WingsOfAnAngel
Banned
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 3
*TAKEN FROM http://www.epinions.com/content_2596970628*
Pre-ramble
Hip-hop is a very misunderstood music form. People who either don’t like/ don’t listen to hip-hop, most of the time, simply rant on about how there’s no skill involved, how the lyrics are too foul blah blah blah. Now while I most definitely agree with the second point I made, the former is something I will argue to the death. Skilful rapping, or emceeing, or whatever you want to call it, is something few people realise how difficult it is to do. And I’m sure when people read reviews of hip-hop writers like DVON, madtheory, MagnumForce and myself, some terms will probably leave people scratching their heads. And this is where I come swooping in. Call me stupid, or pointless, but I decided to put on my glasses, suit, and become a bit of a professor. Now this little piece of writing is not meant to make you a ‘rap superstar’, I just thought it’d be a neat idea to point out what different kinds of ‘raps’ there are, what consists a ‘rap’, and I’ve flexed my dictionary skills to try and explain technical terms, the difference between good/bad emcees etc. It goes on for a bit, but try and stick with me.
First of all, some basic terms…
Rap. 2. Music. Popular music characterized by spoken rhyming vocals and a looped electronic sample in the background.
Emceeing/Rapping - Where an emcee vocalizes improvised/ pre-written rhymes in a rhythmical pattern, with or without musical accompaniment.
Rhyme. 1. Similarity in Sound similarity in the sound of word endings, especially in poetry. 2. Word sounding the same as another a word with an ending that sounds similar to the ending of another word.
Rhythm. 1. The regular pattern of beats and emphasis in a piece of music. 2. A particular pattern of beats in a piece or a kind of music. 3. The pattern formed by stressed and unstressed syllables.
Ok, that out of the way, lets put together an idiots guide to the art of putting a verse together.
Creation.
For many emcees a Rhyme Scheme is the very basis for laying down a verse. Of you’re writing down your verse, chances are you will have a rhyme scheme. Now when you start rhyming, you will tend to stick religiously to the same scheme all the time… of course as you advance you probably will be able to do it off the top of your head with little effort, and will absolutely definitely certainly change rhyme schemes. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Want an idea of what a rhyme scheme looks like? Well here’s one…
…A…….A/
…B…….B../
Now that’s not a practical rhyme scheme – ie. a 2 year old could put together a verse using that. However, it demonstrates how to put one together. The letters “A” and “B” represent words that rhyme. So if the first letter, “A” is, say, “smack” the next time “A” come up you have to rhyme with it. Get it? The same applies for “B”. And so on and so on. The dots in-between represent words between the rhymes. The line at the end means the end of the bar/line, whatever you want to call it. Here’s a simple, simple rhyme I cooked up to demonstrate this…
Your wack in the sack
cos in the throttle there is a bottle
Now this is a ridiculously simple rhyme scheme. It may be easy to use, but it’ll get boring. So aspiring emcees should, really, change their rhyme schemes from verse to verse. However, I could be here for the next year explaining this. I hope this basic example has demonstrated the idea of rhyme schemes, and how they work. If you want to put together a decent rhyme scheme, or even a verse, email me and I’ll help. Moving on. Ok, so you’ve sorted out your rhyme schemes… what techniques will you need to know/ things you need to be aware of to become a decent emcee? Well, these three things are the basis of what emcees are judged on…. Flow, Delivery and Wordplay. I use these terms in a review a lot. Understanding them is key.
"Visualizin the realism of life and actuality
Fu*k who's the baddest a person's status depends on salary
And my mentality is, money orientated
I'm destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it"
Flow is the hardest to define really. Basically, having a good ‘flow’ is all about rhyming well, with a continous feel to the lyrics. Traditionally, being able to flow well is simply rhyming continuously, smoothly, with good breath control (not pausing much) and with a liquid feel to it, with a rhyme scheme that clicks together well. Hard to define, but I tried my best. Wanna know a smooth flowing emcee? Well, try Rakim (the king of ‘monotone’) and even look at my man Kurupt in his 92-96 form, as he was also an emcee with a liquid flow.
