It's the Hard Knock Life: Annie to Jay Z

Apparatus/Genre-

https://www.britannica.com/art/theatre-music

            I chose this source as a way to show the history and the way musical theater has been used and presented throughout history. This will be helpful in my research because in order to know the ways we experience the two types of music presented, we must know how each the apparatus is presented. This is just a basics to get my project started nothing too in depth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYUhPe31dLY

            This is a short documentary on the song I am getting study. It talks about the history of the original comic trip, the original song and also talks about the experience of the song. It is helpful because it is important to know the history of the song I am working with. It portrays the genre and the apparatus very well and gives an inside look to the  musical theater genre and apparatus.

https://www.npr.org/2010/11/16/131334322/the-fresh-air-interview-jay-z-decoded

            This NPR interview with Jay Z is an important source for the project. It talks about the background of why he chose to redo “It’s the Hard Knock Life”. It is an inside look at the rap genre and how we experience the song/rap differently than we experience the musical. The background gives a great look on the 1998 version of what a “hard knock life” is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_(1982_film)

            The 1982 version of “It’s the Hard Knock Life” comes  from the original film “Annie”. As we all know it is representative of orphans in the 30s and this plays a huge role in how we interpret the song in the real world/the film/musical genre. 

Social History-

https://unionstreetplayers.com/2010/11/23/an-orphans-hard-knock-life/

In order to understand the 80s portrayal of orphans, we need to understand the orphans and the great depression. This short article gives a little background to the orphans of the 30s. This sets up the importance of the social history of the great depression and how it was portrayed in the 80s.

http://www.ecstudents.net/11spring/jacobshotmeyer/politics.html

            This is just a basic article of the politics in the 80s. It shows what was going on during the period and brings a few things to the surface about maybe why the musical number was made when it was.

https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-cold-war/what-was-the-cold-war/Ghettos in the 1990s

            The cold war was one of the major political issues of the period. This bit of social history is an important influence to the context if the time the movie about the great depression was put out. This is also important because the event led to ghettos in the 1990s. THIS leads to the Jay Z version of the musical number.