To the Beat Y'all: What Designers Can Learn From Hip Hop

[Music] thank you let's jump right into it with uh who am I right I am Droid Jesus uh I am a narrative designer at housemart technical narrative designer um I am formerly at respawn on Star Wars Jedi Survivor um I've worked on a couple of titles including Madden 20. uh my first title was developed at the University of Central Florida at the fire program it's called Scamp hiat Havoc it's free on Steam I was did a lot of the dialogue and narrative systems for that I would really appreciate if y'all go play it um and yeah so I'm gonna jump right into kind of what we're gonna the meat and bones of my talk right like what are we gonna do gonna do an overview for those you know in the audience I hope everyone knows what hip-hop is what can I do a brief overview talk about hip-hop and

games very brief how it's been used how it's been not used and I'm gonna jump into the end of my talk which is how we tell stories in hip-hop and compare that against how we tell stories traditionally um and you'll kind of see these differences and maybe take home a few techniques that you can use in your work so let's jump right into that uh what is hip-hop to me hip-hop is a culture um it's it's something you live and breathe right uh according to the Encyclopedia Britannica hip-hop is a cultural movement that attained widespread popularity in the 1980s and 90s on the backing of rap music but it's way more than just rap music as I hope many of you in the audience know um this number five here elements is arguable some people will say it's more some people will say it's less I think the original one I heard was like four um I included fashion in my description

because I think that's an important element of the culture how we dress how we stunt right um DJing is the original art form it's the mixing of the tables and and bringing that beat that break beat and seeing is what most people know it's rapping it's putting lyrics together it's it's the Cadence the Rhythm the flow um and of course graffiti the Arts and dancing because without dancing there's no music right you feel the music in your bones and if you can't dance to it you're not making music at least that's my interpretation fight me over it later but I love this quote from krs-1 right rap is something you do hip-hop is something you live and I stand by that um so where to start New York City in the 1970s um generally considered to have to be going to the Bronx New York Pioneers include people like Grandmaster Flash cool herb Africa bambaata um you know it's a fusion of so much that was in the Bronx at the time Puerto Ricans Jamaicans and their musical stylings right toasting in

Jamaican dance hall uh afro-latino beats in in coming from the Puerto Rican side and that Fusion is what really started the John Marino was hip-hop today um you see I have image here of cool hurricane with being the grandfather of hip-hop there's a urban legend or Urban myth that uh he was getting yelled at by his mom and scratched the table really liked the sound and that's how he started DJing I don't know if that's true or not I have never really done interviews on that but that is the the prevailing myth from what I understand um and Hip-Hop really starts at like these underground block parties where people are just like getting together vibing you know it comes off the heels of disco which has its own underground move-in and I do not have the time to the history of discrimination and disco but it's really fascinating um I would say go watch the get down on Netflix but Netflix took it is not giving us another season so um but back to the talk before I got my

tangent um you know I want to give you guys kind of a sample of what hip-hop sounded like back then and so you know some of you might know DJ Kool herc and Let Me Clear My Throat but for those who don't let's take a listen [Music] make that money [Music] [Applause] [Music] talk all right into that little clip right you can kind of hear the dance ability of this music you hear why this was popular at parties why people really got into it and it caught like wildfire it it moves through you and that's a big part that's why dancing is a is an integral element of hip-hop it literally is the hip and the Hop

um and that's actually a KRS one quote uh you know you have the the knowledge the street knowledge and the information the hip and then the movement the Hop um so let's let's focus now on how hip-hop has been utilized in games um for the most part people have targeted the low-hanging fruit of rhythmic games um you know paw rapper the rapper and floor kids right these are very easy things to grab at DJ Heroes another example uh Rhythm games are a natural fit for this genre but there's so much more we can look at uh you know Wu-Tang Shaolin style DJ uh Def Jam fight for New York and Vendetta uh take the the kind of masculine aspects of the culture and that more aggressive nature of the culture and turn them into literal combat games and my personal uh one of my personal favorite examples of hip-hop as a culture being integrated into games is Jet Set Radio um and it it leans on the graffiti

aspect um and kind of allows you to go around tagging spray painting things it has its problems it lacks people of color I think in the original Jet Set Radio there's one playable black character um I think in the second one they expand on that but in the original I think it's just Graham or it might also be one of the one the guy with the Boombox I think is I can't remember if he's in the first or the second but for the most part there's not a lot of playable people of color and you know it's a very Japanese influence in in on the game um and a lot of these games though what they lack is a understanding of the culture it's very surface level it doesn't go into a deep dive as hip-hop as a culture and Hip-Hop as a lifestyle Jet Set Radio gets kind of close but you know it has has its downsides and I'm gonna play a little clip from Jet Set Radio just so you guys kind of hear what the what the vibe was like for that game

