Electro treats voices as machines, using vocoders and speech synthesis for robotic vocal content

Most electro is instrumental, but a common vocal element is processing through a vocoder, which imposes a synthesizer’s harmonic content onto a voice. Speech synthesis is also used for robotic or mechanical lyrical content, as in the iconic ‘Planet Rock’ and the ‘automatous chant’ in Warp 9’s ‘Nunk.’ Early electro also used rap (both male and female rappers), but that lyrical style became less prominent by the 1990s as rapping migrated to hip-hop. The vocoder/talkbox treatment — giving voices an electronic, metallic character — is a defining timbral marker that separates electro from both pure hip-hop and boogie.

Examples

Afrika Bambaataa — Planet Rock (speech-synthesis vocals); Warp 9 — Nunk (robotic ‘automatous chant’). Female rappers were integral too (e.g. Roxanne Shante, Warp 9).

Assessment

Explain how a vocoder makes a voice sound ‘robotic’ and name two electro tracks where vocoded or synthesized vocals are a defining element.