannon Hill photography by George Chidi September 29 2015

A fire keeps the bugs away from a dice game in the Brannon Hill parking lot. 

*Understand the struggle, suffering, Why people turn to selling drugs?

*Route out is to make music, make it big.

Atlantatribune.com

*Men congregate outside a dilapidated house near English Avenue and Vine City. The two neighbourhoods are frequently cited for poverty and crime. According to U.S Census data, less than 40 percent of residents are employed and 37% of the area's housing is vacant-John Glenn. 

Every day, Ismael Shahid fills five-gallon jugs of drinking water from a nearby building to haul to the burned-out shell that's providing the roof over his family's heads. Shahid and his teenage son Taha put the jugs in an Office Depot shopping cart and push it up the charred stairs—past their neighbors, some of whom use crack—into Brannon Hill, a condominium complex near Atlanta that by all rights should just be torn down before it collapses. 

Technically, they're squatters. So are most of the people around them. 

"For us, we're just dealing with the situation as it is," says Shahid, a 42-year-old Iraq War veteran whose second career as a truck driver was derailed following being struck by a disability (he won't get more specific than that). "I would rather have my family in something than in nothing," he says.

Man escaping in Atlanta

Residents leave a mirror in the car park to see when the police are coming. 

Poverty in Atlanta, Atlanta is separated in zones, other zones are known to be seriously dangerous. 

Atlanta culture is known for the strip clubs, the famous strip club is known as Magic City. 

Graffiti around the area, this simplifies different gangs in Atlanta. 

A homeless person creating shelter in Atlanta

Atlanta

*Known for the crime

*Rectify escape- people want to do better

*people trying to find money legal and illegal

*Heavy Drug Culture (Molly/Miley, Lean, Gas, Weed)

*Black American Culture

*Strip Clubs

*Gangs

*Poverty

*Street Culture

*Gangs

Drug Culture became known in Atlanta due to the Spaghetti junction

Spaghetti Junction is a developed highway which made it easy for transportation of drugs. 

Images: Copy right 2018 Cox Media Group. 

Black Mafia Family

 Black Mafia Family

*The Black Mafia Family (BMF) was a drug trafficking organization founded in late 1980s, by the brothers Demetrius and Terry Flenory. By the year 2000, they had established cocaine distribution cells throughout the United States. 

They established two main hubs for their operation: the Atlanta, Georgia hub, for distribution, which was operated by older brother Demetrius. The network eventually expanded from Atlanta, Georgia to Californa, and Los Angeles. 

Around 2000, the organization entered themseld in the hip-hop music business, by starting BMF Entertainment. Through BMF Entertainment, helped promote a number of artists, including: Fabolous, Young Jeezy, and Bleu DaVinci. Before entering into the music business, the Flenory Brothere were known for associating themselves with a number of high-profile hip-hop artist, including: E40, TI, Shawty, Jay-Z, and Fabolous. 

In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Admistration (DEA) indicted members of the Black Mafia Family. The felony brothers were both sentenced 30 years in prison. Subsequent indictments eventually targeted over 150 members of the organization. 

Exploring Trap Artist

Outkast

Has Trap music lost its roots?-Nylon Magazine

Trap music is a subgenre that evolved from Southern hip hop roots. With “trap” referring to a place where drugs are sold. But lately, the label’s become attatched to any music wth fairly upbeat tempo. Pop stars to EDM DJs has co-opted the music style, leaving the definition of what does and doesn’t qualify as trap muddled. 

Who is the founding father of trap music? Speculations- some might consider Jeezy, Gucci Mane, another may say T.I. TI: Before my album “Trap Muzik” was released 2003- the term was never heard of. There was no such thing as trap music/ the genre being defined as trap music. 

Up until ‘00’s trap wasn’t considered in musical capacity until T.I come along. In 1998 on Outkast’s “Spotti OttiDopaliscious track, Big Boi raps. 

“United Parcel Service and the people at the post office didn’t call you back because you had cloudy piss/ So now you back in the trap, just that trapped. Go on and marinate on that for a minute.”

The duo was the first to introduce the concept of the trap as an actual location, but also as a state of mind. 

Nas was making street music- rapping about the streets. 

Jay Z- was also rapping about trap and the streets.

A different generation- a different day, different year, different generation, back in the day they were talking trap back then.

Like many trap artists of the early 00s, T.I used trap music to reflect his situation, painting a story of times. 

