Rap as Poetry

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So I made the flamboyant claim to a friend of mine that the pop song, particularly hip-hop has filled the place of poetry in our society. Now I feel like I need to back it up by making a mix tape of the good stuff. Lyrically quality is paramount here, not production. Furthermore, I'm not looking just for a list of undie etc etc (though some is of course welcome) because anything which tries to compete too strictly with poetry on its own terms is bound to fail for what i'm trying to prove.

suggestions?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 2 December 2002 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I do think it's interesting that as poetry has become a pretty marginal art form, a new form of popular music has developed with considerable emphasis on rhythmic and rhyming speech (as if some suppressed, unconscious need for poetry or something like it has emerged).

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 2 December 2002 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

i was talking to my housemate (who listens ONLY to anticon and affiliates) about how 'illmatic' is equally as 'poetic' than say, dose one for example, because poetry isn't merely the employment of fancy words or algebraic sentences about nonsensical wankdom and he answered "but yeah, even jay-z can be poetry cuz ALL rap is poetry - that's what it means; 'RHYTHM ACOMPANIED POETRY'"

eugh.

― $ean, Monday, 2 December 2002 18:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Of course, the grain of the voice is also very important in rap, in a way that it has not been in poetry.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 2 December 2002 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

eugh indeed, $ean, i feel your pain

― Al (sitcom), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

grain of the voice

Mostly bogus allusion, since I'm not sure what Barthes was talking about, but I do think that the variety in voices is one of the appealing things about rap. (Said by one who mostly ignores it.)

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 2 December 2002 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

although i think the "street poetry" thing is kind of cheesy. the way i see it, poetry is on paper or a cappella, music/lyrics is something else entirely, let them be what they are.

― Al (sitcom), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

anyway, the idea that rap is poetry and not rap seems like some white mc justifacation for listening to and actually GASP! liking hip hop, akin to that writer guy who said 'aquemni' is a soul record (i'm not saying you're guilty of this sterling btw)

― se@n, Monday, 2 December 2002 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Obviously poetry as a spoken artform is related to hip-hop, like certain aspects of cinematography are related to painting, but the question is - what is this relation and how useful is it to stress it? The sound-of-the-voice thing is less of a division than people might think IMO - much poetry is written to try and force the reader into catching specific voices - perhaps the poet's - in their mind as they read. Hip-hop does a similar thing - the thick accenting and lexical mutations it goes in for ("hatoration"; "herre") for instance.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

The biggest reason for this is that poetry isn't a profitable profession any more. Unless you're a huge poet (like John Ashberry, for example), it is impossible to make a living as a poet. And even John Ashberry makes most of his money on tours and lectures, not on the poetry itself.

Meanwhile, music affords the opportunity for even marginally talented poets to make money and receive prestige. Leonard Cohen's stature as a poet is middling at best, but as pop lyricists go, he has a level of prestige that no contemporary poet could hope to achieve. Bob Dylan, who is a decent poet, is now The Poet of The Modern Era(tm).

But I wonder if poetry itself has become irrelevant. While there are a number of contemporary poets who I love, none of them have the stature of an Eliot or a Tennyson, etc. In that sense, poetry is a lot like contemporary jazz. It's a home of nostalgists and experimentalists, but lives outside of the public consciousness. No one would say that Derek Bailey or John Zorn are at the level of Ornette Coleman, for example.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Ashbery, that is.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

This is a good discussion and all, but I also wanted some suggestions of tracks which might help me convince this guy.

i.e. a range of sharp lyrical approaches.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Saul Williams would be perfect for this.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

KRS-1 would be a good choice from the old school, and Rakim and Eminem would be good choices to demonstrate poetic techniques like assonance and consonance.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Hope this isn't too "undie" for you:

Freestyle Fellowship – Can you Fid the Level of Difficulty in this
Nas – The World is Yours
Big L/ DITC – Ebonics
J-Live – One for the Griot
The Coup – Me and Jesus the Pimp
Black Star – Respiration

― S., Monday, 2 December 2002 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Poetry, until now in recent history, poetry has been kept separate from music. Sure, some bohemians have performed poetry accompanied by music, but these were still "word compositions"...sequences of words that were intended primarily for the page, and then possibly could be carried over onto the stage. Rap, on the other hand, represents the first poetry movement in recent history where rhythmic/musical elements were ESSENTIAL, where the intent was more for the listening ear than for the reading eye.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

That's completely wrong, nick. No offense. The earliest poetry was meant to be sung. The lyric has been a popular poetic form for as long as poetry has existed.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks for the suggestions!