[Music] looking forward [Music] all right so you guys can kind of get a get a good sense of the the kind of DJ influence along with the graffiti that went into a game the soundtrack for Jet Set radials are my all-time favorites I highly recommend you listen to it um if you really want to get a good feel for what this genre can contribute Beyond just Rhythm games all right so now we're gonna get into kind of the meat and bones of the talk which is story uh as a narrative designer this is my area of expertise um [Music] before we can get into the hip-hop side we kind of got to talk about the traditional side the way we've told stories in the past for the narrative

designers in the room this may be very Elementary for y'all for those of you who aren't nerd designers maybe a little more insightful um I'm gonna briefly go over what the kind of structures that people have used before if you want more in-depth conversation or questions about these you can come up to me afterwards all right so you know I think everyone should be familiar with the three-act structure you know rising actions it's what they teach in American middle schools uh it's what every film ever uses I'm being flippant obviously they use other techniques but uh you know for the most part every Marvel film I think uses this um there's a beginning an inciting incident climax in act one uh but you keep building on that climax until you hit a big plot twist in the middle of that two uh and at the end of act two you begin to have your falling action where you resolve all the crises and you know wrap up your story and all of that um notice that inside each Act there are uh more minute minutiae kind of

obstacles and you know little moments like second thoughts these are actually based on a different story structure and I'm going to get to that one in a moment uh the next one for those of you who are a little more advanced in media Express um this is a very popular technique for Final Fantasy games um and Fire Emblem games they start in the middle and then move outward kind of oscillating between the beginning and the end as you can see this plot line moves forward but time moves in a loop um in MIDI SRS is really powerful when you use it with like I don't know Amnesia but it's a really overdone Trope as well so kind of keep that in mind um next we have the Forex structure this one is very common in anime and what it does is it takes Act 2 and breaks it into two parts um so you have events leading to your midpoint and then events after the

midpoint that the character is reacting to um and Anime really likes this one I don't know why it's just very common next we have I have to say it I'm sorry to every narrative person in the room but we have to talk about the hero's journey um it I I'm not gonna spend too much time on this but this is you know the hero of a thousand faces you start you kind of have a call to Adventure and then you have our trials and tribulations and then you return back to beginning it's a cycle uh Star Wars Lord of the Rings avatar The Last Airbender every single hero story ever has used this uh structure in some form or warped it to meet their own needs but they start here um and that's kind of my brief overview of traditional storytelling techniques now we get to talk about the fun stuff how do hip-hop artists tell stories uh they use some similar but also different techniques and uh I think those are incredibly valuable to look at so we're going to start with the first one

um I've noticed in a lot of hip-hop songs and you know I kind of blazed through my credentials earlier uh I've written hip-hop music and done instrumental since I was like 12. so I know a thing or two um but I've noticed in a lot of hip-hop music there are three basic questions that the artist is answering when they tell a story and this does not include music where they are bragging or you know diss tracks or anything like that this is these are storytelling songs right artists like common Lupe Fiasco even Kanye West when they're telling a story they usually are answering these three questions who is the person why do I give a damn and what problems are they facing and importantly they often tell them in that order and so as a result this has led me to propose a structure which I call the 3C structure character care conflict um it's very not about this uh direct one to another so you start with who am I why do I care

and what's the conflict I'm dealing with notably in hip-hop songs you can do this across multiple verses or within a single verse I'm actually going to play a sample from one of my all-time favorite albums and I'll put the lyrics up on screen for those who might have audio processing problems uh and I'll actually break down each line so you can see kind of where the character starts where the K where the care starts or where the conflict starts so we're going to get into that one right here [Music] so nice and easy see now you can still die from that but it's better than not being alive from straps agree a meat notebook can I pick that clip when it's pushed in a whack-ass beat that's a

track that's weak that he got last week cause everybody in the store was like that's that heat a bass heavy medley with a sample from the 70s with a screwed up hook that went something you couldn't think of nothing he turns down the beat right as block MPS crying from the Next Room a baby in need of some Pampers and some food and a place to sleep that plus a black Cadillac on these is what keep them on track to be a great emcee at [Music] I didn't put the lyrics up but you know I was driving um so you can see in the blue right we have who the character is right he is someone who wants to be a famous rapper um actually this song is part of a operatic album kind of similar to for those of you familiar with like I don't know Hamilton or something right it's

