So, Veeky Forums, when are you going to start writing rap? It's the ultimate form of literature

Fuck, I hadn't even realised how good that was until I saw it written down.

...

>this is what Americans have instead of Keats

Honestly fucking proud these guys from a hood turned to poesy instead of dealing with drugs and gangs, I'm glad they are being rewarded with a shit ton of money too, it's good to reward progressive behaviour and the achievement of a higher conscience, at least they now serve as role models to what can happen when you choose intellect over shit

poesy is great

I bet that Camus would have liked some aspects of rap.

Kendrick is a butthead

>true masters of black music
>Dave Brubeck

If you think the unreconstructed /mu/ user who made this knows anything you're retarded

All rap lyrics look dumb as text originally

Stop praising this shit. Get the fuck out of Veeky Forums.

Nice

Most lyrics in general

I've been through so many phases of rap growing up: i've been into underground, mainstream, backpacking, bangers, old school 80s, old school 90s, old school 00s, hell, even drill music. Not even a few years ago if you would have asked me if Kanye and Kendrick are highly praiseworthy I would have told you of course.

But after reading poetry, after deep reading Shakespeare and Yeats, after going through the Greeks, after reading Joyce and Tolstoy, rap pales.

lol. My point.

The problem with rap is that it is very staccato by nature, and rhyming is obligatory. So it has a certain extreme quality of constrained writing to it. This makes it hard to express sophisticated thoughts and moods in the medium. English rhymed poetry was already developing a similar problem in the 19th century. There are only so many times you can rhyme "brook" with "look", "gaze" with "ways", and so on, before things start to seem a bit ridiculous and forced. Rap adds onto this problem the extra problem that not only do you have to rhyme, but to differentiate what you're doing from just speaking you have to use combinations of very hard and soft beats on syllables. This is a problem because it makes it hard to communicate non-aggressive things. The very form has a certain quality of aggressiveness to it. A huge advantage that rap has over standard poetry is the enormous sophistication it has developed in interior rhyme and other sorts of advanced musico-poetic techniques. In rapping you can emphasize any syllables you want, which opens a bunch of new doors of expression. But unfortunately because such emphasis has the aggressive quality that I've already mentioned, it tends to come off as gimmicky. A lot of rap ends up having a certain quality of virtuosity for virtuosity's sake, which limits its ability to appeal to the mind and heart. However, it's possible that new geniuses will at some point appear who overcome these various difficulties and create rap of a higher level than has so far existed.

Black people have absolutely no understanding of poetry or beauty

this, desu.

nice post, man.

Good post

Keats is dead so...

No Op, I find Rap music to be rather tedious and repetitive. It's quite clear that there are really only three characters to be found in the entirety of the genre and they are the criminal, the cad and the sophist. Every Rap song is written from one of these perspectives and hearing the same clichés about whipping water, flipping stacks or bossing heifers is exasperating to say the least. Now I know there are those who will point to the more intellectual rappers, if we can even use such a phrase, who address weightier themes than those vulgar examples I've listed above as some kind of redeeming influence on the genre. These types are the sophists I referred to earlier and they earn that name for their preoccupation with navel-gazing and wordplay. While they do on occasion manage to pen something clever, it only very rarely manages to be anything more than that. It's the kind of writing that is amusing, to which the best compliment for it is "neat." For most people this is enough but some of us require something grander, music that affirms the expansiveness of the human soul, that is not afraid to venture outside the ghetto. Yes that's what's so claustrophobic about Rap music, it's provincial.

I sincerely think MF DOOM is a smart guy and could be a literary figure if he wanted to

I'm thinking about getting into MF Doom, is it worth it? Where should I start?

Great post. This is why I maintain the best hip-hop albums, in terms of being works of art, are the ones that focus equally if not moreso on the production/music aspect than prioritizing lyrics or rapping technique. For example, I'd say Shabazz Palace's "Black Up" or J Dilla's "Donuts" are greater works of art than Nas' "Illmatic" or Wu-Tang's "36 Chambers." Which isn't to say those latter albums don't have pretty great production, I love DJ Premier and RZA, but it's still ultimately a little lacking compared to other kinds of music and the albums are carried by the rappers themselves.

Wow cultural appropriation.

>he's a white guy proud of being able to write/talk like he's black

What makes the production work so well on Black Up and Donuts that isn't there with Illmatic and 36 Chambers? And aren't the lyrics on those last two albums really sort of "stuck" in the constraints of rap?

Yes it is my friend. Have you heard anything of his ? If not, I recommend this rough sequence:

1. Madvillainy
2. Operation: Doomsday (my favorite)
3. Mm Food

After this look into his pseudonyms, Victor Vaughan and Kind Geedorah. That's some of his best stuff. The rest of his output is merely OK in my opinion

So DFW?

He's glad you've noticed his mastery of the negro-American dialect.

He was so proud.

I personally think Lupe Fiasco's Tetsuo and Youth is the best rap album lyrically speaking, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it as good as a most renown poets.
It's certainly better than all of the stuff I've listened to though, even Kendrick Lamar which is highly overrated imo.

Also, any people with 2 brain cells listens to rap for the music aspect of it, not to reflect upon life or develop complex thoughts. Most content in rap has been used over and over again, so there's very little to explore, that's why stuff like Death Grips is interesting, because they focus more on the music rather than trying to sound all smart, when there thousands of books and writers that do it better.

youtube.com/watch?v=EpZfIyhp-ZA

>MUH REFERENCES
No, bro, I'm really smart. Believe me.

kill /mu/ tourists

tfw I used to think this kind of shit was deep/insightful when I was in high school

is it just me or do we all go through pleb phases in life?

hip hop; hippity hop,
beep boop, skiddle-dee-doo,
rabadaba-dee-bop,
ooga
booga
boo

pls r8, like and subscribe for my next mixtape drop mah nigga