Also things more along the lines of Ludacris' "Southern Hospitality" or etc...

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, wait, you're looking for rap stuff that's poetic? Not undie "our lyrics are so poetic" type stuff, but more above-ground type stuff?

Your search should begin with Tupac, for whom I believe the term "street poet" was coined.

You also might want to look into:

Dead Prez (amazing lyricists)
Goodie Mob or Cee-Lo's solo stuff
Killah Priest "Heavy Mental" (that song will blow your mind!)
in fact, just about any Wu-Tang (esp. Rza, Genius/Gza & Ghost Face)

Yeah, I guess I didn't think of that, polyphonic...allow me to now aim this very loud "DUH!" at myself for speaking (typing) such goofy crap aloud.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 2 December 2002 19:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Ashanti would be perfect for this.

― Al (sitcom), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean specific tracks too.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Why does it have to be someone popular?

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Declaring poetry is dead is somewhat akin to listening to Rolling Stone bitch about the state of music i.e. it isn't doing what I'm interested in so therefore it is dead. And in literature, stature often comes 50 years too late or post mortem, so the fact that this generation has no Eliot doesn't prove all that much. And poor Ashbery is a popular target for why poetry is so marginal now.)

The intonation and enunciation of rappers like Em and Biggie remind of good poetry readers. Their elusive "flow." So put 'Hypnotize' on there. To make a mass generalization, it seems like one of the splits between undie rap and the more popular side, is the emphasis moves from what is being said to how its being said. So if you are looking strictly for lyrics, I expect you'll have to put on your backpack.

― bnw (bnw), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

and 'juicy' - "...birthdays were the worst days/ now we drink champagne when we thirstaaaay". genius.

― se@n, Monday, 2 December 2002 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

yesyes but more TRACKS from ARTISTS because I am LAZY and don't want to pore over my rap cds to make DECISIONS MYSELF.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Perhaps we should start a thread for this in ILE?

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:22 (twenty-two years ago)

"Also things more along the lines of Ludacris' "Southern Hospitality""

If you want something that is a showcase of phonetic dexterity, I'd suggest PEACE from Freestyle Fellowship -- although he does blur the lines between singing and rapping at times. A lot of old Pharaoh Monch is also great for flow. Kool Keith also has an incredible skat freestyle with Pharaoh and Chino XL for...I think it's the Wake Up Show, although it may be Stretch and Bobbito. I'm not sure if I've ever heard a better hip-hop skat performance, and the fact that it is a freestyle is also nice. You can probably download it. Supernat and Craig G also have a slew of incredible freestyle battles. The imporvesational/ confrontational aspect of freestyle battles is one of the more interesting aspects of hip-hop MC'ing, in my opinion.

If you're looking for something that makes clever use of urban (read: african american) slang, I'll stand by my original “Ebonics” suggestion. Members of Wu Tang (most notably Ghost and GZA) also have a gift for coining slang and creating their own worlds of language.

...a lot of Old Dirty Bastard ish is on the "Southern Hospitality" tip...great stuff, but I’d be hesitant to hold this up as exemplifying hip-hop poetry though, as it does perpetuate very negative cultural stereotypes. And as far as clever ryhme schemes...too many to mention.

This really isn’t what you’re asking for, but the Kevin Fitzgerald documentary “Freestyle” does a great job of chronicling and contextualizing the art of hip-hop MC’ing, although the focus is on MC’s who freestyle.

― S., Monday, 2 December 2002 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"So if you are looking strictly for lyrics, I expect you'll have to put on your backpack"

nah, search hip hop before the existence of cash money like gza's 'b.i.b.l.e.' and 'swordsman' ('i ain't caught up in politics/i aint no black activist on some so called scholars dick' again-genius) or nas's 'the world is yours' or 'memory lane' or 'life's a bitch'or geto boy's 'mind playing tricks on me' and you'll find what you're looking for. or conversley, 'back that azz up' by juvenile.

― se@n, Monday, 2 December 2002 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

how can you say "i wanna see blood!/whether it's peroid blood/ or bustin your head/BLOOD!" isn't poetry?

― se@n, Monday, 2 December 2002 20:28 (twenty-two years ago)

sterling you yourself mentioned that ghostface track the other week

― bob zemko (bob), Monday, 2 December 2002 20:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Ashbery is boring.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 2 December 2002 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

you guys are all fulla horseshit.
do any of you have jobs?

― E-to-the-Izaak, Monday, 2 December 2002 20:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Nice:

Blackalicious - "If I May"
Blu Rum 13 - "Vaguely Familiar" / "Figure It Out"
Boom Bip (& Doseone) - "Mannequin Hand Trapdoor I Reminder"
cLOUDDEAD - "JimmyBreeze" (one and two)
The Beach Boys - "That's Not Me"

― Orange, Monday, 2 December 2002 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Outkast "Gasoline Dreams"

It even includes a referrence to Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" (where, in "Maggot Brain", they state "Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have done knocked her up..."; in "Gasoline Dreams" the line in the chorus goes "I hear that Mother Nature's now on birth control..." I may be extremely wrong (wouldn't be the first time in this thread), but I think that is called "allusion".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 2 December 2002 21:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh:

Latyrx featuring El-P - "Looking Over A City"

― Orange, Monday, 2 December 2002 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

el-p "stepfather factory"
saul williams "twice the first time"
nonphixion "black helicopters"

i've thought de la soul to be a sort of verbal ee cummings in the past.

― msp, Monday, 2 December 2002 22:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Jay-Z - Girls Girls Girls

(Jay-Z as the ultimate flaneur)

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 2 December 2002 23:20 (twenty-two years ago)

rap is rap is rap is rap... f*ckin busllhit masquerading as intelligent thoguht?

― Savin All My Love 4 u (Savin 4ll my (heart) 4u), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Jay-Z - Girls Girls Girls

maybe the remix version is even better lyrically? not too sure, been a while since i last heard it.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

The poetry I like tends to be the social type of Pope/Johnson, which is roughly comparable to rap, as opposed to the lyric type of millions of bad poets worldwide. "Vanity of Human Wishes" vs "Mo Money Mo Problems" (really bad analogy, can't think of anything better): Biggie would've come close if he shut Puffy up.

Not the best lyric ever but pretty close: MC Lyte's "Ruffneck".

― B.Rad (Brad), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

goddamn, just tell the guy to watch Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer. At the very least he'll be sorry he asked. This concept isn't exactly fresh.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 03:33 (twenty-two years ago)

what is poetry for?

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 04:03 (twenty-two years ago)

no one knows, josh.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 04:10 (twenty-two years ago)

you've hardly given them a chance yet!

(for some reason - well I have my guesses - I thought that one would be more fun than 'what is rap for?')

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 04:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, Saul Williams is interesting as far as the poetry/rap connection. He's equally aware of the poetry and hip-hop traditions, and can do both. While I wouldn't exactly call him an mc, he's not just doing spoken word over beats(although he comes closer to that than a lot of other people, but then his unaccompanied spoken word comes closer to rapping that a lot of other poets). It's definitely rhythmic and tied to the beat, but I couldn't really see him dropping guest verses on other people's hip-hop tunes or anything.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 04:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and can we eat it?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 04:48 (twenty-two years ago)

No one would say that Derek Bailey or John Zorn are at the level of Ornette Coleman, for example

Do you mean level of popularity? Of influence? Of artistic merit? This statement by itself does not seem obvious at all to me.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 06:15 (twenty-two years ago)

S: Nappy Roots f/David Berman - "Honky Tonk Kentucky Throwdown"
D: John Lennon f/Pras & Noriega - "Sweet Tidings of Babylon"

― anagrama, Tuesday, 3 December 2002 06:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Sigh.

Not rap as "poetry" but rap filling the place of poetry in modern society, which is funny and slippery to grasp because you have to grasp not what poetry is NOW (and ew i don't think slam poetry counts in the same way it usta or even as the good stuff now, mainly) but how it used to function and how people related 70-170 years ago. Which is difficult. Poetry of a certain sort used to be a certain "popular" form with its heroes and commonly quoted verses and etc. This is before popular and populist became more closely linked too, but it was part of the social fabric and discourse of the era, linked to national tradition and identity, venerated and etc. It wasn't about structural elements like assonance and etc. (though they were there) but about FUNCTIONAL essence as tied to blossoming national identity and social differentiation and situationing.

Which I guess is part of the slipperiness of what I'm after.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 06:36 (twenty-two years ago)

clipse - grindin
i second heavy mental
ghostface - the watch
hieroglyphics - phesto d
casper - cha cha slide part 2

― boxcubed (boxcubed), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 07:09 (twenty-two years ago)

ghostface - mighty healthy
jay-z - so ghetto
biggie - everyday struggle
slick rick - childhood story
whatever the krs1 song is with the couplet "to me it seems a bit unrational/a lot of mc's like to use the word 'dramatical'"

― brains (cerybut), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 09:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Here's a harsh condemnation of rap as written by D. Bromwich, a Yale professor of English -- it's a few tossed-off lines buried in a much larger recent review he wrote of a new book by Pinsky:

"Pinsky says that poets are often asked by reporters what they think of rap, and that his own response normally goes along these lines: "Don't know much about it, but my guess is that as with `literary' poetry, most of it is ordinary, a little of it is very good and a little is contemptible." Well, nobody said he had to say anything about it. But in this area Coleridge's aphorism seems well-advised: poetry that makes us crave artificial feelings makes us callous to real ones. Not only the packaging of rap but also its extreme artificiality, and the callousness that it projects and conveys to boyish listeners of all ages, might be expected to arouse a defender of poetry to something beyond a good-natured plea of ignorance.

If poetry attempts to widen imagination, rap aims to narrow it. The ritualized strut and nod are supported by a trite poetic diction that offers rage, resentment, and dull self-pity as the only admissible emotions."

!!!

What do you think? Perhaps we should introduce Prof Bromwich to our own Prof S. Trife?

― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

music/rap isn't nor should be treated as poetry because as barthes said the grain of the voice is more important than what is said. i try to focus on the sound, the totality of a song/record but usually fail (read: only listen to the words). this is the main problem with criticism= it usually only pays attention to the words.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 12:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I think all y'all who might argue that r-a-p has supplanted poesy's role in society vastly overestimate the role poetry has ever had.
Only nerds and teenage girls care about poetry. Wait a minute, same goes for rap!

Actually, a better question should be "Has Rap supplanted D & D as life-consuming obsession for girl-fearing bedwetters?"

C'mon, would Marshall Mathers III really be rappin' if somebody had invited him to become a Silver Mage of the Fourth Degree or some such?

I'm not even being as facetious as I wish.

― Lillian Johnson, Tuesday, 3 December 2002 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder if he's ever heard any opera, geeta

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 15:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I believe some of the members of Anti-Pop Consortium moved in avant-garde poetry circles before the group formed - they certainly take little of traditional rap's flow. Aesop Rock uses some great imagery on the 'Daylight EP'. As someone noted above, Eminem uses shitloads of assonance: a good example of this is 'Squaredance'. I can see Ghostface Killa's 'All That I Got Is You' appealing to someone of a poetry background with no knowledge of rap.

― Jason J, Tuesday, 3 December 2002 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

The ritualized strut and nod are supported by a trite poetic diction that offers rage, resentment, and dull self-pity as the only admissible emotions.

Sylvia Plath was a rapper!

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Pinsky sounds like a smart man, or at least someone with some good sense.

Bromwich sounds like a bitter ol' gobshite.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

When Pushkin died his funeral procession was attended by perhaps 100,000 people. I doubt P Diddy will attract the same numbers, but that's only because the invites will be so hard to come by.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

My last sex party was attended by perhaps 100,000 people. Or perhaps 1.

― Heath Culbert, Tuesday, 3 December 2002 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry to bring in Dose One but "It's Them" off the first Anticon Album has gotta be there.

Something from Mike Ladd's "Welcome to the Afterfuture". I'm torn between the last beatless track (which seems to be cheating), and something like "No #1 Street"

"Verbal Intercourse" off Chef Raekwan's "Cuban Linx"

Also, weirdly, I think something from Method Man's "Tical".

De La Soul's "Bitties in the BK Lounge" from DLS is Dead, as a classic dialogue rap.

The Goats "Not Bad" off Tricks of the Shade for something more cogently political.

Fugies : "Nappy Heads" for some delirious theatrical wordplay.

― phil jones (interstar), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 23:39 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

A.T.C.Q. - "Go Ahead In The Rain"

― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 14:46 (sixteen years ago)

el-p "stepfather factory"
saul williams "twice the first time"
nonphixion "black helicopters"
i've thought de la soul to be a sort of verbal ee cummings in the past.

― msp, Monday, 2 December 2002 22:39 (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^poll

― Peter "One Dart" Manley (The stickman from the hilarious 'xkcd' comics), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 14:57 (sixteen years ago)

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