Delivery. Here’s the real crunch time for an emcee. How much lyric-spitting capacity have you got? Can you rapidly spit lyrics, rolling them off your tounge, barely pausing for breath, with extreme clarity? How nimble and dextrous are you with words? An emcee with a good delivery can provide all of the above, and the top emcees can spit multi-syllable rhymes at top speed. Speed rapping is a gimmick that emcees often use to show off their skills, and having a brilliant delivery is crucial to this. Most rappers have a good delivery, but some standouts are Big Boi of Outkast and Big Daddy Kane.
Wordplay. And here’s where we separate the men from the boys. This is the advanced part of emceeing, and where poetry really links in with hip-hop. This is also the most creative part of emceeing – you need real brains and creativity to have good wordplay. I’ll split this into parts.
"I'm slamming ni**az like Shaquille, sh*t’s for real"
Similies and Metaphors
While many heads don’t class this as wordplay (instead as a completely separate category) I disagree. Using extended metaphors is obviously playing with words, and hence can only be wordplay. Anyway. These two skills are the basic wordplay skills – most (good) emcees will look to integrate these into their verses. Extended metaphors are a nice way of getting your point across – emcees often compare themselves to a gun in songs, for example. This is, however, a very played concept and is unoriginal. Anyway, there’s one emcee who kills all others in this field, and that is battle rapper Chino XL. Other notables include the Wu-Tangs Method Man.
"Just when things seemed the same, and the whole scene is lame//
I come and reign with the unexplained for the brains 'til things change
They strain to sling slang, I'm trained to bring game"
Alliteration, Assonance, punchlines, personification etc. Yes this is the complicated kind of language use that is common in poetry. In hip-hop, they are tricks for an emcee to really show off his lyrical skills. Keep in mind that integrating these types of things in, always making sure that the different parts of your rap (structure, rhymes, flow etc) are intact is mind-bogglingly difficult. Notice I’ve already mentioned most of these things, mostly to do with battle rapping. Organised Konfusion member Pharoahe Monch is a leading light in highly advanced wordplay skills (check out my review of his brilliant Internal Affairs album). Megastar Jay-Z is also an emcee with a very sharp tounge.
Other notable rapping techniques:
"With a touch of this twister, stylistic mixture
What I create pulsates, there is no escape
Annihilate your mental mindstate
Dre labels my vocabulary abusive
I packs mo’ knowledge than Confucius"
Multi Syllable Rhyming
This is again moving into more complex territory. Multis, for this purpose, involve stringing together words that use, as the name suggests, more than one syllable. Now this can either be complete words… like “contradiction” etc, or multiple words put together and spat quickly… “Bomb-tha-mission” etc. It’s fairly easy to integrate this into verses, but creating a verse which uses a multi-syllable rhyme scheme is very difficult, as you have to rhyme long words consistently. Which, as you can imagine, isn’t easy. This is one of the flashier ways of showing off your skills. Most really skilled emcees can do this, but emcees that use this regularly are few and far between.
Internal Rhyming
Ah yes, Internal Rhyming. I’ll mention Rakim once again here, as playing with internal rhymes is one of his trademarks, and boy does he do it well. Internal Rhyming is surprisingly similar to what the name suggests – it consists of emcees using the same rhyming words within a bar. So if an emcee rhymed, for example, “bold” and “cold” within the same line, with internal rhyming the emcee would add other rhyming words in as well, like “sold” and “fold”. A very simple example, but internal rhyming can take on a shockingly complicated twist. Say your rhyme scheme takes on more than one rhyme in a line – for example say you rhyme "first" as well as the aforementioned rhymes. Now imagine a line, which rhymes internally, like I’ve demonstrated, with both "cold" and "first". Scary stuff indeed, and only for the most advanced and skilled of emcees.
