Becoming Through Rap Songwriting: Tracing Affective Flows Of Meaning Making

Author

• Viraj V. PatelFollow

Graduation Term

Summer 2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

School of Teaching and Learning

Committee Chair

Anna Smith

Committee Member

Lara Handsfield

Committee Member

Ellis Hurd

Committee Member

Emery Petchauer

Abstract

Research on rap songwriting as literacy practice has identified modalities of meaning-making, including language, sound, rhythm, performance, embodiment, and digital production. Yet this scholarship often stops short of showing how artists engage these modalities while making songs. Grounded in literacy as event (Burnett & Merchant, 2020), this dissertation examines how affective intensities (Bennett, 2010) of sound, language, aesthetics, and identity become entangled (Barad, 2007) through rap songwriting, giving rise to literacies in the making (Ehret et al., 2016) and affective flows (Dernikos et al., 2023).

The study conceptualizes rap songwriting as an entanglement of lyric writing, beat making, performing, listening, and sampling. Through these practices, identity positions (McVee et al., 2016) are not merely expressed but encountered, negotiated, and made in process. Using autoethnographic methods (Adams et al., 2023), the study examines practices of a rapper-researcher who does the work of rap songwriting (Carson, 2017). Data include lyric drafts, audio and audiovisual memos, screen and performance recordings, digital audio workstation files, artifacts, and research journals. Sonic analysis (Gershon, 2018; Henriques, 2011), plugging in (Jackson & Mazzei, 2011), and rhizoanalysis (Handsfield, 2007; Leander & Rowe, 2006) trace how writing, sound, aesthetics, affect, and identity move across songwriting events.

Findings are represented through two rhizomes: one tracing the making of Dream and another tracing identity positions comprising Boy from Bombay. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that affective flows operate as vectors of meaning-making, carrying direction and magnitude, and calls for methods and representational systems capable of capturing literacies and identities as they emerge in the making.

Access Type

Dissertation-Open Access

Recommended Citation

Patel, Viraj V., "Becoming Through Rap Songwriting: Tracing Affective Flows Of Meaning Making" (2026). Theses and Dissertations. 2355.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/2355