TI: The thing that’s so special and important about artists like us is that we come from nothing. These environments that we speak of are just atrocious… and what we had to rise up of is unspeakable. So for us to take something that’s so gruesome... we took the crack epidemic basically, and the war on drugs, and a system that was set up for us to fail, and we made something out of it that was positive and that we could actually use to our advantage rather than falling victim to it. Those experiences, those accounts, those details of our childhood, we applied and used it for our music. Whether it was introspective or whether it’s celebratory, it seeds and fuels the music that we put out.

The trap itself kept him down, but trap music helped him out. And it motivated others to do the same.

“We used to have the Martin Luther Kings and Malcolm Xs and the different people who led the black communities, now I think the people who could take their places are the rappers,” Dolph says. “Who brings thousands of people together in venues nowadays? Artists. Those are the ones who hold the biggest influence.” Dolph, himself a trap artist, realizes that and he tries to use his influence to motivate. In the same song that he talks about the trap lifestyle, he makes sure to also talk about morals and taking care of your family. “My music comes with a message: get your paper, stay out of the way, and live your life. That’s it,” he says.

Today, though, trap music has become less about the lyrics or the message behind them and more about the beats. T.I. might’ve put trap on everyone’s radar, but producers like Lex Luger, Zaytoven, and, most recently, Metro Boomin fine-tuned its sound. Zaytoven once said in an interview that, for him, the trap is whatever you’re doing to make money—be it cutting hair or selling drugs—the music of the trap is the soundtrack to the hustle.

What does that soundtrack sound like? Mostly loud drums, snares, 808s, hi-hats, kicks, and lots of bass. The production mash-ups vary, but the cadence is unmistakable. “If it’s got a hi-hat and the beat is slow, it’s like 70 beats per minute, it’s a trap beat,” rapper Juicy J tells us.“It could be on reggae, it could be a pop record, it could be a country record, it’s got a snare in it like that, and a kick drum, it’s a trap.”

Juicy J’s simply happy to see something that originated in the hood gain mainstream popularity; it’s flattering if anything. “I never pictured that kind of sound being on commercials and movies and stuff like that. Everybody used to call that kind of sound the underground. People used to tell us that ‘your music will never go nationwide, it will always stay underground.’ And it’s good to hear all of these songs now,” he says. “You’ve got your pop trap, you’ve got your street trap, you’ve got your EDM trap, they even got rock trap… It’s still the same bounce but it’s kind of, it’s different. It sounds different.”

Photo credit: The Bitter Southerner 

"Walk it Out" Video shoot

“Walk It Out” Video Shoot

Atlanta, 2006

This photograph comes from the video shoot for the song “Walk It Out” by Unk, a Georgia rapper who has since disappeared from the scene. But “Walk It Out” was a huge hit in 2006, hitting No. 10 on the U.S. singles chart and No. 2 on the rap charts. “It was these hundreds of kids at a housing project on Bankhead Highway (since renamed Donald L. Hollowell Parkway),” Wolfe says. “Every time they’d roll the music, the kids would just come out in the street and dance. There was just an energy that was just undeniable."

 

2 Chainz- Pretty girls like Trap Music

2-Chainz 

Pretty Girls like Trap Music

How did you land on the album title?
It's always these beautiful girls who like this hustler – who you think would be attracted to a whole other type of music. But they like Migos, Future. You get with this girl, and you want to play Bryson Tiller. But she's like, "I want to hear Gucci." Shit. We're the pop stars. Trap rap is pop now. People's ears have adjusted to what we have to say and how we say it.

You've said you memorize all your rhymes before recording. Has that changed?
Yeah, I don't like writing down anything. I feel like I could waste a good idea on just listening to a track. I don't want to hear 15 beats. I don't want to waste my studio time listening to beats. When I come, I want to work. Load them up. I'm going to come off the top. And out of the three [beats chosen by a producer], I hope one of them is something I can keep or keep going off of. That's what I'm banking on. For the last couple years, every song has been like that. Except my features – I have to get them so I can know what the fuck I'm going to rap about. I think most artists I work with know that I'm cuckoo like that.

Today, 2 Chainz dropped his video for "Door Swangin," a standout song from his recent album Pretty Girls Like Trap Music. The clip features the rapper gambling and inviting a crowd of guests into the Atlanta house, which was a temporary installation used to promote the album. The house also briefly played a role as a community space for free HIV testing and and educational installations, focused on neighbourhood improvement and criminal justice. Just as you'd expect from it's exterior, the building's insides features the same pink hues from the album's cover, with song titles from the album painted on it's walls. The energy of the party raging on inside highlights the vibrant colours even more, creating a pseudo-fantasy landscape for the rapper and his friends.

