:istening to Mumble Rap: Blackness and Autofiction

Abstract

This thesis uses creative writing, autoethnography and critical theory to explore a recent development in the history of rap and trap music commonly known as Mumble rap. It argues for an attuned mode of listening that moves beyond judgements of aesthetic and moral value and leans into the fictive and ethnographic qualities of the genre. It also traces various critiques of Mumble and illustrates how these critiques are often disparaging and violent. It argues that these arguments reinscribe exploitative hierarchies. It argues for mumbling as a way to become ephemeral, to capture the complex and often surreal nature of Black life in America. Finally, I offer readings of three popular Mumble rappers (Chief Keef, Playboi Carti, and Lil Uzi Vert) and how they use their art to capture the affective, the utopian, and counter-structural, among other fleeting and ephemeral sensations in Black life.