same structure um this is much older than Hamilton but you know it tells a story throughout across the entire album and the there's a recurring character whose name is Michael Young history um and uh this character is this is at the start of his journey right he's trying to become a rapper um why do I care about him well you know he's lived a rough life right you can still die from that right like he's had it difficult and he uses his writing to escape um and that's that's what he's trying to trying to do and that's why you should care but the conflict that comes in right like he's a parent uh he's got to provide for his family um and sometimes that's going to conflict with your dreams and now we have conflict uh if for those of you who don't know the songs I'll spoil it for you he does succeed uh he manages to become a famous rapper and you know get his mom out the

woods that kind of stuff so I'll get his mama in the woods out the hood that's the line all right moving on to the next kind of thing uh we uh vignettes are another common story structure for hip-hop songs um in these stories the slice of life kind of short stories um we look immediately at the needs and wants of the character and we don't really expand on them we just kind of talk about them and move on uh each verse in these kind of songs is a short story think of this structure and these kind of use is very good for side quests and minor characters right um we want to make our needs and wants of that character apparent immediately and then we want to bring that back uh to the player so that they can engage with a character right then and there um I threw up The Dubliners which is a great dense novel of Slice of Life pieces um but musically I have a really fun

song that I'm also very fond of in case you can't tell I'm fond of every song I put in here this one is called 15 minutes away by Kanan uh he is from I believe Somalia and uh we'll just kind of listen to the first verse and you'll see kind of what I mean but every verse actually in the song is a different story yeah I'm sending this one out to everybody that's had to wait on a money transfer yeah it's kind of whack when they charge you like 10 on the dollar but you know how good it feels when they say you can pick it up today it's 15 minutes away [Music] you can pick it up today it's 15 minutes away the worst thing is the waiting man it's spiritually draining I guess I could repeat it but don't think I'm complaining I'm in my small apartment this month has been the hardest I couldn't afford some omelettes I'm broke

like an empty promise sometimes when I'm in a meeting and everyone else is eating I feel so awkward asking so I pretend like I'm fasting my girl had paid my payments she wants to save my anus she says my love's contagious but my pride is so outrageous she sent me Western Union so I can make it through and it felt so good when she said write down this 11 digits I go out to receive it I'm desperate and I need it feels like an angel speaking I can hardly believe it so who is not right um he's struggling and he his needs are very apparent very quickly he needs his money order to come in um and but his warrants are a little different right he wants a romance and he wants it to work but you know he's got some conflict there but we don't really dwell on that in these kind of vignettes and uh when telling a story like a vignette style story in a side quest in a game this is really important

um I want to care about what I'm doing but I don't want to dwell on it because unless that character is going to come up multiple times if this is a one-off story we need to be very concise in how we approach that narrative um and so I like this vignette structure for that and now for the final structure I kind of want to propose this is very critical uh to hip-hop as a genre as his first chorus structure um I also have a picture up here representing something from improv called The Herald which is very similar and utilizing a lot of film storytelling which games can borrow from um in the herald you start with an opening kind of like an intro to a song right and you have three beats uh each one's a verse and then you have a group game and that group scene is your chorus you were reinforcing the themes of each of the beats that came beforehand and that's critical you need to make sure you touch on the themes that you had done when you're repeating um and then you Loop this a couple times

then you put a button to end the song or end the the performance um and I kind of want to show you a song that is close to my heart um that I'm not going to get into let it play the whole the whole thing but I'll play the first verse in the chorus so you guys can kind of see what I'm talking about here uh and yeah this is the one that sounds a little this one sounds a little softer than the other one so try to listen a little closely [Music] baby can you fix up my prophecy stress in the city the cops on top of me the product

is full of bullets no bodies just dropping ain't no stopping me constantly moving I'm making millions witnessing Killers leaving dead bodies in abandoned buildings carries the children a dick killing a knee appeal from the cat feelings without feeling but will they last so be blasted all that is plastic maybe you're listening but aftermath more body's being buried I'm missing my homies in a hurry they relocating to the cemetery got me running stressing my business loving so questions will I live no one in the world in the chamber whenever I'm feeling this anger don't wanna make excuses this is how it is [Music] so notice in this verse right um the main themes we're working with are loneliness isolation and struggle um and the chorus is very simple just me against the world and it reinforces those ideas that pot care is talking