Ok so these are the basic, and slightly more advanced parts to a verse. Every emcee will usually be judged according to this criterion. In a review, I’ll tend to comment on flow, delivery and wordplay – highlighting specific parts. I hope this has cleared up any confusion that may occur with non hip-hop listeners about terminology. Right. We’ve established so far, pretty much the basics of a rap verse. How can this be put to use? Read on…
Different Types of ‘Rapping’
"We gonna do a little freestyle for y'all, and it goes like this"
Freestyling is where an emcee simply ‘raps’ for an unlimited number of time, either over a basic beat or no beat. There is no pre-writing here ie. The emcee is not allowed to write their verse. They simply spit their verse off the top of their head, and have to improvise all the way through. This is one of the most difficult rapping skills… it takes real, imaginative, quick thinking and creative lyricism to freestyle well. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Schoolly D, Saafir, KRS-One.
"Well lemme tell you somethin, you might got mo' cash then me
But you ain't got the skills to eat a ni**a's a** like me"
Battle Rapping. This is where emcees compete lyrically against each other. It can be one on one, tag-team (2 on 2), or crew battles. The idea in battle rapping is to lyrically hurt your opponent, using punchelines (plays on words that exploit your opponents weaknesses etc). Complicated literary devices like alliteration, assonance, similes/metaphors etc can also be used. Humour can also be used successfully in battle rapping – ie. Witty ‘punch lines’. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Chino XL, Big Daddy Kane and Canibus.
"The rhymes I recite are fully dressed and yours are butt naked
Your speech is weak, while my mine stands strong
So, all hail the man that’s here to live long"
Brag Rapping. This is linked in very heavily with all elements of hip-hop, especially battle rapping and freestyling. Although in battles, I tend to see bragging as filler (in-between the punches), bragging can be both interesting and annoying. Bragging is, obviously, an emcee simply boasting about his skills, and putting other rappers down as inferiors. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Rakim, LL Cool J.
"Punched him in his belly and he gave him a slap,
but little did he know the lil' boy was strapped"
Narratives/Story Telling. This is arguably the most constructive form of emceeing. Here, emcees stick with the usual rapping style in all areas, with or without musical backup, and simply construct a narrative that tells a certain story. A difficult skill to successfully achieve – creating a cohesive, gripping plot that makes sense alongside a technically good verse (good rhyming pattern, flow, delivery etc) is a very difficult thing. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Slick Rick, Nas.
Of course, these are very rigid structures. The majority of verses created by emcees will combine many of these things. As a general rule, verses either have a point, or they don’t (if you understand my vague language). A verse is either telling a story, lyrically battling an opponent, making a point about society/life etc, or it may be a simple freestyle where the emcee is randomly bragging and dissing.
End-ramble
Ok, so I’m screaming towards the end of this little guide. Hopefully you’ve learnt a bit about the process of writing a rap verse – what kind of linguistic skills are involved, how these can be put to use etc. I also hope I’ve made you realise how difficult it is to be a good emcee, and put into context the skill level and intelligence of top level emcees in the rap game today. I’ve tried to keep things relatively simple and clear, my success level can only be judged by you, however. Leave a comment, tell me what you think (and I’ll like you a lot if you comment, cos I like comments… a lot). Also if you're brave (or stupid) enough to attempt writing your own verse, hence starting out on the long path to being an emcee, this is a good (i think) start, but only as a start. If you want any further help... email me.
P.S.
