ASAP Rocky didn’t seem to have a lot of change, song wise. He kept with his usual style and there was little variation between mood and tone. However, his biggest change when comparing albums, were the topics of his songs. His early album talked a lot about his reaction to fame and the changes that came with it. It was mostly focused on his life, the new things it brought him, how it compared to before. His recent album, although similar in sound and subject matter, was of a different reaction to fame and wealth. In this album, he took on a more cynical view. Most of his songs were about the downsides of fame, especially arrogance. The problems he talked about in his earlier album were that of fake people trying to ride on his coattails.
Childish Gambino exhibited a lot of growth. His early album, although upbeat, had a lot of negative tones. Most of his songs were about how Gambino didn’t feel like he fit into the description of what a rapper should be. This was his response, his anger towards these preconceived notions and his way to prove that he is an artist worthy of a successful career. Much of this album followed a traditional meter and beat, and the mood was generally upbeat and energetic. However, when comparing it to his Newer album it’s almost as if he took a step back. The trend is that artists get more experimental as they grow, but Gambino seemed to simplify his songs in his new album. The biggest changes were the topics. The songs of his recent album were closer to dance songs and anthems, keeping that same positive and energetic tone but with simpler lyrics. This was a large jump from the lyrically complicated, rather negative songs from his early album. But that isn’t to say his recent album didn’t contain the same level of intricacy. Although most of his tracks on this album were seemingly simple, catchy songs about love and dance, the topics ranged from coercing children to sell drugs to the anxiety ending relationships.
Looking at the tone graphs for his first album that we chose, it appears that Cole's songs had a more positive tone, with it reaching a total of 50%. The topic graph shows him mainly speaking about money, most likely in a more positive sense, based on the tone graph for that year. When looking at the tone graph for the more recent album, clearly, this album is one that is very negative, as negative tones show up 100% of the time throughout this album. With this in mind, it is no suprise that "death" was the most common topic that was refrenced througout this album. Overall, based on our graphs and final data, it can be concluded that Cole started singing about more positive topics, specifically money in a more positive manner, to then switching to entirely negative tone singing about heavy topics such as death and violence.
Throughout his career, Kanye seemed to stick to the same kinds of tones in his music. His music had slightly more negative tones than positive in both of his albums. Topic wise, he seems to have shifted more towards religious topics. Even though his newer album is centered around his mother, we see a similar amount of topics regarding family in both his older and newer album. We also can see a decrease from rapping about wealth in his earlier music to rapping less about it in his newer album.
In terms of his older album that we chose, it appears that negative tones are more common, with the talk of topics money and violence being the higest. Then however, looking at the tone graphs for Kendrick Lamar's most recent album that we chose, there is no clear leader, although negative seems to pull ahead a bit, they are all dispersed pretty evenly, allowing us to conclude that this album had "mixed emotions." However, when looking at the topics, he seemed to speak a lot more about money, although not as much as the other album, and violence. These two topics are common in hip-hop songs, so it is no suprise that although with no clear leader in tone, these two topics showed the most in his most recent. From these results we cam conclude that in the beginning of his career, Kendrick was singing about money in violence in a more negative way, but then in more recent times has evened out, still speaking of the same topics, just now in a different manner.
Kid Cudi's music seemed to exhibit little change. In terms of topics, the only significant change that was noticed was less topics about drugs. While he raps a lot about smoking marijuana, even in his newer music, it seems that he referenced it more in the songs we analyzed from his first album. In terms of tones, we can see an even split between positive and negative on his first album, but on the newer album, we can see a lot of neutral tones. On his newer album, he seemed to be rapping about his overcoming of his negative headspace, rapping about how hard it is, but also how he is getting better. This is most likely what attributes to the neutral tones, where his negative headspace (negative) clashes with his positive realizations, coming together in a neutral tone.
At the start of his career, it appears that Mac Miller sang about more positive elements within his songs, as the tone graphs show an almost 50% total for positive. In terms of topics during his early album, it seems that he sang more-so about social issues than any other topics on our list. Looking forward to his most recent album, Mac Miller seems to have switched from a more positive tone to one that is more negative, as negative totals in at about 75%, making sense as he had died from a drug overdose in the midist of recording. Looking at topics, he refrences money in his songs more than anything, which is no suprise as overtime with fame, many will "crave" money. Overall, it can be concluded that at the start of his career, Mac Miller was speaking about our chosen topics in a more positive manner, but near the end became more "sad," and more negative, which most likely pointed to his death.
Tyler's music has seen a lot of drastic change. His earlier music was very edgy, where he would rap a lot about violent topics. His older, edgier music on his album Goblin had many negative tones in it and contained not a single positive verse in the songs we analyzed. However, later in his career, Tyler seems to have evolved his lyrical content to be much more positive, and less edgy/violent. His newer album has more of a positive focus as he raps more about his wealth and less about violence. We can also see that in his newer album, there are barely any negative tones in verses.
Vince Staples’s early album had a lot of songs that sounded like conventional rap songs. His tone and choice of topics often went hand in hand, with the main theme being anger towards the systematic racism that thwarted him. The sound of this album was high energy and he was very expressive with his vocals. Looking at his latest album, hiis choice of topics didn’t change, but rather his style. Compared to his earlier album, this recent album was a lot more dialed back and used more experimental elements. He incorporated spoken word, offbeat meters, and more instrumentals and vocals. One song I looked at was just a retelling of a story from his youth. The overall tone of this album was less intense and more relaxed which contrasts heavily with the upbeat and lively songs of his earlier album, but still kept to the same topics.