In our paper, we will try to understand and find a correspondence between such concepts as rap and classic poetry. In our article, we hold a point of view, according to which rap is still modern poetry. In any poetry, we find the good and bad, but got used to calling all this stuff the poetry. So there is the same division into good and bad rap. The main “Chief of Justice”, that is, the factor separating rap and poetry into good and bad is time. Until our times, there have been a lot of poems, true masterpieces of world classics. However, very few know that in those days there were bad poets writing less talented poetry. Perhaps, they were even popular in a certain period of time. However, it is what is called natural selection in the poetry with the passage of time. Strong product ousted weak ones, staying in people's minds for many centuries. A similar situation, we see today in rap. Maybe, it is not so clearly visible, as the rap as a genre has existed since the late 80s, almost 30 years. However, it must be noted how a strong rap poetry, and under this angle we can certainly consider rap of Notorious BIG, 2Pac, Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan and pr., came into the first place and has left behind the less talented, but not less productive, and maybe even then known performers. And now, you can select those artists, whose poetry will pass through time and will always be there as a representative of a generation.
So, to begin to compare poetry and rap, there should be given a definition to both of the concepts. There are a lot of poetry definitions, including in poetical form, but in general the poetry can be described as a method of organization of speech, divided into intonation intervals, that is, lines, that give the text, in this case, the verse, poetic sound, which in turn is the opposite of prose. In turn, the rap at its base contains the recitative and musical accompaniment, i.e. a bit. Recitative is a form of vocal play, which is not subject to the general symmetric rhythm, something in the likeness of melodious call. At the beginning of its history, the rap was more like a modern epic, that is, the main way of rap presentation was storytelling. The first rap artists began to narrate different stories, usually based on their own experience. Over time, the culture grew, and it began to change the themes of rap songs, or rather new topic for the story began to be added, thus expanding the range of artists and creating the whole subgenres, such as: g-funk, rapcore, alternative hip hop, grime, cloud rap and so on (Smitherman 259).
Not only hip-hop can be attributed to the modern poetry, as it includes the rest of the music genres that contain a rhyming lyrics. Not without purpose, the word “lyrics” means "lyric" verses, "lyrics", subsequently also meant "the words of a popular song". If you need a text of any rap song, usually people look up a song title in Google and add the word “lyrics” at the end of the word, to clarify that it is necessary to the find the verses of the song, rather than the entire composition.
Opinions on whether it is possible to consider the entire rap as the poetry have been divided. However, in this article, we adhere to the following opinion. If we remove minus from the rap composition, that is, the musical accompaniment, as well as the chorus, leaving only the verses, the remaining lyrics are perceived and sound like poetry, this can be called a modern rap and an example of modern poetry. However, as practice shows, against the background of a huge number of rap artists in our time, which can be called the era of hip-hop, only a small portion of them can be called as modern poets. If we compare the rap artists with classical poets, the latter are undoubtedly more. However, we emphasize that we should not forget that the rap as a genre is only 30 years old and has a bright future.
There is a theory that the word “rap” is an abbreviation for rhythm and poetry, which indicates that most likely the time, when rap was created and its founders perceived it as a new genre of poetry. They saw themselves in the role of modern poets. However, this is not quite true. The word “rap” comes from the English word “rap”, which meant “punch”, “knock”. Later the verb “to rap” came into use, which meant "to speak".
Generally, in our time, this whole debate about rap and poetry is similar to the product of "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, in which the author put forward the thesis that the world is going to drown in a ton of information of a second-rate quality (Huxley 27). And yes, in that Huxley was undoubtedly right. Today, one in three has a computer at home, which allows anyone to record a rap song from beginning to end. And everyone “pours” his or her "work" into the network, creating a layer cake, where a quality of product has to compete for the right to be heard. In the days of the classic poets, poetry usually involved more educated people, another thing is that not all of them were talented, but they were forced to be educated due to their profession, in which they were engaged. There was no global network, where poets exchanged their works, thereby excluding the crowd of imitators that subtly changing someone else's product, already claim to uniqueness. In those days, no one could doubt that the creation of the poems is art. In our time, it is considered to be a poem while talking about everything that has anything to do with a rhyme. Hence, the confusion on the subject of what is in modern music, particularly in rap, poetry and what is not.
Meanwhile, there is no doubt that classical poetry could be rap. There are pilot projects, in which classical poetry is superimposed on the instrumental. Thus, the poems of the world classic become a rhythmic sound, turning into rap. This leads to the involuntary conclusion that rap is a poem with the rhythmic sound. However, the same definition has recitative. In turn, the musical concept is recitation, even divided into species. This means that rap can be simultaneously poetry, and at the same time, something larger, since besides poetry it includes also music, a variety of techniques, a chorus, etc.