First of all, you'll notice 8 italicised and bolded quotes during the course of this review. A massive 100 points goes to the person (not to mention mad respect from me) who can correctly identify all 8 (artist, song and album) Mad, Carletta, this one's pretty difficult. Clue: Every quote either comes from an album i've reviewed or one of my favourite artists. That's actually not very helpful... oh well
Happy quote hunting (and no cheating - ie. use of google etc)
Pre-ramble
Hip-hop is a very misunderstood music form. People who either don’t like/ don’t listen to hip-hop, most of the time, simply rant on about how there’s no skill involved, how the lyrics are too foul blah blah blah. Now while I most definitely agree with the second point I made, the former is something I will argue to the death. Skilful rapping, or emceeing, or whatever you want to call it, is something few people realise how difficult it is to do. And I’m sure when people read reviews of hip-hop writers like DVON, madtheory, MagnumForce and myself, some terms will probably leave people scratching their heads. And this is where I come swooping in. Call me stupid, or pointless, but I decided to put on my glasses, suit, and become a bit of a professor. Now this little piece of writing is not meant to make you a ‘rap superstar’, I just thought it’d be a neat idea to point out what different kinds of ‘raps’ there are, what consists a ‘rap’, and I’ve flexed my dictionary skills to try and explain technical terms, the difference between good/bad emcees etc. It goes on for a bit, but try and stick with me.
First of all, some basic terms…
Rap. 2. Music. Popular music characterized by spoken rhyming vocals and a looped electronic sample in the background.
Emceeing/Rapping - Where an emcee vocalizes improvised/ pre-written rhymes in a rhythmical pattern, with or without musical accompaniment.
Rhyme. 1. Similarity in Sound similarity in the sound of word endings, especially in poetry. 2. Word sounding the same as another a word with an ending that sounds similar to the ending of another word.
Rhythm. 1. The regular pattern of beats and emphasis in a piece of music. 2. A particular pattern of beats in a piece or a kind of music. 3. The pattern formed by stressed and unstressed syllables.
Ok, that out of the way, lets put together an idiots guide to the art of putting a verse together.
Creation.
For many emcees a Rhyme Scheme is the very basis for laying down a verse. Of you’re writing down your verse, chances are you will have a rhyme scheme. Now when you start rhyming, you will tend to stick religiously to the same scheme all the time… of course as you advance you probably will be able to do it off the top of your head with little effort, and will absolutely definitely certainly change rhyme schemes. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Want an idea of what a rhyme scheme looks like? Well here’s one…
…A…….A/
…B…….B../
Now that’s not a practical rhyme scheme – ie. a 2 year old could put together a verse using that. However, it demonstrates how to put one together. The letters “A” and “B” represent words that rhyme. So if the first letter, “A” is, say, “smack” the next time “A” come up you have to rhyme with it. Get it? The same applies for “B”. And so on and so on. The dots in-between represent words between the rhymes. The line at the end means the end of the bar/line, whatever you want to call it. Here’s a simple, simple rhyme I cooked up to demonstrate this…
Your wack in the sack
cos in the throttle there is a bottle
Now this is a ridiculously simple rhyme scheme. It may be easy to use, but it’ll get boring. So aspiring emcees should, really, change their rhyme schemes from verse to verse. However, I could be here for the next year explaining this. I hope this basic example has demonstrated the idea of rhyme schemes, and how they work. If you want to put together a decent rhyme scheme, or even a verse, email me and I’ll help. Moving on. Ok, so you’ve sorted out your rhyme schemes… what techniques will you need to know/ things you need to be aware of to become a decent emcee? Well, these three things are the basis of what emcees are judged on…. Flow, Delivery and Wordplay. I use these terms in a review a lot. Understanding them is key.
"Visualizin the realism of life and actuality
Fu*k who's the baddest a person's status depends on salary
And my mentality is, money orientated
I'm destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it"
Flow is the hardest to define really. Basically, having a good ‘flow’ is all about rhyming well, with a continous feel to the lyrics. Traditionally, being able to flow well is simply rhyming continuously, smoothly, with good breath control (not pausing much) and with a liquid feel to it, with a rhyme scheme that clicks together well. Hard to define, but I tried my best. Wanna know a smooth flowing emcee? Well, try Rakim (the king of ‘monotone’) and even look at my man Kurupt in his 92-96 form, as he was also an emcee with a liquid flow.
