Prefuse 73: Дауыстық зерттеулер + Uprock әңгімелері

Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives is a 2001 studio album by Guillermo Scott Herren, the first released under the name Prefuse 73. The album was released on June 11, 2001 on Warp. The music was created by Herren alone, with some tracks featuring guest vocals from MCs Mikah 9, MF Doom and Aesop Rock as well as vocalist Sam Prekop from The Sea and Cake. Inspired by Miami bass and early 90s hip hop, Herren had been recording music with his Music Production Center (MPC) for Schematic Records, a label known primarily for intelligent dance music (IDM). After working with various local hip hop artists making what he described as "very boring rap beats", Herren was inspired to take his music in a more left field direction. Vocal Studies + Uprock Narrativess music is primarily instrumental and features unintelligible cut up vocals. Originally inspired to sample the hip hop artists he was signed to work with in the studio, the album consists of samples by more popular hip hop artists including Nas, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Erykah Badu. Despite being described as electronic music, IDM and glitch and not the kind of music a hip hop audience is used to hearing, Herren felt that his music was closer to hip hop. The album's release after a tour that included a performance at All Tomorrow's Parties in the United Kingdom as well as opening for the group Tortoise in the United States. The album did not chart in either the United Kingdom or United States, but received positive reviews from various sources including AllMusic, Spin and Uncut. It was later named as one of the best albums of the year by Rolling Stone and The Globe and Mail and one of the best albums of the first half the 2000s by Pitchfork.

In the mid to late 1990s, Guillermo Scott Herren returned to Decatur, Georgia, from New York and worked at a recording studio. Unsatisfied working with the studio's clients, who he felt made "pre historic trap music", Herren was encouraged to take his music in a more left field direction, as he was "bored with people barking orders at me to make them these really boring rap beats." In return for Herren handling the studio's hip hop clients, the studio owner bought him a Music Production Center (MPC) which Herren would use to create his Prefuse 73 material. For Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, Herren sampled more famous hip hop records by artists including Nas, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Erykah Badu. In 1999, Herren signed to the British label Warp under two aliases, Prefuse 73 and Savath & Savalas, The vocalists did not work directly with Herren, but sent him audio tapes of their own vocal recordings. Herren later commented on having Prekop sing on the album, noting that having an indie rock artist on the album was his way of trying to get his sound out to a new audience.

Herren described the album as an attempt to bridge hip hop instrumentals with vocal orientated hip hop tracks, saying that the chopped and edited raps were "another layer of music" and that he was "into creating a whole new mangled language [ ] it's a form of communication without communicating, a new flow when you feel like you're listening to a standard hip hop track but there's something in it that's not right." The song "Nuno" features chopped up vocals with only the phrase "fuck words of wisdom" intelligible; the title is a reference to the Portuguese musician Nuno Canavarro, whose 1988 album Plux Quba also features manipulated vocals including randomly reassembled tapes of children singing. Music journalists made other comparisons of the music in context of both electronic and hip hop, with Exclaim! describing this sound as "not exactly what the hip hop world is used to hearing."

Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives was named as one of the best albums of 2001 by several publications, including Pitchfork, Ottawa Citizen and Rolling Stone. The Globe and Mail named it the seventh best album of the year, with Carl Wilson writing that "of all the electronica glich IDM this year, [the album] is the only one I go back to as if it were the Rolling Stones." In 2005, Pitchfork ranked the album the 84th best of 2000–2004. Herren was overwhelmed with the positive reception the album received, exclaiming that "Most of it was so positive, but I'd also get a really strong reaction from people some that want to kill me, 'cause they're under the impression that I'm trying to kill hip hop or something, and I'm like 'uh see ya, whatever man.'" According to Pitchfork, the album was important for Warp, which had been seeking credibility after relocating their offices to New York City. Herren began acting as A&R member for the label, which had a reputation only for IDM, by introducing it to artists including Anti Pop Consortium, Battles, and Flying Lotus. In 2011, after releasing The Only She Chapters, his eighth album for the label, Warp ended their relationship with Herren. The master recordings of his material stayed with the label. Sanborn spoke on the influence of Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, referring to it as one of the records that "gave me a doorway into hip hop. I know it's weird, but he was my entry point into instrumental hip hop, starting a domino effect that led me to Dilla, Madlib and the rest."