“There's a certain mystique when I speak that you notice, cause it's sort of unique, cause you know it's me, my poetry is deep and I'm still mad at the way I flow to this beat!”-Eminem, Rap Poets. Eminem claims his rap lyrics are his poetry. This reveals the big question here; is rap poetry? Only you can answer that.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, poetry is “literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by use of distinctive style and rhythm”. While rap is defined, also by the Oxford Dictionary, as “a type of popular music of [African American] origin in which words are rapidly and rhythmically over a prerecorded, typically electronic instrumental backing.” Both definitions emphasize rhythm,
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Occasionally people present their poetry merged with music. This is commonly with what’s known as spoken word poetry-- a type of poetry very similar to rap. Many people don’t know where to draw the line between the two. However, rap is based on musicality, and a rhythm while poetry focuses on word flow, rhythm, and sometimes rhyme. This may be a significant difference.
There are many purposes to both poetry and rap. People write a read poetry to explore themselves, to inspire, to understand and be understood, for beauty, and as Shield, Hammering said to “transcend some of the limitations of normal speech.” Cole Mize, a modern indie rap artist and coach says that rap’s purpose is “uplifting each other’s spirits in times of heartache and pain”. This is similar to inspiring, understanding, and seeking beauty. They both even have similar benefits. A study done by The Guardian actually shows that rap music can help those with mental illness. Writing poetry is also shown to decrease mental instability. Coincidence?
There are many similarities between poetry and the musical genre rap, but there are also a handful of differences. These range from the language style, the goal, the rhythm, and more. Do you think Eminem is right, is rap
Think of a poet. Who came to mind? Was it Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Ralph Waldo Emerson? What about Eminem or Jay-Z? They are both poets too, but in a different way. They go by the title “rapper”, basically a synonym for poet, and Hip-Hop is their form of poetry is. Kevin Coval amusingly says that rap “dusted poetry off, took it out the closet, put Js on its feet, and told it to speak to the people, all the people,” and that hip-hop saved poetry from becoming “classical music,” meaning that rap prevented poetry from becoming an old, out-dated art form and renovated it for the next generation (20). Coval’s book, The BreakBeat Poets, says the creation of hip-hop music was by “latchkey kids in the crack era, left to their own devices to experiment wildly and make language and art new and meaningful,” and goes on to say its purpose is to, “move the crowd, relate to the crowd, and save the crowd,” and Kendrick Lamar does these things perfectly (18). Through the use of clever wordplay and rhyming skills mixed with great story telling, Kendrick is bringing rap music back to its “roots” while introducing a “style” of his own, which is why one can argue that Kendrick Lamar is the “savior” of the rap game and its listeners.
Moreover, Jay-Z explains how poetry hides beneath the surface of hip hop songs, making it a form of art. However, many individuals are unaware of the poetry due to them focusing on the beat and punch lines of songs or quickly labeling rap as provocative rather than hearing the message behind the lyrics. Jay-Z states an individual cannot half-listen to a
Some of the greatest names in music have come out of these two genres, like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Rakim, Nas, and Biggie Smalls. Rap and rock have changed the world and continue to influence the way people view politics and social issues. Rap and rock are different in their own ways, for example rap is focused around beats while rock is focused around the rhythm of a guitar and voice quality, but they also have distinct similarities, including their place of origin, the time they originated, and why they were created.
Gloria K. Fiero writes, “The strong association between poetry and music suggests that the human voice [has] a significant influence in both melody and rhythm” (58). The voice of the singer is what gives the song that distinct twist that sets it apart from others, and if the song is originally written as a poem it gives the artist the freedom to interpret and express the lyrics however they see is best fit. Any person is capable of singing or rapping a song, but not everyone is capable of making audiences feel emotions simply through the power and emotion behind their
The effect of Rap on the music industry is very similar to the effect Whitman’s poetry had on American literature. After reviewing the history of rap music and Whitman’s biography, rap music developed in many of the same ways that Whitman’s poetry developed.
