overwritten rhymes

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'im watchin the news and my daughter walks in and choose, to ask, why were all those people on the floor,
sleepin, covered in red? / i told her they were lookin for god, but found religion instead'

this is a pos line from the de la song 'held down', it seems a bit naked in its attempt to provoke an emotional response but its very effective, it proudly stands out from all the other lines in the song for its poignancy despite the fact that i feel it could probably be an anticon lyric or something. ok so what do you think about this sort of literate, uncolloquial rhyme writing?? i feel its sort of the thematic cousin to paul barman syllable-cramming which i abhor, they both create a break from the song and you become self consciously aware youre listening to someone talk instead of listening to whats being said. but then sometimes, like with this, it grabs me in a way dozens of 'good' mcs couldnt, so i dunno...

― trife (simon_tr), Thursday, 11 September 2003 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

its really the spoken-word crossover thing, i guess. but it hardly feels "overwritten" the way reaching for RHYMES does becuz this reaches for meaning instead. I mean it works because it sounds thought-thru, like the looking for god but found religion bit was a concept someone worked at telling and grasping and not something that could be freestyled.

I mean its like a well set-up punchline coz the rest could just be any old narrative rap which takes some work to write, yeah, but not like any intricacy especially coz the "choose/news" thing is a nasty break in the line. so the payoff clicks too because it underlines the purpose of what came before. stuff like that where the structure of a rap jumps at you is always more emotionally gripping i think. coz it makes you WANT to stop and think, while lots of rap yr. thinking WITH the rapper coz it feels like the logic just builds on itself, half free-associatively and never goes back.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 11 September 2003 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah de la did this before kinda by abruptly cutting off the last line on millie pulled a pistol on santa, its so perfect i cant imagine it ending any other way

― trife (simon_tr), Thursday, 11 September 2003 03:24 (twenty-two years ago)

is the the same or different than the beat dropping out under nas at the end of "made you look"?

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 11 September 2003 03:30 (twenty-two years ago)

is the the same or different than the beat dropping out under nas at the end of "made you look"?

No, that's called the "incredibly awesome a capella out-of-breath-rapper effect." I think this discussion is about the formal-tightness-traded-for-point-making argument, about which I'll only say that Moby Dick is better because it includes a lot of misinformed speechifying about whales. Sometimes, the overflow of ideas is good.

― Ess, Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

it just depends cause
pos is charismatic but
paul barman is NOT

I think eminem does
this a lot but then pulls back
'ha ha ha suckers'

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:22 (twenty-two years ago)

(see also De La "Eye Patch" from Buhloone Mindstate: "I be the it 'cause smoking weed and shooting seed et al can't remember it all is out"; Pos is truly king of this technique)

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:29 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah hes a great mc!! i also like the track on bionix where he raps like my beloved greg nice and smooth b

― trife (simon_tr), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I think there's a difference though between forcing syllables in for lyrical meaning and using wild unorthodox rhythmical patterns; I think the reason I can dig some Doseone stuff is that he's conscious of the rhythm-patterns of what he's doing more than he's trying to cram messages in there, whereas Sole is like the total opposite of that.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Kool Keith does this thing a lot where, when you think he's gone overboard, he rhymes something on an upbeat or an accent and follows on that until the end of a 4-count and brings it back to what he was rhymin' on before he went another direction. I really like that.

(cue trife "fuck kool keith")

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

ha ha of course keith's usually talkin' 'bout tappin' ass or outer space purple baboons or something, so he's definitely not aiming for the inspirational/poetic lyrics

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

to be honest i always thought keith was just doing it from incompetence

― trife (simon_tr), Thursday, 11 September 2003 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Often Gab tries too hard on the message-end of things. He's usually at his best when he's not trying to be deep and meaningful. I think the keyword there is "trying". Most people in general have enough depth to their thoughts that, when you're writing, just WRITE, write towards the song sounding right, don't worry too much about being all deep and shit. You ain't getting graded on this!

(x-post)

ha ha well he's had to have been incompetent for almost 20 years now!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 September 2003 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

(it's also prob'ly cuz Keith barely ever writes anything, most of the verses he's ever done have been freestyled)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 September 2003 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyway, like my man Steven said to me about this same thing a couple years ago "It's music it ain't english class!"

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 September 2003 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Keith barely ever writes anything, most of the verses he's ever done have been freestyled

honestly, this explains a LOT

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 11 September 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

On the subject of Kool Keith... if anyone can find the Kool Keith, Xzibit, and E-Swift freestyle session that floats around P2P... download it. It'll just further your opinions on Kool Keith, whichever side you fall on.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 11 September 2003 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

"yeah hes a great mc!! i also like the track on bionix where he raps like my beloved greg nice and smooth b "

Ha ha yes more "Simply" love from everyone plz!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 11 September 2003 23:47 (twenty-two years ago)

honestly, this explains a LOT

Listen to "It's Over Now" from A (Much) Better Tomorrow and it's even clearer (though on the other hand, since the beat and cadence are slower than most things Keith appears on, he could just be using the slower flow to tap into some more controlled space he doesn't usually take advantage of). It's a lot more coherent thematically and feels almost free of some of those weird nonsequitirs.

Then listen to Matthew and hear how every fucking track mentions Dominicans.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Friday, 12 September 2003 00:27 (twenty-two years ago)

i like 'its over now' alright but its nowhere near as good as that albums BUCK BUCK!!!

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 12 September 2003 00:31 (twenty-two years ago)

that kool keith/xzibit freestyle session is too good.when keith calls xzibit everlast,then precedes to count to 24 in his freestyle...priceless

― juiceboxxx (juiceboxxx), Friday, 12 September 2003 01:01 (twenty-two years ago)

i love that kool keith freestyle but prefer the one with chino xl (also from stretch and bobbito) where he does the number bit and then basically skats the rest (although he does have a great line about rappers sounding like kurtis blow and coming at you like mario cumo). it's a much tigher freestyle session, and chino really steps it up. He says that he's standing over your grave "like the true son of jackie onassis" and his last line is "maybe i'll blow my head off and be a legend like i'm in nirvana."

it reminds me of that jay z v. big l freestyle where L comes with doubletime on his second verse and jay tries to come back at him but he doesn't remember any pre-written doubletimes off the top so he gets really phonotical. it's beautiful, even if jay later bit big l's "fuck love, hun/ all i got for hoes is hard dick and bubble gum" line (who could blame him?).

― s>c>, Friday, 12 September 2003 02:36 (twenty-two years ago)

that jay vs l freestyle is one of the greatest of all time!! my jaw fucking dropped the first time i heard it

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 12 September 2003 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

why?

― 333, Sunday, 3 July 2005 08:09 (twenty years ago)

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