Good morning, good afternoon, happy weekend, etc! HP in the building, sipping coffee and thinking about another element of hip hop music that is integral to our enjoyment of the genre, to the culture, and to the artistry of the many rappers we know and love.
That’s right- the verse! The bars, the rhyme, the flow, the wordplay, the delivery, the breath control, the voice, the vibe- all of it. Whether written down or free styled, ad-libbed or practiced, the rap verse can tell a story, get folks hyped up, let us know who the rapper is and why we should pay attention, come at us all contemplative, or just blow us away with lyrical dexterity.
Along with some of the other components of a hip hop song we’ve talked about thus far, the verse is one of those things that has continued to push its own boundaries and expectations with creativity, quotations from previous works and constantly changing ideas about everything from rhyme schemes to verse lengths. Sometimes the opening verse grabs us; sometimes that last verse makes us say ‘Hmm..’; sometimes we listen again and again, waiting for that awesome chorus.
Even if you’re not sure how to count bars in a rap song, even if you don’t know what a bar is in a rap song, even if you don’t catch every word in a verse, you know what moves you! We’re not looking for a critical assessment (unless that’s your thing, of course), but just a verse you know from a rap song that you think is really cool/creative/impressive/fun/amazing, etc. It can be your favorite verse, but it doesn’t have to be!
I like so many things about this song, and every verse is exciting and technical and cool in ways that I really like, but for my contribution to today, I’m thinking specifically about J-Treds verse, which is the 2nd verse in the song:
My words speak for themselves, so feel me
Cause on the mic I’ve got more presence
Than attendance in a class of schizophrenics, hear, hear
Drink to that pick up raps, intoxicating
Got your craving my living proof, mixture of speech and wine
To’ up from just the flow but pass the liquor it’s over
Henny dead even when twisted I get open like Venetian blinds
I love the way that it uses metaphor and runs the idea of intoxication through a few lines and ends with a simile. There’s something unpredictably predictable, if that makes sense, about each verse, but especially this one. Brilliant stuff.
Ok- bring ’em out!
1.) The tricky/fun thing about this 30 day ‘challenge’ is that you get one choice (see, it’s a challenge! If you’ve already mentioned a song from an album you’d like to pick on a previous day, it’s cool-just pick a different song if you can. If you can quote some of the lyrics so we can read *and* listen, that would be awesome. Feel free to use genius.com as a resource-you don’t have to paste the whole verse in, but a few bars will do the trick!
2.) In order to keep the thread from borking, please limit yourself to one YouTube/media link per post. If someone ‘beats you to it’ and posts a song you would’ve posted, reply under their post saying why you like this song/why it was your pick as well, etc. Let’s not give Disqus a reason to make the thread hard to navigate for those of us listening to the songs! If you want to mention some others, of course that’s fine!
3.) Let’s keep this as positive as we can. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum, don’t snark on someone who may not be as familiar as others, don’t ‘Um, actually’ people, etc. Remember that it’s not always possible to know what a song or artist means to someone, and try to give grace around that. Ain’t nobody earning any Internet Points out here.
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