▲ 6 r/aesoprock
Illmatic and Labor Days, comparison via several analytical methods to quantify evolution of technical complexity.
Ran all 24 tracks from both albums through a Morlet wavelet analysis.
Nas stays glued to the grid. Aesop loosened up, breathes more at the bar level, bigger vocabulary.
Daylight vs N.Y. State of Mind is the clearest contrast.
Full 26-page paper: https://chicohabitat.neocities.org/hiphop-evolution-illmatic-labor-days.pdf
Plain-English version with the charts: https://chicohabitat.neocities.org/illmatic-to-labor-days-interactive-case-study
Tear the method apart, curious what holds up. Im just trying to rigorously parameterize technical complexity in the genre, so we can have better objective analysis/discussions.
u/acidr00t — 11 days ago