Music
This is how college marching bands took over pop and hip-hop
Hip-hop and pop acts like OutKast, Beyoncé, Lizzo and Normani have been stepping to the beat of high school and college marching bands since the beginning of their careers. Here's why.
In 2018, a procession of performers dressed in yellow jerseys hit a monolithic stage in the middle of the California desert. Steam rose from the hundred or so musicians as an announcer proclaimed, "Welcome to Beyoncé's homecoming 2018," in front of an audience of 75,000 at Coachella. A slow drum roll began, speeding up as the screaming crowd grew louder. As if from nowhere, Beyoncé walked out to a rendition of Rebirth Brass Band's Do Whatcha Wanna, a modern classic of the brass band revival scene in New Orleans, before the unmistakable horns of Crazy In Love kicked in.
"I just saw the greatest show to ever happen," tweeted Chance The Rapper afterwards, while Janelle Monáe proclaimed her to be, "My QUEEN for life. Always. And forever." The subsequent Netflix concert film Homecoming was nominated for an Emmy before losing out to James Corden's Carpool Karaoke, much to the Beyhive's outrage. Regardless, Beyoncé's performance was elevated to iconic status courtesy of one of America's oldest musical traditions: the college marching band.
Trying to encapsulate what marching bands mean to America is like explaining why the French love wine, or why the English like tea. The oldest marching band in continual existence today is the University Of Notre Dame's Band Of The Fighting Irish, founded in 1845. That was 16 years before the start of the American Civil War, when bugles, side drums and fifes were deployed as morale boosters. Through the decades, though, as bands adopted increasingly complex manoeuvres, they became popular in high schools and colleges, where, instead of rallying troops, they sent sports fans into a frenzy.
Stylistically, bands differ from university to university, with newer forms of marching, such as the Corps style – backwards and sliding side-to-side (or Traverse) marching – evolving. At historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), bands will execute the traditional marching style to music selections dominated by R&B, hip-hop and contemporary pop.
Beyoncé steps to the beat at Coachella 2018
© Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Whatever the style of the band, one trait runs through them all – playing music for celebration. From New Orleans's Hot 8 Brass Band and Chicago's Hypnotic Brass Ensemble to college bands across the USA, they exist to unite people. "Marching bands play a similar role as other cultural symbols, such as flags and anthems. They are there to forge a sense of community," explains Corey Miles, Assistant Professor Of Sociology and Africana Studies at Morgan State University. "When it comes to sporting events, parades, any social gathering, bands play a role of linking folks with live sounds."
The fact that a bugle helped inspire one of pop's great live performances doesn't, at first glance, feel like much more than a fleeting moment of brilliance. It's not exactly an 808, after all. But the influence of the marching band on contemporary hip-hop and pop doesn't begin, or even end, with Beyoncé. You'll find a horn section parping all over Normani's Motivation, a track destined to top countless end-of-year lists in 2019, and when Kanye West began praising the Lord in his recent Sunday Service performances, he was backed by a gospel choir and marching band.
Lizzo, who moved to Houston, Texas, aged 10, found her instrument in the flute and set about finessing her skills in her high school marching band, before bringing them to the stage as one of 2019's shining lights. Good As Hell is a marching band classic out of time. As listeners toss their hair and check their nails, trombone sections ring out over drum patterns similar to those played on a multi-tenor drum – several single-headed tom-toms strapped to the chest of marching band drummers.
Beyoncé, Kanye, Normani and Lizzo aren't the first to take hip-hop and R&B fans back to school however and, crucially, this is a distinctly Southern and proudly black cultural force.
In the mid-2000s, when Ja Rule was better known for being Always On Time and not his involvement in an ill-fated music festival, marching bands were as common in hip-hop as overused autotune. In 2004, Destiny's Child’s Lose My Breath topped charts around the world with what is essentially a three-and-a-half-minute militaristic snare drum solo. In 2005, Missy Elliott paid homage to her Virginia roots with the Sugarhill Gang-sampling We Run This. In the song's video, Missy dons a gold conductor's uniform, leads her dancers on to the football field over a marching band beat and becomes the first (and perhaps only) pop star to be shot out of a tuba.
In the same year, marching band representation in the mainstream came in the unlikely guise of Dave Chappelle's Block Party. The documentary grossed $12.1 million/ €10.9 million/ £9.4 million at the box office and featured a who's who of modern hip-hop. Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Big Daddy Kane and more all appear and so too do Central State University's Invincible Marching Marauders Marching Band, performing Jesus Walks with a grinning Kanye West. A year later, Outkast's Morris Brown, featuring Sleepy Brown and Janelle Monáe, gave a big shout out to Morris Brown College and featured their Marching Wolverines.
