History of Hip-Hop: Beats, Bars, Rhymes, and Motives

Spotify Playlist: The Prose of Rhyming in Rap

Motive (a.k.a. Motif):

"Another term that usually refers to a piece of melody (although it can also refer to a rhythm or a chord progression) is “motif.” A motif is a short musical idea—shorter than a phrase—that occurs often in a piece of music. A short melodic idea may also be called a motif, a motive, a cell, or a figure. These small pieces of melody will appear again and again in a piece of music, sometimes exactly the same and sometimes changed. When a motif returns, it can be slower or faster, or in a different key. It may return “upside down” (with the notes going up instead of down, for example), or with the pitches or rhythms altered."

Syncopation

"In music, syncopation involves a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected which make part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is a general term for "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "placement of rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur."^[1] The correlation of at least two sets of time intervals.^[2] Also known as an "Uneven movement from bar to bar"."