The concept has expanded into developing salons in a sense of a brand. The typeface is inspired of graffiti, this relates to the urban landscape of Atlanta. The use of pink relates to context of the hood's name "Pink City". The use of the emoji for the "like" works conceptually as well as using a decorative type for pretty girls to play with the words of creating something aesthetically pleasing. 

 TI- Did TI begin Trap music through his album?

T.I.

Atlanta, 2005

T.I., born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., is one of the biggest stars to come out of the Southern hip-hop world. Pretty much every album and single he’s released since 2003 has climbed to the top (or near the top) of the charts. Here he is in the studio recording his fourth album, "King," which sold more than 2 million copies and topped the Billboard 200 and the magazine's R&B and hip-hop charts.

  

Rick Ross

Gucci Mane

Gucci Mane’s rise as an independent artist began to come to fruition in 2002. At this time he met and collaborated with producer Zaytoven, and created his own independent record label called LaFlare Entertainment. After making a deal with Tommy Boy Records, Gucci prepared for the release of his debut album entitled Trap House. It was in 2005, Gucci first gained national attention with the release of the song “Icy,”. Trap House was considered to be a great success for an independent artist. It made the top 20 of the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop album charts, and placed number one on the Billboard Heatseekers. Despite the fact that Trap House did not have the same promotional marketing as an artist from a major label.

Unfortunately, the 2005 release of Trap House brought a rift between Gucci Mane and his collaborator, Young Jeezy. They fought over the legal rights to the single “Icy”. This well known disagreement between the two artists has played out in public with a back and forth battle of lyrical disses. It even culminated in an incident that involved Gucci fighting a murder charge. The disagreement rooted in Jeezy had been under the impression that the collaborative single would be on his debut album, Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101.

On May, 2005, while Gucci Mane was visiting a female, four men broke in and tried to rob him. They began assaulting him, and it appeared as though he had been set up. The men drew weapons and threatened to shoot Gucci, he managed to grab a pistol from them and open fire. He hit one man, Henry Lee Clark III, who was better known by his stage name, Pookie Loc. All four men subsequently fled the scene. It turns out that the shot that Gucci had delivered was fatal: Pookie Loc was later found dead near an elementary/middle school in Decatur, GA.

The police issued a warrant for Gucci’s arrest days later, and he turned himself in, claiming he acted in self-defense. In a phone interview conducted from jail, Gucci said that he wanted everyone to know that “I’m not a murderer. I was upset. I was scared a little bit, but I had to do what I had to do. You gotta be a man about it. I’m not a bad person. I have remorse for everything that happened.”

Copy right:

 Aurum E-Commerce GmbH 

Lil Wayne 

Lil Wayne

Little Havana, Miami, 2008

Wolfe shot this photograph shortly before Lil Wayne’s masterful 2008 album, “Tha Carter III,” was released. The day before, Lil Wayne had walked out of a Rolling Stone photo shoot after only six minutes in front of the cameras. And he showed up for his shoot with Wolfe six hours late. “In the years I’ve done this, I can’t think of an album that was more anticipated than that one,” Wolfe says. “That album, in the months before it came out, it was a mythical thing.” And because Wolfe isn’t the typical photographer — he’s a rap lover first, photographer second — he hit it off with Lil Wayne and spent two hours shooting him. “That dude, there’s no one like him,” Wolfe says. “He was just a photographer’s dream shoot.”

Curtis Snow

Curtis Snow

The Bluff, Atlanta, 2011   

Curtis Snow isn’t a rapper, but the life he led, growing up with a drug-dealing father and then going into the game himself in western Atlanta’s notorious Bluff neighborhood, could make him the star of any Southern rapper’s songs about the gangster life. In fact, Snow was the star of an independent film in 2012 called “Snow on tha Bluff,” which Vice called a “pseudo-documentary” that was “groundbreaking … through its mix of fiction and nonfiction. It lets the world know what’s going on in places where poverty and crime are everywhere." 

Metro boomin

Migos

The fader 2018

Migos Crime:

By Daniel Kreps

April 19, 2005

Migos Members Arrested on Guns, Drugs Charges After Police Ended Concert

Following the group’s appearance at Georgia Southern University’s Spring Bling concert, two members from Migos were arrested on the weekend. The Migos were in the middle of their set when the stage manager told the DJ to cut the concert short because the police had arrived. The police arrested them in possession of marijuana and for carrying weapons in a school zone. 

Migos is an Atlanta trio where they gained recognition from their song Versace. 

