Rhyme and Poetry ~ Rap

Somebody banging a beat onto a table and his friends throwing together words to rap over the sound is a small step into a world of communication. Whenever I was in school and heard, “Okay… okay…  look…” I, along with everybody in a 20 foot radius, would turn and look at the guys producing that familiar sound. Then, they would take turns knocking on the table and spitting lyrics that they have swarming in their heads. It’s a thing that we all did back in school, and it has a deeper social influence than we thought back then.

If it doesn’t rhyme, and if you cannot say it like a poem, then it isn’t rap to me. Rap is a form of art that needs to vindicate itself from its thuggish image, words that have no value. That image has been in place for such a very long time that it’s hard to escape. It seems to be synonymous with a social class of people who talk about violence and drugs, objectifying women in videos and glorifying the idea of being on top of the world. Admittedly, the rap game is saturated with this kind of thing, and it’s fun to listen to. But there are so many artists out there who take a more stylistic approach and make art with their words without making threats.

Movies and popular media eat up every word a rapper says if it promotes the image of an ignorant person who lives a grandiose lifestyle. Sometimes we get lost in this image because it shows that you can become rich just by being a fool. These are people who just say random things over a beat and have no actual need for style and purpose. But in recent years there has been a resurgence of “conscious rap” that creates a market for intelligent bars, wordplay that would shock Shakespeare, and a mix of metaphors and double entendres that all go together to actually mean something.

See I’m the type to get a check and invest it/ Buy some land and protect it/ Live off the interest and give my family the rest/ and then start from square one on some first cigarette sh*t in a whole new direction

Like these Big Sean lyrics here from Who’s Stopping Me, there needs to be a message in the lyrics in order for me to consider it real rap. Otherwise it’s just music, which isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t within the genre people mostly associate it with. For example, you have terrible artists like Lil anything, etc., who are no older than 20 and put out songs that talk about the 4 pillars of nonsense: I got money and drinks, I got girls, I drive a Ghost/Phantom/expensive car, I came up on my own. For way too long, Blacks were characterized by this trash that a good number of us recognize as trash. I never call this rap, this is a wave of music that is for parties. Rap is made with a purpose to tell a story or utilize the genre as a message board. It isn’t just J. Cole speaking truth, it goes deeper than 4:44 and anything Drake puts out that speaks to the heart.

When Migos released the Culture album, yeah it was filled with beats and ideas that even I could relate to. They are, collectively, some of my favorite artists. But if I were to call their music real hip hop, I’d be lying. They influence the culture, but the idea behind the music is seated in expression through wordplay. And that’s why Eminem has my respect, he is the greatest rapper I feel has ever lived because he mixes a fusion of styles and uses his ability to make songs about his personal life as well as the game he’s in. He talked about his mother, daughter, spouse, friends, fans, peers and so on and opened up a chasm of depth for the genre that people often times try to catch up with. Even Kendrick, who was titled the new King of Rap, gave props to Eminem, going as far as to say his own style was influenced by Em. So even though Culture made a huge wave, there are levels to this game that it didn’t reach, and I try my best not to confuse sound with substance.

You see, rhyme and poetry can be a great influence on the minds of the public if you use it right. Logic made an album and dedicated a lot of it to talk about how him being mixed has been a blessing and a curse. Hopsin has a series of songs he titles Ill Mind of Hopsin, which are all different, but #7 in the series talks about his falling out with religion. In the song Neighbors by J. Cole, he wrote based on his experience with a neighbor who assumed he was selling drugs just because he was Black in a White neighborhood. There are stories in rap that are not being reached with the nonsense.

But, with a lot of younger generations of people coming up and adopting the rap mentality as their own, I’m looking at you Penn State, the wave has escaped the Black community and can be utilized as a platform for all people to voice their own stories. Mumble rap and Trap music ran the world for a bit, making people famous for recycling the same bars. And some of us laugh at it while others dance to it.  Dr. Dre said in an interview with Real 92.3, “This whole ratchet thing, I think it was fun. But it just didn’t have the substance that I appreciate in music.”

In the song King Kunta by Kendrick Lamar,  he says, “I swore I wouldn’t tell… but most of y’all share bars like you got the bottom bunk in a two man cell.” Something is definitely in the water with that.. the genre is being used for quick fame instead of messaging.