4 reasons content design & hip hop are long-lost soulmates

Wait, what? Content design & hip hop are soulmates?! I’ll admit — the title sounds a little crazy, but it’s true.

I’m a content designer at Intuit TurboTax and listen to a lot of hip hop at the office. I was listening to Kendrick Lamar’s album good kid, m.A.A.d city at work a few months ago and realized that content design and hip hop have a lot in common.

Allow me to introduce the similarities, #1 is:

1. Voice

Writing delightful content isn’t enough as a content designer— you also have to make sure your content aligns with your product’s voice. If you write something that isn’t consistent with the rest of your product’s content, it can throw users off.

In hip hop, a rapper’s “voice” includes their lyrical content as well as their delivery. Once a rapper has established a unique voice, it’s common for some of their fans to start expecting their new releases to sound relatively similar to their old songs. If these fans hear a new song that conflicts with their deep-seated opinion of a rapper’s voice, they may be confused and angry.

For example, Jay-Z has maintained a relatively consistent lyrical style and delivery over his long, storied career. If his next album sounded like Migos, social media would light up with tweets calling Jay-Z a sellout and poser.

Migos have incredible energy, and they’ve managed to become the premier group in mainstream rap by churning out infectious hooks like an assembly line Donald Glover/Childish Gambino even compared them to this generation’s Beatles. They’ve clearly found their voice — just like Jay-Z discovered his a long time ago.

If a rapper’s style takes a 180, they should be prepared for their new music to alienate some of their fans. On the flip side, there’s also the potential to pick up a lot of new fans.

Let’s bring it back to Childish Gambino and break down his successful evolution as a musician. He released Camp, his debut studio album in 2011, and many fans expected every new song following Camp’s release to sound just like that album. But in 2016, he released Awaken, My Love!, an album that sounded more like Parliament Funkadelic than hip hop. Some fans were confused and didn’t like the new album, but that group was a drop in the bucket compared to how many new listeners fell in love with the album. It was risky, but it worked out perfectly.

If you want to hear how Childish Gambino’s style changed over the years, check out the videos below. The first video is from March 2011. The second video is from January 2017.

Now let’s circle back to content design to connect the dots. It’s perfectly fine for a product’s voice to evolve, but existing users might be unhappy about it. It’s risky, but with the right approach (i.e.: lots of user testing and iterating), it might lead to a better user experience and larger audience.

2. Storytelling

A strong narrative can be a game-changer for digital products — especially if the user experience has a clearly defined starting point and finish line. A great storyline draws users in and keeps them engaged with your product. Plus, it helps users with their sense of place and progress while navigating through the product.

Stories are a key component of hip hop, too. A ton of gifted storytellers have made their mark in hip hop, including Nas, Slick Rick, and Notorious BIG. They’ve written stories that would have made Charles Dickens blush.

One of my favorite stories was written by Common. In “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” Common raps about a girl he met as a 10-year-old. He falls in love with her because of her beautiful soul, but they slowly drift apart as she eventually gets caught up in the gang lifestyle. This sets the stage for an M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist: The girl was a metaphor for hip hop culture as a whole.

Let’s bring it back to content design. To illustrate the concept of a great narrative, I’ll let my bias show a bit and use TurboTax as an example.

When some of our first-time users kick off their experience, they view the process as complicated, long, and scary. To alleviate these concerns, our user’s journey begins with a friendly onboarding process where we ask them how they’re feeling. We present reassuring content that’s tailored to their selection to build trust and confidence.

As the user progresses, we serve up content that’s easily understandable for tax novices during crucial points of need. By mentoring the user, we help them develop into the hero of their own story. Eventually, they file their taxes and celebrate the triumphant conclusion to their journey.

It’s a great story arc, right? The protagonist starts off scared and uncertain. Then, their mentor helps them realize they already possess the knowledge and power necessary to develop into the hero to conquer all taxes. They finish their arc by finishing their taxes and feeling like a champion.

Software and rappers both have stories to tell. When they craft a compelling narrative, they build a long-lasting, meaningful connection with their audience.

3. Collaboration

At TurboTax, content designers are typically paired with an interaction designer. This clearly defined partnership allows them to bounce ideas off each other, conduct user research, and design user flows together. This close collaboration helps the pair deliver designs that are clearly focused on solving the customer problem while also delivering business value.

In hip hop, when a rapper works with a producer throughout the entire production process of a song, magic can happen. They collaborate in a variety of ways: making tweaks to the beat, working through the story and structure, testing lyrics, and much more. This process involves immediate feedback and constructive criticism, which is more effective than if the rapper and producer had worked in silos. This is similar to the pair design process where the content designer and interaction designer leverage each other’s strengths to deliver a great design.

Back when Jay-Z was working on The Black Album, he brought in Kanye West to produce “Lucifer.” Kanye is known for bringing the best out of the rappers he works with, and Jay-Z has always appreciated that. This video from their studio session is an example of great collaboration between a rapper and producer.

On the flip side, when a rapper is working on their own and rapping on a random beat, there’s no flexibility. Their verses have to fit perfectly with the instrumental. This is like when writers are positioned as the final contributor in the design process. There’s no collaboration and no flexibility to change the design. They just have to write the best content they can in a limited, fixed space.

Designers and writers, you should always try to do this: Alright, stop, collaborate, and listen. Tell PMs, devs, and users you’re back with a brand-new design /slash/ invention. Just make sure your design…grabs a hold of users tightly, so they’re delighted by the experience daily and nightly.

Okay, that’s enough corniness…But let’s be real: content designers are more effective when they closely collaborate with interaction designers.

4. Empathy

Every successful content designer possesses a whole lot of empathy. If you want to write awesome content for your users, you have to put yourself in their shoes. During each step of the user journey, you have to try your best to truly feel the emotions and pain points your users are experiencing. This will put you in the right mindset to write content that will help users confidently perform the right tasks on each screen.

In hip hop, rappers empathize with their listeners by creating meaningful songs. Their music is consumed by the masses, but the magic of hip hop is that it can make listeners feel like they’re in a 1-on-1 conversation with the rapper. When a rapper delivers an immersive story on top of a great beat, it’s like the perfect storm.

Also, concerts and internet feedback can be like user research for rappers. They can test out anything they want, and they’ll get an immediate reaction from the crowd (good or bad). This can help them write better lyrics and songs in the future.

To add on to this, many hip hop fans practice empathy as well. A lot of hip hop fans live in the suburbs and haven’t experienced the challenges that come with living in underprivileged neighborhoods. However, thanks to the lyrical talent of masterful storytellers like Kendrick Lamar, these fans feel like they’ve actually experienced the trials and tribulations of rappers.

Now let’s jump back to content design. How do you successfully empathize with your users? You have to invest the time and effort to conduct thorough user research, test designs and content with users, and analyze feedback. It’s not quite like performing at a rap concert and hearing the roars (or jeers) of the crowd, but it’s necessary to build a meaningful emotional connection with your users.

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Are you convinced that UX writing/content design and hip hop are long-lost soulmates? Comment below and let me know what you think!

BONUS: If you want to listen to some good hip hop, here’s a Spotify playlist with my favorite songs of all-time: