The Origin and Characteristics of Folk Rap

China's folk rap has a long history and has formed an artistic tradition with rich national characteristics. The worship of sages (also known as Nuo You) in the pre-Qin period can be said to be the earliest bud of folk rap, which is recorded in the Book of Rites, Guoyu and Zuozhuan. It is specially recorded in Historical Records that You Meng, You Min and Chunyu Kun are good at teasing and remonstrating the rulers in the form of banter, and they are all remonstrated in the end.

1957 a "storyteller" of the Han dynasty was unearthed from the Han tomb in Tianhui town, Chengdu, Sichuan, 1979 two wooden "storytellers" were unearthed from Guo Mu's tomb in Huchang No.1, Hanjiang, Yangzhou. These storytelling figurines are eye-catching and funny, indicating that the Han Dynasty gradually moved towards storytelling art while retaining funny performances.

By the time the art of rap was formally formed in the Tang Dynasty, the "variation" used by monks in temples to preach Buddhist scriptures could be said to be the direct ancestor of folk rap. In order to attract good men to believe in women, the lecture of "Bianwen" adopts the method of combining rhyming with prose, speaking with singing, and illustrating pictures and texts. In addition to singing Buddhist scriptures, it was later used to sing historical legends or folk stories. For example, the essays found in Dunhuang Grottoes were scripts of "popular theory" from the Tang Dynasty to the early Song Dynasty, among which the representative works were Wu Zixu's essays, Li Ling's essays, Wang Zhaojun's essays and Meng Jiangnv's essays, which directly influenced novels and lectures in the Song Dynasty.

The art of rap entered a prosperous period in the Song Dynasty. The development of commercial economy has promoted the prosperity of the city, and a number of professional artists have emerged. With the venues for performing arts, "Goulan" and "Washe", various rap activities are very active. Zhu Gong Tone, Hesheng Tone, Mi Shang Tone and Hunhua Tone in the Northern Song Dynasty, Crosstalk Tone, Miscellaneous Dress Tone and Tao Zhen Tone in the Southern Song Dynasty are quite popular. Lu You, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote three songs about a boat approaching the village, describing the activities of drum artists in the Song Dynasty: "Liu Zhaojiazhuang in the setting sun in the middle ages, and Weng Zheng, a blind man, made a scene. Whoever is in charge behind him, the whole village listens to Cai Zhonglang. " From the story of the blind singing Cai Bozhen on the negative drum, we can see that the art of writing drums is widely spread. During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, rap forms such as Ci-Hua, Tan-Ci and Drum-Ci appeared. After the middle of Qing Dynasty, due to the changes of social economy and lifestyle, large-scale drum words were gradually replaced by "singing". In order to make a living, folk artists often choose the essence of most drum words to sing solo, so that some of them are compressed and become pure singing songs, and "Zidishu" is one of the forms evolved from drum words.

The foundation of New China ushered in the spring of the development of folk rap, which attracted a large audience with its short, flexible, profound and interesting features. After entering the new era, China folk art groups have gone abroad and conducted friendly visits and performances in many countries, which have been welcomed by foreign audiences. This shows that folk rap is going to the world and becoming a valuable asset of human culture. Folk rap has formed its own characteristics in the long-term development, which can be summarized into three aspects:

(1), oral literature with folk rap as its narrative style, has strong narrative characteristics. It is obviously different from the folk opera of the first-person narrator in its form of expression. Folk rap belongs to the third-person narrative style, and narrative is also called "narrative singing", that is, folk artists, as the third party, tell stories, sing stories and tell jokes to the audience, and at the same time, they are required to supplement the narrative process with appropriate imitative performances. Some people call drama performance "statement in appearance" and compare rap to "statement in appearance", which means that "appearance" in drama performance, that is, performance and imitation, is the most important, while "statement", that is, clarifying "legal purport" through narration, is auxiliary; Folk rap emphasizes "saying", which is an art of "mainly expressing narrative and singing, supplemented by changes from time to time" "Appearing", that is, imitating performance, is only a means to assist rap to make it more vivid. In drama performance, life, Dan, net, end and ugliness are distinct, each plays a role and rarely crosses; The singer of folk rap is "one person with many horns, jumping around", which can be described as "all beings are ready for me". Ugly tiger and poodle are both said by artists, and they often imitate A and B according to the needs of singing. They can be introduced objectively or temporarily into the role of singing, which is very flexible and convenient.

(2) Folk rap is simple, flexible and portable. Rap works are short and pithy, with few actors and simple props, just embellishment. Scenery is unnecessary. It conforms to the masses and is not limited by any material conditions. Every day in the village, in the streets and alleys, there are tables that can perform, and you can play with a dozen drums. It can be performed in rural towns at any time, and it is known as the "literary light cavalry".

(3) The language of folk rap is simple and easy to understand. Rap is a kind of language art, which uses oral language as a medium to arouse the imagination of the audience through the artistic treatment of speech, including the treatment of pronunciation, semantics, intonation, rhythm and prosody of spoken language. Therefore, language requires colloquialism and appeal. For example, the Shandong fast book Dongyue Temple is basically seven sentences with the sentence pattern of "two, two and three", but there are also some long sentences, which are integrated and scattered as a whole.