Delivery. Here’s the real crunch time for an emcee. How much lyric-spitting capacity have you got? Can you rapidly spit lyrics, rolling them off your tounge, barely pausing for breath, with extreme clarity? How nimble and dextrous are you with words? An emcee with a good delivery can provide all of the above, and the top emcees can spit multi-syllable rhymes at top speed. Speed rapping is a gimmick that emcees often use to show off their skills, and having a brilliant delivery is crucial to this. Most rappers have a good delivery, but some standouts are Big Boi of Outkast and Big Daddy Kane.
Wordplay. And here’s where we separate the men from the boys. This is the advanced part of emceeing, and where poetry really links in with hip-hop. This is also the most creative part of emceeing – you need real brains and creativity to have good wordplay. I’ll split this into parts.
"I'm slamming ni**az like Shaquille, sh*t’s for real"
Similies and Metaphors
While many heads don’t class this as wordplay (instead as a completely separate category) I disagree. Using extended metaphors is obviously playing with words, and hence can only be wordplay. Anyway. These two skills are the basic wordplay skills – most (good) emcees will look to integrate these into their verses. Extended metaphors are a nice way of getting your point across – emcees often compare themselves to a gun in songs, for example. This is, however, a very played concept and is unoriginal. Anyway, there’s one emcee who kills all others in this field, and that is battle rapper Chino XL. Other notables include the Wu-Tangs Method Man.
"Just when things seemed the same, and the whole scene is lame//
I come and reign with the unexplained for the brains 'til things change
They strain to sling slang, I'm trained to bring game"
Alliteration, Assonance, punchlines, personification etc. Yes this is the complicated kind of language use that is common in poetry. In hip-hop, they are tricks for an emcee to really show off his lyrical skills. Keep in mind that integrating these types of things in, always making sure that the different parts of your rap (structure, rhymes, flow etc) are intact is mind-bogglingly difficult. Notice I’ve already mentioned most of these things, mostly to do with battle rapping. Organised Konfusion member Pharoahe Monch is a leading light in highly advanced wordplay skills (check out my review of his brilliant Internal Affairs album). Megastar Jay-Z is also an emcee with a very sharp tounge.
Other notable rapping techniques:
"With a touch of this twister, stylistic mixture
What I create pulsates, there is no escape
Annihilate your mental mindstate
Dre labels my vocabulary abusive
I packs mo’ knowledge than Confucius"
Multi Syllable Rhyming
This is again moving into more complex territory. Multis, for this purpose, involve stringing together words that use, as the name suggests, more than one syllable. Now this can either be complete words… like “contradiction” etc, or multiple words put together and spat quickly… “Bomb-tha-mission” etc. It’s fairly easy to integrate this into verses, but creating a verse which uses a multi-syllable rhyme scheme is very difficult, as you have to rhyme long words consistently. Which, as you can imagine, isn’t easy. This is one of the flashier ways of showing off your skills. Most really skilled emcees can do this, but emcees that use this regularly are few and far between.
Internal Rhyming
Ah yes, Internal Rhyming. I’ll mention Rakim once again here, as playing with internal rhymes is one of his trademarks, and boy does he do it well. Internal Rhyming is surprisingly similar to what the name suggests – it consists of emcees using the same rhyming words within a bar. So if an emcee rhymed, for example, “bold” and “cold” within the same line, with internal rhyming the emcee would add other rhyming words in as well, like “sold” and “fold”. A very simple example, but internal rhyming can take on a shockingly complicated twist. Say your rhyme scheme takes on more than one rhyme in a line – for example say you rhyme "first" as well as the aforementioned rhymes. Now imagine a line, which rhymes internally, like I’ve demonstrated, with both "cold" and "first". Scary stuff indeed, and only for the most advanced and skilled of emcees.
