In this installment of Technique Spotlight, we dive into chorus vocal structure with a focus on Arizona Zervas’s recent hit, Roxanne.

To-date, Roxanne has landed in the Top 10 on over 20 charts throughout the world, including reaching the top spot in the US on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs and Rhythmic Songs charts as well as the #2 spot on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, and for good reason. The song’s massive cross-over success is largely due to its super-infectious, meticulously structured chorus, which provided this hip hop/rap song with an overt pop appeal that enabled it to succeed with both pop and hip hop audiences alike.

Roxanne’s Chorus Vocal Structure Table

Among the chorus’s key attributes are its ABAB/CCAB structure, which has been used to great avail in recent pop hits such as Halsey’s Without Me and Ariana Grande’s Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored; its methodical hook delivery and reinforcement techniques that heighten both engagement and memorability; its highly effective balance of repetition and contrast; and its meticulously structured rhyme scheme to boot.

This goes to show that even a song written exclusively by Hot 100 Top 10 newcomers (Arizona Zervas, JaeGreen, 94skrt, Lauren LaRue) can become a highly successful hit, cementing its writers as bona fide hitmakers among their contemporaries.

Click here to read the full technique in the Techniques Library.