roots and culture

[Sampson]

recently i've been reading the complete keats
but coming up three nothing compares to these beats
these street symphonies this bittersweet poetry
it flows so beautifully; there's truth in these tracks
these emcees speak facts while these djs scratch

i'm going back to my roots cos i'm sick of the culture
hip hop is wisdom even if shakespeare is older
it's still poets pushing the same boulders
bearing the same burden on the same shoulders
it's the curse of the wordsmith from sonnets to spits
from vintage claret to fat spliffs
mozart was an artist just like nas is
and creativity always creates martyrs
just ask the masters the prophets
the philosophers the faceless bar staff
freestyling while they're cleaning the glasses
dreaming of catching a break and sipping champagne
in the name of hip hop

from tupac all the way back to kerouac
from a life in a backpack to a gat in the back of black SUV
from running the streets to cotching and bunning some weed
i'm beginning to see that beethoven woulda collaborated with aim
if he had of been composing today because it's all the same
it's all part of the chain

we could never to even begin claim that the records we play to today...
the roots from which we grow to the creative seeds which we sow...
we could never claim that they ain't affected by the greats in some way

[everyadventure]

The first two stanzas were SOLID. I caught the beat, was nodding my head in time, I could feel the truth and passion behind it...

and then it sort of skipped a beat... or two or three... "SUV" didn't flow, and pairing "running the streets" with "weed," well, you may be trying to establish a culture here, but it somehow lessens the esteem for these street poets. And the last stanza: I don't agree that the creative seeds of these rappers and emcees were in any way influenced by "the greats," Mozart and Keats. Tupac, probably...

It seems what you're saying in the beginning is that the street poetry is every bit as beautiful and relevant as classic poetry; that they both tackle the same essential topics. But you lose that focus in the last stanza.

I really, really liked the beginning!

[Sampson]

I agree that the last two stanzas lose their flow, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree that rappers are influenced by classical poets and musical greats. It seems that you missed the point that hip hop is just part of a creative tradition that stretches back thousands of years...

Any DJ worth their decks understands and appreciates classical music; any emcee worth listening to has probably read Shakespeare... Look out for a slam poet called Gemineye's piece 'Poetic Bloodline' and you might see what I mean.

The SUV/weed rhyme was a bit of a cop out in terms of concept... but the flow changes in that stanza and it's meant to be spoken faster with a bit more of a grime vibe (a nod to Akala)... it was kinda supposed to mirror a bass line drop.

cheers for the feedback (:

[blank|verse]

Yeah, you can certainly feel this one; really rhythmic, and it's a shame we can't hear it, I'm sure it works well as a performance poem, or rap. Good stuff, Sampson.

from tupac all the way back to kerouac
I'm not sure that's all that far back, though!

[everyadventure]

Yes, I want to hear it too! What do you say you turn on the webcam and post it to YouTube? Everyone chant it with me: Sampson! Sampson! Sampson!

[MorpheusSandman]

Thematically, I love it. The relationship and connection between classic art and modern art (in all its forms) is something I've long been fascinated with. I sometimes feel that classic art is somehow on this untouchable pedestal, that nothing of equal greatness, brilliance, genius, etc. is being produced today. I think this is only through the distorting eyes that turn classics into myths and legends but look more skeptically on what's happening around them. Shakespeare was as much a poet of the people as he was a poet for kings, emperors, or some all-encompassing universe. As you say, different times, but they wrote about the same things and carried the same weights. I love it when people really find those links between then and now.

That said, I think one key difference between rap and poetry is that rap is poetry set to a beat, while in poetry you have to create the rhythm through natural language and how you read printed words. It's very different disciplines. It's been said that Donne's meter was so "irregular" because many of his verses he composed as song lyrics whose meter could be manipulated in music, but you can't do that manipulation when you read it dry on a page, where meter, despite all the difficulties with the concept, reigns supreme. There's no consistent, discernible meter throughout your piece, which I think is more detrimental when you use end rhymes. I'm also more of a "use end rhymes or don't" kinda guy, and I really get messed up when you mix them.

Where this works best is in the internal rhymes, which very much create that rap aesthetic more effectively than end rhymes do. The internal echoes like "poetry/beautifully" and "tracks facts" work better than stuff like "Keats/beats" does because the meter is so disconnected. I especially liked the lines about freestyling bar staff, which is quite original. Overall, I think this is a piece that just needs some retooling with more attention to how to turn a rap aesthetic into a more poetry-on-paper aesthetic.