| What It Takes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| EP by | ||||
| Released | 1997 | |||
| Recorded | 1996 | |||
| Genre | Canadian hip hop | |||
| Label | Knee Deep Records | |||
| Producer | Day (exec.) | |||
| Choclair chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from What It Takes | ||||
| ||||
What It Takes is an EP by Canadian rapper Choclair, released independently in 1997 on Knee Deep Records. It spawned the 12" single "What It Takes Remix", and a music video of the title track was released in 1996. The EP won the award for Best Rap Recording at the 1997 Juno Awards. [1]
An extended play record, often referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single, but is usually unqualified as an album or LP. Contemporary EPs generally contain a minimum of three tracks and maximum of six tracks, and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album. An EP originally referred to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play (SP) and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well.
Rapping is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular", which is performed or chanted in a variety of ways, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The components of rap include "content", "flow", and "delivery". Rap differs from spoken-word poetry in that rap is usually performed in time to an instrumental track. Rap is often associated with, and is a primary ingredient of hip-hop music, but the origins of the phenomenon predate hip-hop culture. The earliest precursor to the modern rap is the West African griot tradition, in which "oral historians", or "praise-singers", would disseminate oral traditions and genealogies, or use their formidable rhetorical techniques for gossip or to "praise or critique individuals." Griot traditions connect to rap along a lineage of Black verbal reverence that goes back to ancient Egyptian practices, through James Brown interacting with the crowd and the band between songs, to Muhammad Ali's quick-witted verbal taunts and the palpitating poems of the Last Poets. Therefore, rap lyrics and music are part of the "Black rhetorical continuum", and aim to reuse elements of past traditions while expanding upon them through "creative use of language and rhetorical styles and strategies. The person credited with originating the style of "delivering rhymes over extensive music", that would become known as rap, was Anthony "DJ Hollywood" Holloway from Harlem, New York.
Kareem Blake, better known by his stage name Choclair, is a Canadian rapper. He helped develop Canadian hip hop in the late 1990s, as a member of the Circle.
