That’s a rap on poetry
Recently, several rap and hip hop heavyweights got together to hold a press conference in Moorgate, London. Taking the stage as the defacto leader, Snoop Dogg—flanked by Frank Ocean, Nicki Minaj, and Nas—addressed the assembled reporters and millions of fans watching from home.
“Now. Y’all may be wondering why I have asked you to assemble today,” began Snoop. “Truth is, we have something we need to tell you. While rap and hip hop have been the arbiters of mine and my fellows’ success, we haven’t exactly been candid.”
“You see, the earliest form of hip hop can be dated back to the 1920s, but moreover, the 1940s when Tom the Great aka Thomas Wong invented the sound systems that would give rise to artists like Clive Campbell, widely recognized as the father of the genre.”
But as Snoop alluded to a great secret, the atmosphere of the press conference grew tense. What Snoop and his fellows revealed next sent seismic reverberations through the world.
“The forefathers of rap were, originally, poets.”
A shocked gasp stole through the reporters.
“For real,” Snoop continued. “They got together and recognized that nobody was gonna buy their shit if they marketed themselves as such.”
“All rap artists are involved in a long-running con. We’re all poets. Y’all’ve been listening and vibing to poetry for decades.”
A journalist in the crowd asked, in a dazed voice, for clarification. Minaj stepped up from the podium to answer.
“Nobody wants to hear poetry from a black Trinidadian poet named Onika Tanya Maraj. Nobody wants to buy an album of poetry set to instrumentals. We’ve known this all along.”
Immediately, shocked fans and onlookers took to the internet in droves to react to the sudden revelation, tweeting #RapNoMore and #poetryiscRap.
One shocked blogger, writing under the name thawhitenword, wrote, “I for one, am completely disgusted. I never woulda listened to that shit if I’d known it was actually that pansy-ass shit.”
Many individuals who previously identified themselves as rap-fans felt similarly.
“I dunno. I used to skip the poetry unit back in high school English. It was so boring, it didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t get it,” explained a young woman.
Another young person, who describes themselves as coming from a white middle-class background tweeted, “Nas’s Illmatic spoke to me, livin’ on the streets, I got that. Now? Poetry doesn’t speak for me.”
Across the world, individuals are sharing similar stories of betrayal. Rap had allowed them to connect through vernacular and shared language, had presented them with a lens through which the world can organize itself in four minutes or less, and proved that meaning can be conveyed with inventive and creative uses of language, rhythm, and instrumentation. Now? The disillusioned fans of rap and hip hop aren’t sure of where to turn. Now ex-enthusiasts of rap and hip hop are turning to the rest of the musical genres, stating defeatedly, “It can’t all be poetry.”
In response to the backlash, young rappers Frank Ocean and Tyler the Creator released a track called “Dudes, it all rhymed. What the fuck did you think it was?”
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman.