SG, good stuff. Nb.1 also is hilarious – you took her to the britz instead of Ritz?
:hahaha;
Yes, and I would show you some if you didn’t have an aversion to listening/watching media online. 
You can’t just write off all rap as being unintelligent and about sex, drugs, and pretending to kill people. Just as there’s rock that does that, there’s rap that doesn’t.
EDIT: Ahh Seifer don’t credit me! I didn’t make that 
How many rock bands have abacus or unencumbered in their lyrics?
Saul Williams says:
“I am the life that supercedes lifetimes, I am
It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare
that with immortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules
They still exist as the walking dead, as I do
The original sulphurhead, symbol of life and matriarchy
severed head Medusa, I am”
(from 1987)
Saul Williams in general is lots of big vocabulary and social commentary. Some of the writing might count as ebonics, but it’s usually used for effect.
In Tree of Knowledge, Sage Francis adds:
“I’m a construct of your world, deep-rooted, polluted and tortured
Abused and altered, I just caught you eves dropping
Adam’s rising to pluck the fruit from off the branch
reaching out to touch your inner-drives
Cut me open and count the rings inside to see how long I’ve been alive
Containing forms of records about the types of storms I’ve weathered
Leave a stump for kids to carve initials as long as I’m remembered
But lessons go forgotten plus you don’t believe a thing
Listening to the whispering of my leaves in the wind
When the breezes begin you’re just concerned with flying kites
Till I tangle up your child’s play and get you climbing heights
Still reluctant to hear me out admiring the sites
You have no idea what it was like being nailed to Christ
You’re swinging from the twigs and limbs that used to hang your siblings
Have respect you selfish self-centered sack of man-made buildings
I was the original pinnacle but now I’m nothing to you but kindling
Tickling my inhibitions of naturally attracting children
Who have a funny idea of what forever is
I witnessed the first time lips kissed with stripped innocence
Not too long after that was I supplying shade
For a man caressing silverbacks trying to get laid
Monkeying around and now they’re all dying of A. I. D. S
Government guerilla tactics? That’s a farce, I bring the plagues
Cancer? That’s just icing on the cake, I nurse and feed ya
Cause you drained me of my sap with taps of perverse procedure
I hold your family background right down to the first amoeba
Watched you grow from just crustacean to a land mammal, it hurts to leave ya
But I’ve had enough, and it’ll be very relieving
Just who do you think supplies the air you’re breathing?
Humongous oxygen tanks? As if it’s all free
Constantly wondering where your dogs are at?
They’re barking up the wrong tree
Wanting proof of identification but I existed before fingerprints
Cognitive dissonance… I hear chainsaws in the distance
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s there to hear it
Does it make a sound? I’ll go down quietly but you’re feel it
Still these sick like thoughts keep eating away at my inside
Till I’m nothing but hollowed out hide…
The dead tree’s still standing, here comes the hunting-ax of lumberjacks
So I attract like lightning when the thunder cracks, I’m under attack
So I may finally… stop… stumble… relax…”
There’s enough internal rhyme in that to impress Poe, and Nabokov would give an approving nod to the wordplay. As for big words, “cognitive dissonance” beats the not-too complex words you gave examples.
Lord, yes, Sage Francis is where it’s at.
Also, while it’s on my mind, using words with multisyllabic words doesn’t really make something intelligent. In fact, I find it more interesting when bands use smaller words. I refer to George Orwell’s rule of “Don’t use a large word when a smaller word will do.”
Hmm… I’m looking at those words and wondering why I don’t seem impressed by them. I think it’s just because there are so many of them. Part of the reason rap can have as much rhyme as it does is because the lines are so large and you can fit that many lines in a song. Most rock/pop songs have to squeeze their meaning into smaller lines, so when it works it can be quite powerful. The quotes above sound like (strangely enough…) someone just talking.
Anyway… I’m now sorry I brought up the whole idea. If I’d known people would be insisting I start listening to rap I’d never have mentioned it at all.
So, you said rap artists typically don’t use big words, talking only about life on the SKREET. That’s why you don’t like it. Then Arac posts some rap which has plenty of big words in it, used correctly mind you, and you say THAT’s why you don’t like rap. Because they use big words too much to have any effect. Okay.
Really, if you want to say you don’t like rap, that’s fine. I don’t like rap. It doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t have to give an explanation. I just don’t typically like it. I don’t then go and get elitist about it.
The point isn’t to force you to learn, or hell, even to make you appreciate rap, it’s simply that they want to be clear that rap is a type of music. Much as I am forced to admit dance is a type of music, though I don’t go any further than that.
My reason for arguing was just that I found the statements factually. There’s plenty of intelligent lyrics in rap. I’d say that either song I quoted contains far more literary technique (and merit) than the Barenaked Ladies lyric, which doesn’t have much but pretty intense rhyme going for it. While that’s partly a matter of opinion, saying rap lacks “Intelligence” is a point I’d argue against, whether you like it or not.
You can like rap or not, but saying its lyrics are unintelligent, or inferior because the lines are too long (looking at the song you quoted, they’re not much longer, and I think most Saul Williams lines are actually shorter), is something I will argue against, since it doesn’t really have much merit. Like the 984 said, you’re welcome to your choice and opinion, but leave it at that, don’t try and justify it with largely unbased, elitist statements.