It should be understood that poetry like any other phenomenon is a changeable thing, prone to progress and transformation. Over time, poetry has changed, and each generation has seen it in its own way. Only perennial topics such as: life, love, death, friendship, success, politics, betrayal, etc. remained unchanged. In this regard, each generation has devised a unique way to express its conclusions on the above subject. Thus, a variety of musical genres, containing verses at its core began to appear. After all, we do not argue with the fact that the lyrics of the greatest bands such as The Beatles, Queen, Rolling Stone, as well as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, etc. can be called poetry. Of course, not! The songs of these artists come into the list of the world heritage of mankind. So why the rap, which in its sounding, is closer to poetry than the aforementioned composition cannot be attributed to the poetry itself? (Pate 24). We think that there is no doubt that there is rap poetry and lyrics of rap songs can be called poetry. Another thing is that the quality of these poems is often second-rate, but this is the omission of culture. What poets – such poems. In the Renaissance, often on the streets you could see the street "rhymers", who wrote poems on the most ordinary everyday topics. Today, such people are believed to be the poets, representatives of a poetic flow (Wood 15). For example, the representatives of the vagantes, a song and poetry movement of the period from 11th till the 14th century can be certainly compared to “medieval gangsta rappers”, composing poems about social inequality, love, their adventures, about God, etc. And then, what Snoop Dogg, Nas, Ice Cube and Eminem did worse than Gautier de Chatillion, Primas Aurelianensis or Archipoeta, who lived 800 years ago (Parker 12). Both represent the poetry of the streets. Just rap can be compared with romanticism, not to be confused with the romanticism of sentimentalism, which is characterized by love lyrics, admiration of nature and so on. Romanticism, in turn, represents the struggle and resistance against the prevailing moral canons, often directed against the ruling elite. In this role, the poets of the Great French Revolution have seen themselves, creating poetry on the theme of struggle and confrontation, raising a variety of social problems in their works. And then there is some connection with rap. After all, in the beginning, there was a rap as a protest. Recalling at leat the band NWA, where Dr.Dre with his “Bros” openly expressed their disagreement. Tracks like “Straight Outta Compton”, “Fu ** da Police” and others, are filled with the most romantic, the desire to fight for their ideals. Like the poets, the representatives of Romanticism, the rap performers of the golden era of hip-hop used a poem to convey to the masses their own ideas and views (Horrowitz, n.p.). This proves once again that rap and poetry are closely intertwined. Nowadays, there are a sufficient number of rappers, not only in the US, which can be called modern poets. As one of these, we have identified Kendrick Lamar. There are cases, when the school teacher of English Brian Mooney decided to use the lesson of literature the lyrics of Kendrick from his latest album. The teacher came to a conclusion that the songs of Lamar in complexity of construction of rhymes and semantic load do not concede the poems of classical poets. Especially in today's American society, where every third teenager listens to hip-hop, this method of language learning would be assimilated much better. As shown, the students took to the approval of such changes in the educational process. Moreover, inspired by the compositions of Lamar, they have decided to try themselves in the difficult craft – poetry (Wright).
So, let us sum up. We realized that rap has the right to be called the modern poetry. However, it is worth separating the peel from bananas. There was always bad poetry but it just has not reached our times, having turned out to be uncompetitive. Nowadays, rap is just divided into qualitative and second-rate. The latter is, unfortunately, more. But we have already figured out that this is due to increasing globalization and such its form as the emergence of new communication tools. In particular, with the advent of services, such as YouTube, Facebook, as well as multiple applications and computer programs that allow you to create a rap at home, and then to share your "creations" with the other inhabitants of the network. In this regard, the World Wide Web is filled with lots of low-quality product, issued for rap. Many even claim the status of poets, without even trying to understand the very essence of poetry. Earlier, the poetry was born as the trends of the soul, as a lyrical protest or argument on the eternal themes such as life, love, death, friendship and so on; and most importantly, the poets of those times did it for free. Today, "modern poets", that is, rappers tend to grab as much money on their albums and signals, and then, in an interview, without a drop of doubt in the face, claim that they are street poets, Street Poets such as vagantes, i.e. the "poor people", who could get old without becoming rich, but at the same time still write a great poem. So we come to the second conclusion. In addition to the right to call itself as poetry, rap needs to be divided into the true manifestation of the poetic skills such as Kendrick, for example, but also into low-grade poetry, which probably can be identified with national folklore than with poetry. Most often, in the folklore, there are no witty rhymes and deep reflections on high themes. In other words: "What I see and what I sing". As these, we consider the overwhelming majority of rap artists. However, among other things, which appear in rap, there are appearing performers, who can be called poets. In this role, we see GZA aka Genius from Wu-Tang, B.I.G, Kendrick Lamar. In other words, their work is a modified poetry. They found their way to express themselves through poetry, giving it a modern unique sound. One cannot but agree that rap is a great way to enjoy the same poetry, only accompanied by music. In other words, it is a matter of culture, which in our time, unfortunately, is only a parasite on poetry. Everyone wants to be a rapper, but not everyone is aware that rap is a modern poetry, and poetry is an art, nothing else. I hope that rap in the future will evolve into something that would be at least one step closer to the poetry of Byron or Rembrandt, while modern rap and will give itself in sacrifice and become a breeding ground for the emergence of a new poetic trend in culture.
Works cited
Horrowitz, Steven. "Jay-Z Explains Why Rap Should Be Considered Poetry". HipHopDX. N.p., 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited. London: Chatto & Windus, 1959. Print.
Parker, Scott F. Eminem And Rap, Poetry, Race. Print.
Pate, Alexs D. In The Heart Of The Beat. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010. Print.
Smitherman, Geneva. "The Power Of The Rap: The Black Idiom And The New Black Poetry". Twentieth Century Literature 19.4 (1973): 259. Print.
Wood, Brent. "Understanding Rap As Rhetorical Folk-Poetry". PA 9.2 (2014): 3-18. Web.
Wright, Colleen. "Kendrick Lamar, Rapper Who Inspired A Teacher, Visits A High School That Embraces His Work". Nytimes.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