Using Spotify to search for Latest songs of the artists. 

21 Savage

Shayaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, better known by his stage name 21 Savage, is an American rapper. He received attention for projects such as Free Guwop as well as Savage Mode before going on to release his debut album, Issa Album in 2017. 

Diwang Valdez- Photography of Trap Culture

Fetty Wap- known for Trap Queen (Lyrics and songs gathered from Spotify)

Photography of Gucci Manes

Shawty Redd Producer- Crime

What about your friends: Behind Shawty Redd’s Murder Charge

Vibe, January 14, 2010 - 7:17 pm

“They were at Strokers and Damon was shooting pool and he got into it with some guy name Blue or something,” Squeak claims. “And Damon was yelling at him and Shawty went over to the pool table telling Damon to chill out and Damon was like, ‘How you gon’ tell me to chill out? I’m your man!’”

Also, tensions allegedly began to rise between the two over Martin’s financial situation. “It wasn’t really arguing but [money] was like an issue … just how [Damon] always helped him out in the beginning and in the end, he really didn’t have anything. He was calling on me and his mom to send him money out there, just to eat.”

It’s been widely reported in the media that Martin attended a New Year’s Eve party at Stewart’s mansion the night prior to his death, but according to Squeak, this is false.

“It wasn’t a party,” he says. “[Some of] the people who live with Shawty were at the house at midnight and they did a New Year’s Eve toast together. And then they all went out and Damon wanted to stay home. [A female friend of Damon] texted him close to 4 a.m. on New Year’s and he said that he was by himself in the house and everybody else had went out. The next day I got a call that Shawty Redd shot him.”

According to the Henry County Assistant District Attorney Trea Pipkin, five shots were fired, one hitting Martin in the back as he fled the house. Police recovered three guns and five shell casings at the scene.

Squeak says a mutual friend who was at the home shortly after the shooting called him the following day and relayed details of Martin’s final minutes.

“Damon was outside saying, ‘Help me! I’m getting cold, I’m dying! Please help me!’ And Shawty was supposedly just sitting on the porch smoking,” Squeak says, adding that Martin wound up dying in that friend’s arms.

According to ADA Pipkin, Stewart called police approximately 43 minutes after the shooting. “That in itself should be enough to show the court that this was a malicious act,” said Pipkin.

Squeak says that everyone who knew Martin and Stewart’s relationship remains frozen with shock and confusion. ––Linda Hobbs

ILoveMakonnen

In 2008, the rising star was involved in an incident where a friend was accidentally shot. Makonnen was later found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. 

*Makonnen perceptive of gun and crime is different, His eyes are open to the serious outcomes it. has compared to the other artists which use crime as a defence and a sense of power and authority.

ILoveMakonnen was found by drake and gained recognition from his hit Tuesday in collaboration with RnB artist Drake. 

Young Thug

As a modern trap artist, Young Thug expresses individuality through his unique dress sense. This shows society changing into more of an openminded minority. 

Rae Sremmurd

Image by Alexandra Gavillet

Even though Rae Sremmurd is not an Atlanta band, they have signed with Zaytoven who is an Atlanta producer. 

Latin Trap Culture

Trap Music- a subgenera that has been around since the 90s and originated from Southern hip hop-is often defined by the hardship of street life, such as poverty and violence with music trends changing more and more Latino Urban artists are gearing to the genre. 

Bad Bunny

Ideas

*Create an illustration zine rectifying the artists

*Theme of reputation:confidence,power, insetitive, crime, highlight the bad, through type perhaps capitals Sanserif. 

*Create a publication which resembles and presents trap artists

*Draw out Synthesizers and explore constraints-create a visual piece which reflects upbeat feeling of sound. 

*Create a piece with CDs each CD including a different design. (Abstract Graphic design)

*Atlanta fashion, explore type.

*Motion graphics influenced through the beat of trap music

*A poetry booklet

*Explore concept of each song, creating a new concept. 

Thumbnail Sketches

Thumbnail sketches which explores the idea of emojis (modern graphic design) which is applied over the artist face. For example: Desiigner created a song called Panda, the inspiration was from the Panda emoji, this imagery could be adapted when exploring abstract layouts. 

The feedback given was to focus the research on modern contemporary trap culture as it will appear contemporary and will celebrate a culture within the 21st century. It is a culture which has expanded and will hope to in the future. The outcome will act as a contemporary time capsule. It will be modern to relate to the contemporary music which is popular. 

Order: Focus on Modern trap Culture influenced by Noisy documentary of Atlanta

Creating an order to organise the research for the outcome.