I mostly just wanted to say that you can find something you like in rap, much like any other genre of music. You just have to be willing to look. If you’re not, though, you’re going to just be listening to your new Barenaked Ladies album over and over again, wondering if there’s anything else out there that can rock your world, be it rap, jazz, rock, funk, or what have you. Measuring the worth of a band simply by the genre of their music, or the rhyme scheme of their lyrics and the words they use, is going to limit you heavily. Once you get over that, you’ll find that music has an awful lot more to offer.
I’m sorry, everyone… I’ve been a bit of jerk throughout this entire thread. I’ve even misrepresented myself once or twice (such as when I said I don’t listen to/watch media online, which is mostly untrue).
I’m a mass of complexes when it comes to music and trying to figure out why I like or dislike what I do has apparently been a failed experiment.
I don’t like rap, and I never will, so yes, I’m limiting myself there. I also don’t like R&B, country, grunge, trance, or electronica. But then again, I buy music maybe once a year if that. I have about thirty hours of music and it takes me about four or five months to listen to it all (I only listen to music during my 20-minute commute). So I’m not desperate for new stuff.
I’m not even sure why I made this thread. Most of the music I have is soundtracks with no lyrics at all.
I think I’m going to stop trying to convince anyone to like what I do… it generally ends in embarrassment, and most of the time I’m in the minority anyway.
Lyrics aren’t even necessary either. Andy McKee’s writing means more to me than BNL could ever hope to, and he doesn’t even use words. <–Swear I wrote this before I saw Cid’s post.
I don’t agree with what Arac said about merit. The BNL have merit, it’s just a different kind that tends to go under-appreciated.
Most of the music I enjoy is a little bit darker, sadder, angrier, and more personal. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone to find out I consider the Barenaked Ladies to be kind of a farce. I mean, in the song Cid quoted in the original post… they’re pretty much rapping about elves and santa. IMHO, cool rhymes aren’t going to save that song from sounding vapid to a huge majority of people.
BNL ftw:
It’s the perfect time of year
Somewhere far away from here
I feel fine enough, I guess
Considering everything’s a mess.
There’s a restaurant down the street
Where hungry people like to eat
I could walk, but I’ll just drive
It’s colder than it looks outside.It’s like a dream - you try to remember but it’s gone, then ya
Try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn, when ya
Try to see the world beyond your front door.
Take your time cos the way I rhyme’s gonna make you smile, when ya
Realise that a guy my size might take a while, just to
Try to figure out what all this is for.It’s the perfect time of day
To throw all your cares away
Put the sprinkler on the lawn
And run through with my gym shorts on.
Take a drink right from the hose
And change into some drier clothes
Climb the stairs up to my room
Sleep away the afternoon.It’s like a dream - you try to remember but it’s gone, then ya
Try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn, when ya
Try to see the world beyond your front door.
Take your time cos the way I rhyme’s gonna make you smile, when ya
Realise that a guy my size might take a while, just to
Try to figure out what all this is for.
Pinch Me
Pinch Me
Cos I’m still asleep.
Please God
Tell Me
That I’m still asleepOn an evening such as this
It’s hard to tell if I exist
If I Packed the car and leave this town
Who will notice that I’m not around?
I could hide out under there
I just made you say ‘underwear’
I could leave but I’ll just stay
All my stuff’s here anyway.It’s like a dream - you try to remember but it’s gone, then ya
Try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn, when ya
Try to see the world beyond your front door.
Take your time cos the way I rhyme’s gonna make you smile, when ya
Realise that a guy my size might take a while, just to
Try to figure out what all this is for.
Try to figure out what all this is for.
Try to see the world beyond your front door.
Try to figure out what all this is for.
Try to figure out what all this is for.
Try to figure out what all this is for.
[edited for content]
I never, ever, ever thought me and Hades would be on the same side of the rap arguement :o Cid, you always struck me as an open minded individual and an smart guy. The narrow mindedness demonstrated by you in this thread left me rather shocked.
I’m open-minded about ideas and people. Not about the kind of things I enjoy. I’m not going to start playing dating sim games or sports games, nor watching war movies. I’m not going to start reading non-fiction extensively besides newspapers. And I’m not going to start listening to rap. I can’t simply wake up one day and decide that I suddenly enjoy these things.
There are generally enough things in life that I enjoy without having to seek out others. I barely have enough time in the day to experience the things I do like. And I fail to see how declaring my dislike for particular things makes me narrow-minded. I’m not asking anyone else to agree with me. I wouldn’t think that your average African-American young male would enjoy Simon and Garfunkel, and being a 27-year-old upper-middle-class white nerdy Jewish male makes me rather unlikely to enjoy Puff Daddy or whoever.
I was just saying that, from the usual critical standpoint, Sage Francis is far more literary. Which one has more merit is a matter of opinion, of course. Bob Dylan lyrics are plenty literary, I still think they’re stupid as hell, with a few exceptions. John Keats’ poetry is very well established in the literary canon, but I can’t read it without condescending giggles mixed with digusted gags.
My only point was that Sage Francis is far closer to an entry in the literary canon of poetry, when it comes to a debate about intelligent lyrics.
My 55-year-old middle-class white protestant female mom loves Outkast, when it comes to stereotypes.
Never said that every single person in a stereotype must fall into that stereotype, merely that it’s not unreasonable for me to do so.
Sorry, Cid, if I came across too harshly when I was talking to you in this thread.
Let me add, randomly, that the largest demographic in the US that buys rap music are suburban white males.
I think that’s partially to do with the sheer number of white suburban males in terms of demographics.
No one was forcing you to like rap. I believe all this started when you said rap was not music because you didn’t like it. Of course you gave explanations for your reasoning (which were faulty), but no one was saying you have to like it.