about so the next question naturally is are there any games that do this um kind of so I'm about to spoil this game if you haven't played it it came out in 2015 a couple years until the next slide is done if you don't want it spoiled otherwise we're going to delve right into it um undertale really exemplifies this model and I'm not saying Toby Fox did this intentionally however Toby Fox is a composer and so there may be some sort of subconscious uh Direction um each boss fight which is narrative can be considered a chorus and each section has a uses a theme that is reinforced in that boss fight uh think of that as a verse and then there's even a bridge at the end um if you've beaten the neutral route you get into the past the full pacifist route there's a section that is Eerie tonally different and thematically different than the rest of the game it's the secret lab because that's what a bridge functions as it's a change of pace and undertale does this exactly I'm

not going to play megalovania if you haven't heard it still worth listening to um but I think the important takeaway from this is that undertale really is successful because of not because of this structure but I would guarantee the structure plays a role in it um being able to grasp what it's trying to do and having those themes reinforced over and over again um that's that's powerful and we can use that in our stories um so yeah the last bit I want to touch on today this is kind of a little bonus round if I had the time and I do uh is how hip-hop artists use language um you'll notice as narrative folks we tend to be a little wordy and uh hip-hop artists while they are lyrically proficient are very concise with their words uh nothing is thrown away and the language reinforces itself through repetition there's also kind of a hierarchy to their language

um and this hierarchy follows this pattern right actions over ideas over descriptions if I can turn a description into a concept and kind of you know extrapolate it outward we'll do that if I could turn it into a concrete action do that instead and so to close this out I'm going to use an example that does this fairly uh fairly well and probably one of the most important songs the last decade for those who don't know this track it was utilized by uh the black lives matter movement as kind of a re like a like a chant right uh kind of reinforce the feel the the feeling of how we were going this is the clean version of the song um so uh I have a playlist at the end that has all the songs in this and it does not have the clean version just keep that in mind when you go and look it up [Music] hard times like yeah bad chips like God

Nazareth I'm up homie you up but if God got us then we go [Music] be all right do you hear me do you feel me we gonna be all right we gonna be all right huh we're gonna be all right we're gonna be all right do you hear me do you feel me we gonna be all right and when I wake up I recognize you looking at me for the pay cut but how much I'll be looking at you from the face down wanna make 11 even room with the Bass Down scheming and let me tell you about my life painkillers only put me in a Twilight we're pretty Benjamin is the highlight and I tell my mama I love it that's what I like Lord knows 20 years [Music] when you know we've been nerving down

before when our pride was low looking at the world like where do we go and we hate popo when the Killer's dead in the street for sure [Music] and so you can kind of see I color coded some of this to make it easy to break down um but in this song you can see actions are in red and they are the predominant set of lyrics um right all of my life I had to fight that is a thing you fight right that is a thing you do um right you know scheming that's kind of a description of what he's doing but it's not really a uh an action right um painkillers only put me in a Twilight also a description you know but uh kind of more conceptual stuff right like uh what Mac 11 even boom with the bass down that's that's a that's a broad kind of idea and so you can kind of get a concept of how actions supersede ideas

which supersede descriptions this one's a little awkward because descriptions and ideas are kind of equal and and their distribution of this song um but generally speaking when we're writing we want to focus on what characters do and then if we can't do that how do they think and then as a last resort what are they like right um and that that hierarchy is really powerful in engaging players and keeping them actively looking for what happens next um that's really the end of my talk I had a bonus slide but we're gonna skip past that one because I'm pressed for time um so thank you all for coming I've got a little treat at the end there's a oh I almost forgot sorry I forgot this uh I like I said I work at housemark we are hiring and uh they relocated me out to Finland it's been one of the best experiences of my life I if you're interested I know we're hiring for like a an animator and a VFX artist so please

hit me up after if you're interested uh but yeah uh you can download the playlists on Spotify that that contains all the songs featured in this template and if you want to stay in touch with me you can the one on the left uh it's mirrored on my screen but the one on the left contains my contact info I have about five minutes so if anyone has any questions please please feel free to approach the mic and other than that thank you all for coming thank you yes sir so you talked about the the 3C structure of hip-hop could you provide some examples of maybe how we could deviate or bend those rules sure um you know using a technique like in media as rest you might start with a conflict at the at the beginning instead of starting with the character and then um kind of flesh out who the character is and why we care about them uh that might be one way you could deviate from

that structure and kind of combine those two techniques cool thank you awesome all right well if no one else has any questions uh I'll be around and thank you all for coming have a good one [Applause] [Music]