Hype Man: a break beat play Play Guide

This play guide is a resource designed to enhance your theatre experience.

Hip-hop artist Pinnacle and his back-up rapper, Verb, have been laying down tracks together since childhood. Add the skills of genius beatmaker Peep One and a TV appearance to the mix, and their group might finally have it made. But when local police shoot an unarmed black teen, Verb feels called to respond—raising questions about whether it’s the trio’s responsibility as artists to speak out for justice. A timely play about using your voice, filled with explosive energy and electric rhymes.

Hype Man takes place in a shared rehearsal studio. However, throughout the play, there are scenes that shift to a figurative performance venue. Additionally, a few moments take place in a “liminal space,” or a space that doesn’t exist in literal time and space, more in the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Verb—African American male, early 30s. Verb has been the hype man for Pinnacle since they were teenagers. They have recently found more widespread success. Verb has a complicated past with alcohol, drugs and partying. He has recently sought professional help for his substance abuse.
Pinnacle—White male, early 30s. Pinnacle is a rapper and Verb’s longtime friend.
Peep One—Female, mixed race, mid- 20s. The beatmaker. The newest addition to the group, she creates instrumental beats and tracks.

Verb (played by Mykele Deville) and Pinnacle (Shane Kenyon) perform a song in Hype Man.

Glossary

Break Beat: Break beat refers to styles of music that use a section of a song in which the drums and/or rhythm section takes over from the melody, creating a rhythmic “break” in the music. Sometimes these breaks are sampled from other tracks or created using instrumentals. Some styles of music that use break beats include hip-hop, drum and bass, and EDM.

Hype Man: A hype man performs with hip-hop artists and rappers. The job of a hype man is to get the audience excited and maintain energy and momentum throughout a performance. Often, this is done using interjections and exclamations, as well as call-and-response chants. A hype man also provides backup vocals. The hype man is a figure that emerged in hip-hop culture in the 1980s and has evolved over time.

Beatmaker: A beatmaker creates the beats and instrumentals for hip-hop and rap music. Most commonly, beatmakers use computer software, and sometimes other equipment, to build tracks using beats, tunes and samples of tracks by other musicians.

Bars: A unit of measurement in music, and in rap lyrics specifically. Bars are often used to create a beat and a rhyme scheme in a song. Colloquially, the term “bars” is often used to describe lyrics and writing more generally in rap and hip-hop.

Hook: The hook is a section of the song that repeats throughout. Sometimes the hook is the chorus, but other times, it’s an instrumental riff. It’s generally considered the catchiest part of a song. Hooks are particularly prevalent in rap and hip-hop.

EQ: A term in music production. Short for “equalizing” or editing the vocals of a track.

Overdubbing: A term in music production. Refers to recording over an existing track to add in more sounds or layers.

References

Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac

Dr. Dre: A rapper and producer who began his career as a member of the 1980s rap group N.W.A. and has since worked with Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Nas, Eminem and others as a producer. One of the most influential figures in hip-hop history.

Malcolm X: An influential activist in the 1960s. He was a leader in the Nation of Islam, an African American religious and social movement. He was also heavily involved in racial justice activism, but rejected the Civil Rights Movement in favor of the more radical Black Nationalism and Black separatism.

Notorius B.I.G.: Also known as Biggie Smalls or just Biggie, a famous rapper who was active in the 1990s. He was involved in a feud with former friend Tupac Shakur. He died at the age of 24 in a drive-by shooting, and his posthumously released album Life after Death is still considered one of the most influential albums of all time.

Rage Against The Machine: A 1990s rock band known for overt political messaging in its music. Often critical of government and/or authority figures.

Snoop Dogg: A rapper who became famous in the 1990s. Snoop Dogg’s slow and simple rapping style, as well as his ability to freestyle, distinguished him from other popular rappers at the time. Later converted to Rastafarianism and released a Reggae album.

Tupac: A famous rapper in the 1990s. Like Notorious B.I.G., Tupac became a central figure in the East Coast-West Coast feud. His rap focused on social issues, unlike the popular gangsta rap of the time. Tupac was also killed in a drive-by shooting at the age of 25.

Hip-Hop As A Political Statement

In Hype Man, hip-hop dictates how the story is told and how the characters understand the world.

Throughout the play, Verb, Pinnacle and Peep One consider how they can – and whether they should – use their craft to make a comment about the political and social injustice they see before them. Throughout hip-hop history, artists have used their music to critique inequalities in the world, especially where race and class are concerned. Put simply, hip-hop has always been political.

Hip-hop originated in the 1970s in the Bronx, where DJs at house parties began to mix funk and disco records to create new and distinct sounds. As hip-hop developed into both a music genre and a culture, its focus on social issues became clear. Thematically, the music often centered on life in neighborhoods like the Bronx. By the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s policies, which led to low employment, crumbling infrastructure, high incarceration and a lack of social services, sparked a wave of political commentary in hip-hop. Though hip-hop was not necessarily political in its inception, the tumultuous era that birthed the genre defined the medium. The subject matter of much of the music, and the strong communal aspect of it, evolved in response to the negative effect the 1970s and 1980s had on marginalized communities.

Over the course of the next two decades, hip-hop culture evolved, and the music became more popular, eventually spreading across the country and the world. Previously, hip-hop artists had been ignored by mainstream record labels; in the late 1980s, things changed. Labels started to recognize that hip-hop had money-making potential. Agents, many of whom were white, began to sign more hip-hop artists and started to market the music to a new demographic: white men. By the 2000s, hip-hop had become a global force.

Kendrick Lamar often uses public performances and music videos to further comment on political issues. His 2016 GRAMMY performance, shown here, focused on the mass incarceration of black men in America. Photo Credit: Kevork Djansezian—Getty Images

Contemporary artists continue to address social and political issues, while attaining more widespread success. Kendrick Lamar, for example, won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album DAMN., in which he addresses issues such as American imperialism and institutional racism. The Pulitzer Prize committee lauded the album as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” Other artists like Jay-Z, J. Cole, Chance the Rapper and Kanye West have used their music and celebrity status to speak out about political issues, especially as they affect black people in America.

Although hip-hop has long been seen as a male-dominated industry, female MCs have made a considerable impact on the genre as well. Many hip-hop groups in the 1980s and 1990s included women as featured artists, but when MC Lyte released the first solo album by a female rapper, a torrent of women broke into the industry. These artists explored issues such as femininity, sexuality and the struggle for power in a predominantly male field. Early 2000s superstars such as Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott made way for the rise of Cardi B, SZA, M.I.A. and others and female-fronted hip-hop now dominates the airwaves.

Throughout the history of hip-hop, political and social issues and conflicts have played a critical role, often serving as the backdrop for the movement. The characters in Hype Man are part of a long line of hip-hop artists who have used the art form to reckon with the political and social issues of their time.

—Emma Leff

Left to Right: Peep One (Angelica Santiago) and Pinnacle (Shane Kenyon) in Hype Man: a break beat play, 2019; photos by Jonathan Roberts.