When a rapper says “throw your hands up”, I don’t
When a rapper says “make some noise”, I won’t
Bossing your audience is awful pompous
So I’ll never do it - that’s the STD promise
– Schaffer The Darklord, “The Rappist”
Oh man, MC Paul Barman’s “The Joy of Your World” is hilarious. It’s a rough start, but he seems to relax and hit his stride with some pretty tasty(NSFW) lyrics towards the end, and cracks me up when he gets down with his bad self bustin’ some serious nerdcore moves at the very end of the video
I’d never heard any nerdcore. Some of the lyrics are really great but the artists themselves are so vocally awkward, it seems like it would be hard to listen to as anything other than a novelty. I wish they were a little less… precise with their pronunciation, for one thing.
Aside from that, so far I’ve also checked out Rakim, J-Live, Big L, Nas, Method Man, and Cannibal Ox–some of this stuff is really great. Blackalicious’ Alphabet Aerobics is impressive
I completely agree with the Del, Sage Francis(one of my top 5 favorite lyricists) and Busdriver nominations.
I’d also like to toss in:
Aceyalone
Aesop Rock
Atmosphere
Blueprint
Blue Scholars
Dose-One
Dr. Octagon
Illogic
Haiku D’Etat
Living Legends
MC Hawking(especially for the SDMB)
Pharoahe Monch
Qwel
Rass Kass
Roots Manuva
Saul Williams(my all time fav!)
The Coup.
It is hard to find better writing, in any media, than the names on this list.
Oh! I’d forgotten about Dr. Octagon, a friend introduced me with a few MP3s a while back but I never did pick up any albums. I love the songs I’ve got though.
Can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Nice ‘n’ Smooth yet. Or Slick Rick. Two of the absolute best. Rhyming is one thing, anybody can rhyme. But real WORDPLAY, that’s a whole different story.
Nice ‘n’ Smooth:
Slick Rick- La Di Da Di is the track that a good 77.2% of modern rap songs considered “good” owe a very great deal to, or outright stole from.
Eminem’s wordplay:
Those are SONGS. The flow, the wordplay, the tone of voice- all of those things go together to make you realize that these guys are spitting syllables and throwing inflections that you MIGHT be able to follow along with after a year of practice but only if you could stop laughing first.
Word to StD, man. He’s the first artist I’ve “accidentally” discovered in a very long time. I snagged some of his songs and even put “Nerd Lust” on my MySpace page (how fucking COOL am I?!)
I know you are joking, (as was Eminem in the song you are quoting. Will Smith wasn’t joking when he said that dumb shit at an award show though), but the truth is Will Smith was not a bad party rapper when he first came out. He had a couple of nice joints in the beginnnig. And his DJ was nice! I mean, he was no DJ Premier, but he definitely had skills.
I am quoting an early song of Will Smith (not Eminem, I do not even listen to Eminem). And I really do think that Will Smith is a clever lyricists. Almost all the songs on his greatest hits album have clever lyrics. They are not deep or profound, but they are clever.
I do not have any idea what he said at any awards show.
Oh! Will Smith had made the comment that he doesn’t have to curst in his rhymes to sell records. And then Eminem put it in a rhyme,
Will Smith don’t have to cuss in his rhymes to sell albums
Well I do
So fuck Will Smith
And fuck you too
Or something like that. So when you mentioned that he doesn’t have to curse, I thought you were making reference. My mistake.
Much better artists that have many profanity-free songs and don’t have to curse (but occasionally do, as did Will) :
Black Thought
Rakim
KRS-ONE
De La Soul…actually it’s a really, really, really long list. Good artists that have tons of curse free songs are legion. Sell-out commercial trash out there that is curse free is legion also. Come to think of it…I can’t figure out just what point Will was trying to make when he said that!