Ok so these are the basic, and slightly more advanced parts to a verse. Every emcee will usually be judged according to this criterion. In a review, I’ll tend to comment on flow, delivery and wordplay – highlighting specific parts. I hope this has cleared up any confusion that may occur with non hip-hop listeners about terminology. Right. We’ve established so far, pretty much the basics of a rap verse. How can this be put to use? Read on…
Different Types of ‘Rapping’
"We gonna do a little freestyle for y'all, and it goes like this"
Freestyling is where an emcee simply ‘raps’ for an unlimited number of time, either over a basic beat or no beat. There is no pre-writing here ie. The emcee is not allowed to write their verse. They simply spit their verse off the top of their head, and have to improvise all the way through. This is one of the most difficult rapping skills… it takes real, imaginative, quick thinking and creative lyricism to freestyle well. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Schoolly D, Saafir, KRS-One.
"Well lemme tell you somethin, you might got mo' cash then me
But you ain't got the skills to eat a ni**a's a** like me"
Battle Rapping. This is where emcees compete lyrically against each other. It can be one on one, tag-team (2 on 2), or crew battles. The idea in battle rapping is to lyrically hurt your opponent, using punchelines (plays on words that exploit your opponents weaknesses etc). Complicated literary devices like alliteration, assonance, similes/metaphors etc can also be used. Humour can also be used successfully in battle rapping – ie. Witty ‘punch lines’. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Chino XL, Big Daddy Kane and Canibus.
"The rhymes I recite are fully dressed and yours are butt naked
Your speech is weak, while my mine stands strong
So, all hail the man that’s here to live long"
Brag Rapping. This is linked in very heavily with all elements of hip-hop, especially battle rapping and freestyling. Although in battles, I tend to see bragging as filler (in-between the punches), bragging can be both interesting and annoying. Bragging is, obviously, an emcee simply boasting about his skills, and putting other rappers down as inferiors. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Rakim, LL Cool J.
"Punched him in his belly and he gave him a slap,
but little did he know the lil' boy was strapped"
Narratives/Story Telling. This is arguably the most constructive form of emceeing. Here, emcees stick with the usual rapping style in all areas, with or without musical backup, and simply construct a narrative that tells a certain story. A difficult skill to successfully achieve – creating a cohesive, gripping plot that makes sense alongside a technically good verse (good rhyming pattern, flow, delivery etc) is a very difficult thing. Examples of leading emcees in this field: Slick Rick, Nas.
Of course, these are very rigid structures. The majority of verses created by emcees will combine many of these things. As a general rule, verses either have a point, or they don’t (if you understand my vague language). A verse is either telling a story, lyrically battling an opponent, making a point about society/life etc, or it may be a simple freestyle where the emcee is randomly bragging and dissing.
End-ramble
Ok, so I’m screaming towards the end of this little guide. Hopefully you’ve learnt a bit about the process of writing a rap verse – what kind of linguistic skills are involved, how these can be put to use etc. I also hope I’ve made you realise how difficult it is to be a good emcee, and put into context the skill level and intelligence of top level emcees in the rap game today. I’ve tried to keep things relatively simple and clear, my success level can only be judged by you, however. Leave a comment, tell me what you think (and I’ll like you a lot if you comment, cos I like comments… a lot). Also if you're brave (or stupid) enough to attempt writing your own verse, hence starting out on the long path to being an emcee, this is a good (i think) start, but only as a start. If you want any further help... email me.
P.S.
First of all, you'll notice 8 italicised and bolded quotes during the course of this review. A massive 100 points goes to the person (not to mention mad respect from me) who can correctly identify all 8 (artist, song and album) Mad, Carletta, this one's pretty difficult. Clue: Every quote either comes from an album i've reviewed or one of my favourite artists. That's actually not very helpful... oh well
Happy quote hunting (and no cheating - ie. use of google etc)