Before they became the mayors of Stankonia, Andre 3000 and Big Boi were simply members of the class of 1993 at Tri-Cities High School, Atlanta. Like at so many other high schools in the south, music and football are intrinsically linked, and the school that spawned Outkast boasts one of America's best marching bands. Check out their mean version of Cameo's Word Up.
Looking back on their school days, it’s clear that Andre and Big Boi were destined for bigger things than beatboxing in their school gymnasium, but as much as they developed their unique, madcap personas as high school outsiders, their exposure to the school marching band stayed with them. Just listen to the duo's early 1998 track, SpottieOttieDopaliscious, which features a joyful horn section that was sampled more recently on both Joey Bada$$'s Devastated and Beyoncé's All Night.
Lizzo
© Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Many of Outkast's fellow Atlantans found inspiration in the same places. Yung Wun's Tear It Up is a chest-puffing marching band anthem designed to be played from supercharged car sound systems and Nelly nods to parading around football fields on the Pharrell-featuring tracks Let It Go (Lil Mama) and Shake Ya Tailfeather. Even the Ying Yang Twins got in on it with 2004's Halftime (Stand Up and Get Crunk).
"Southern hip-hop is distinguished from other hip-hop, but Southern hip-hop isn't monolithic and this is because of the culture and historical traditions in those local regions," says Miles. "Each region has a different sound. Atlanta has trap, New Orleans has bounce and in bounce we see a lot of Caribbean influences, because that's where a lot of Black Caribbean folk are from."
Why does the marching band sound lend itself so well to hip-hop and vice versa? Listen to Kanye West's All Of The Lights and you barely need to imagine how incredible it would be to hear it performed on the football field.
"Horns and drums definitely offer some sonic overlap between hip-hop and marching band music," says Justin D Burton, author of Posthuman Rap and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook Of Hip Hop Music. "As with early '90s LA rap, Southern hip-hop is music for cars and clubs, so bass becomes really important to the sound. Marching band drums also feature a good deal of syncopation and rhythmic complexity that shows up in a lot of Southern hip-hop."
This can be heard on Shut Up from Florida rapper Trick Daddy and 2007's Get Buck by former G-Unit member Young Buck – a heavy, low-end Tennessee anthem that borrows its beat from Ludacris's Politics As Usual. But mostly, marching bands are so influential because they're accessible. They're a historically free form of entertainment for the masses.
"Marching bands are more in line with the common working man," explains Reginald A. McDonald, who since 2014 has been the Director Of Bands And Orchestra at Tennessee State University. Recently, Lizzo praised his band for their rendition of her US number one, Truth Hurts. "Orchestras have always been for the elite in society, dating back to the kings and queens of Europe."
"In a time before streaming and YouTube, a marching band's halftime show was one of the major platforms for the promotion and spread of an artist's music," reckons Tiara Thomas, a political science major and French horn player with the Tennessee State University marching band. "Marching bands have thrived in pushing black artistry into US culture and made hip-hop and R&B available to thousands at one time. The rich tones and fullness of the band has the power to turn a college football game into a live concert, instantly."
Virginia State University's Trojan Explosion Marching Band
© Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images
This give and take between marching bands and hip-hop thrives at historically black colleges and universities, like Tennessee State University, Norfolk State and Florida A&M – establishments that were founded to educate African-American students "in the era of 'separate'," says Thomas. "African Americans worked hard to create a quality source of entertainment for their people to take pride and joy in," adds Thomas. "So, the Southern states are the best because our foundations are built on dedication, pride, adversity and strength."
For millions of Americans, the era of separate Thomas describes doesn't feel so long ago. "As racial tensions have increased in America, more black kids are opting for black colleges, renewing investment in black political thought," believes Miles. Which might (partially) explain why the sound of the marching band remains so vital.
"A lot of musicians confess that they've always wanted to be in a marching band, or they started in marching band and deeply loved and appreciated every moment," adds Cynthia Henning, a piccolo trombone player and health sciences major from Jackson, Tennessee.
Marching bands exist as a unique entity. Steeped in tradition, they are as quintessentially American as apple pie, but they also evolve through its performers, who recognise it as something more than just a form of military or sports entertainment. "This is why artists pay homage by including marching band elements in their shows," adds Henning. "It's for the culture. If they don't support and showcase black bands, who will?"
