Growing up on the works of Shel Silverstein, I quickly developed an affinity for rhyme schemes and wordplay. This preadolescent experience with language games later evolved into a deeper adoration of the English language when, as a 9-year-old, I received my first rap album, The Marshall Mathers LP. I am now a hip-hop head, and proud of it.
Many are entranced with rap for its aesthetic value. Complex flows and masterful beats tend to offer a most pleasurable listening experience. I like flow and I like good beats, but my esteem for rap music truly stems from the fact that I view it as poetry. And this poetry has wielded much influence over my development as a person and as a student.
In contrast to other forms of music, which convey a story less through lyrics and more through instrumental rhythm and tone of voice, rap is an art form that relies on words to express itself. Intricate flow and sharp beats only serve to enhance the story revealed by the author’s diction. When rap is good, the audience empathizes with the words. They feel exactly what the author wants them to. Listening to insane amounts of rap music has enhanced my critical thinking, writing and listening abilities.
There is a concept that novelists often employ in their writings when their works fall in line with a particular tradition. This concept, in which one finds striking similarities between entire pages of separate novels, is known as intertextuality. In order to extend a conversation, artists perpetuate the discussion of their predecessors. Rappers often do this as well. In order pick up on this, one must have a sense of the history of rap, but one must also develop one’s own critical thinking skills.
So, when on J. Cole’s “Cheer Up,” he quotes 2Pac’s “Changes,” saying “I wake up in the morning and I ask myself/ Is life worth living, should I blast myself?” the audience is forced to juxtapose the lyrics and resituate their place in each respective song. During this synthesis of knowledge, the audience further understands the author’s mood and thought process at the time of writing.
When one listens to hours upon hours of intellectual rap music, that person begins to understand how to articulate a scene, emotion or idea effectively in his or her own writing. When sitting in English class in junior high school, the number one piece of advice that my teachers drove home was “show, don’t tell.”
By showing someone something, you must delve into all of the “whys and becauses” of the story. You must be analytical, as people relate to reasoning. And people, myself included, also often internalize material learned inside the classroom through encounters with it in a foreign setting. My foreign setting is with my headphones on.
Personally, I listen to an unhealthy amount of Eminem. On each classic Eminem song, the audience is encapsulated in his life. Feeling what he feels is unavoidable. That is because he flawlessly delineates the “becauses.” His story always flows smoothly and logically. For instance, on “Sing for the Moment,” Eminem spends three minutes elaborating on the perils of being a rapper and the demonizing that accompanies rap superstardom.
His exhausting prose leaves one wondering why someone would go through these trials and tribulations. Sure enough, he answers that question in the third verse, as he states, “We sing for these kids who don’t have a thing, except for a dream and a rap magazine… we’re nothing to you but we’re the shit in their eyes.”
Finally, rap music has elevated my listening skills. When the essence of an art form is words, and one really enjoys that art form, then one must enhance his or her listening abilities to fully grasp what the author is saying. To comprehend the entire message as one logical story, you can’t zone out.
Just like listening to a person, listening to a rap song is an active process. You must give your undivided attention, you must put yourself in someone else’s shoes and you must draw connections to either your own personal experiences or similar experiences you have encountered second-hand.
Wax poetic with Zac over Shel Silverstein and Eminem via email at pestine@wisc.edu.
