Explosive and implosive root concepts: An analysis of music moods rooted by two influential rap artists

This study proposes the notion of “root concepts” in cultural production, defined as a novel style and mode that a creator expresses at the initial field development phase, and that has a great influence on subsequent creators. We explore the role of root concepts in cultural evolution by focusing on their capacity to generate new combinations with other elements and examine how creators use root concepts jointly with other elements. Using data on artists and albums in the rap genre from the online database Allmusic, we view music moods as a type of experience that music generates and focus on music moods as a phenotype in studying styles and modes. We constructed a dataset of recombinatory patterns in the subsequent cultural production and identified two types of root concepts: implosive concepts, which artists use jointly with similar elements; and explosive concepts, which artists use in conjunction with highly diversified elements. Implosive concepts are exclusive because they require creators to have network contagions with those familiar with the root concepts and have strong and specific socio-economic identities. Previous research has suggested that finding a new combination is challenging owing to creators’ limited cognitive capacities and the resulting local search. Our finding presents an alternative explanation: some root concepts (i.e., implosive ones) possess innate characteristics that limit creators from experimentally integrating diversified elements. This study develops new opportunities for future research on the evolutionary growth of cultural production and knowledge fields.