{"id":1922,"date":"2018-06-15T10:10:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T14:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2018-06-20T19:04:53","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T23:04:53","slug":"joyner-lucass-im-not-racist-a-perfect-musical-example-of-the-454510-formula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2018\/06\/joyner-lucass-im-not-racist-a-perfect-musical-example-of-the-454510-formula\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyner Lucas&#8217;s &#8220;I&#8217;m Not Racist&#8221; \u2014 a perfect musical example of the 45\/45\/10 Formula"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2014\/11\/write-better-watch-penn-teller-saw-your-cognitive-load-in-half-writing\/\">45\/45\/10 Formula<\/a> for narrative\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2014\/10\/narrative-argument-and-3-part-structures-beginning-middle-end-pity-fear-catharsis-claim-support-conclude-arrive-observe-conquer\/\">argument<\/a> is one of the perpetual bees bumbling around my bonnet.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This video for this song is such a stone cold perfect example (and, subsequently, so rhetorically devastating) that I just had to share.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span><b><i>PRO-TIP<\/i><\/b><i>: <\/i>The first two-and-a-half minutes will likely be almost unbearable to watch for most white Americans.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>If it helps, know that Joyner Lucas (the musician and the voice you hear throughout the song) is black (although not the black guy in the video).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">At any rate, to review my <strong>45\/45\/10 Formula<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p2\">The first 45% of a piece is the <b>Setup<\/b>: Characters\/concepts\/situations\/dynamics are presented and relationships among these made clear<\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\">The next 45% is the <b>Tangle<\/b>: Complication(s) disrupt (or at least complicate) the situation laid out in the Setup<\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\">The last 10% is the <b>Resolution<\/b>: The knot is Untangled, for better or worse<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p2\">In the case of this track, the <b>Setup<\/b> runs from the open to ~2:50. The <b>Tangle<\/b> then runs to ~5:50, and from that point to the cut to black is the <b>Resolution<\/b>. What especially thrills me here\u2014beyond the hard body impact of the rhetoric itself and the lean power of the videography\u2014is how shifts in the <i>music<\/i> mark out the transitions between stages in the argument: Each section break is marked out be an abrupt shift in the tone and mood of the backing track.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">This is a <i>wonderful<\/i> primer on how to structure an narrative argument to hold an audience and not persuade them, <i>per se<\/i>\u2014because that&#8217;s not the goal\u2014but rather to enduringly stick in their craw, so they keep troubling over your argument long after they&#8217;re done with the piece of entertainment.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This is how you write moral fiction.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This is how you plant the seeds that grow the trees that, indefatigably and seemingly effortlessly, bend the arc of that moral universe back toward justice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">And that, kids, is our business.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Go, watch \u2026 and <i>learn<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/43gm3CJePn0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 45\/45\/10 Formula for narrative\/argument is one of the perpetual bees bumbling around my bonnet.\u00a0 This video for this song is such a stone cold perfect example (and, subsequently, so rhetorically devastating) that I just had to share.\u00a0 PRO-TIP: The first two-and-a-half minutes will likely be almost unbearable to watch for most white Americans.\u00a0 If &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2018\/06\/joyner-lucass-im-not-racist-a-perfect-musical-example-of-the-454510-formula\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Joyner Lucas&#8217;s &#8220;I&#8217;m Not Racist&#8221; \u2014 a perfect musical example of the 45\/45\/10 Formula&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[19,11,3],"tags":[325,95,52,63,26,55,20,53,321,316,92,25],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1932,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions\/1932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}