As rap music spread throughout the urban community of New York, many people began to use it as a form of expression that offered unlimited boundaries. There were no set rules, except to be original and to rhyme to the beat of the music. One could rap about the issues pertaining to his or her life or something as simple as a day at school.
“Rap is poetry” (xii). To any avid fan of the genre, it is a statement that seems obvious. The words could easily be the musings of a listener first introduced to the art form, not the focal point of an entire work of contemporary criticism. Yet in Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, Adam Bradley’s primary focus is this very point, the recognition of traditional poetic elements within rap music. With the global cultural and economic phenomenon that hip hop has become, it is easy to forget that the style of music is barely thirty years old, that scholarly criticism of it has existed for only half of that time. When viewed within this relatively new arena of scholarship, the importance of Bradley’s text is
Today, rap music is an ever growing genre of music that is often centered on hedonistic pursuits such as wealth, cars, drinks, and fame. About forty years ago, however, rap music focused on an entirely different subject matter. During the 1970s, African Americans sung rap songs to express the need for Black empowerment in society; though their form of singing was not called rapping back then, it was called spoken word poetry, a form of song in which verses of poetry were performed with a fixed beat before an audience. African Americans used this style of singing to express the discontent with the economics and politics during the 1970s. The black population was still economically and politically powerless
This makes me think that the poem is going to talk about a rap sound making its way to the top of billboard top 100 rap songs. Continuing on throughout the whole poem it gets you more clues that the narrator is talking about rap songs. We see here
Both discuss similar subjects, write in the same style and use the same type of language in their writings. When looking at a poem or reading rap lyrics, distinguishing between the two can be difficult, if not impossible.Both Black rappers and Black poets write about the same subjects. For example the rap group NWA, and the poet Alice
Rap music is really popular to us, young people, and sometimes adults, too. In my opinion, I think that rap is a way to allow all of the rappers to express themselves, their voices, their experience, and their feeling from their life. And in some other people opinion, they also describe rap music as the story or the voice of the streets. According to a music articles “The birth of Rap: A Look Back” from NPR.org website, rap music was born and began to develop in the middle of year 1970s. They are firstly formed and played by the Black communities, and then slowly spread out to the world. In rap world, at first they are only male rappers who use music to express themselves and their pain towards the world. Then, women also began to rap to be able to express their thoughts more and more. Female and male rapper are sharing the same purpose of express themselves through their song but they are different in the way they use their lyrics, the subject they choose to rap on and the feeling they express to their fans and their songs’ listeners.
From it's inception, rap indured a lot of hostility from listeners--many, but not all, White--who found the music too harsh, monotonous, and lacking in traditional melodic values. However, millions of others--often, though not always, young African-Americans from underprivileged inner city backgrounds--found and immediate connection with the style. Here was poetry of the
First, the uniqueness behind rap music cannot be found in any other music. Because rap is lyric driven music, the speed and the pronunciation a rapper uses affects the outcome of the sound greatly. Also rap contains a lot of wordplay and figurative language that makes it complex and meaningful. The difficulty behind making a rap adds a competitive nature that most other genres do not
Poetry is a varied art form. Poetry is expression with words, using aesthetics and definition. Word choice in poetry is the single most important thing. Devices such as assonance, alliteration and rhythm work in a poem to convey a certain image or to facilitate understanding. Similes and metaphors can take two unlike objects, such as a potato and cinderblock, and if done the correct way use them to describe how Abraham Lincoln dealt with scoundrels. Poetry is beautiful. One of the best genres in poetry, let alone a great literary movement is Romanticism or the post-enlightenment Romantics.
Poetry is literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm, poems collectively or as a genre of literature. It is also a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion regarded as characteristic of poems. Poetry (poem) is something that follows a particular flow of rhythm and meter. Compare to prose, where there is no such restriction, and the content of the piece flows according to the story, a poem may or may not have a story, but definitely has structured method of writing.