IN THE HEAD OF AN EMCEE! RAP MESSAGES MORE THAN JUST LYRICS.
An emcee must be held responsible for what he
says, there’s no doubt about that. He/she
approaches the mic with an ambition, with a
message — this much we know. But what is this
“message” and do all emcees truly understand
what their message is when they deliver it? Here’s
a little something about why I think the message of
a rap song cannot be looked for just in the lyrics.
I can’t allow myself (yet?) to believe that speaking
or thinking of specific words and taking into account
what they (or parts of them) sound like, are “coded”
either positively or negatively and might induce an
action or lack of one. Mostly because of the many
meanings of words, all the honomymic/homoformic
forms, compounds, slang, different forms of nouns
and verbs etc. The English language is changing at
the speed of light, which makes this presumption
extremely unstable. To top this — I also don’t
believe cuss words and phrases are something to
avoid in rap music.
What I believe in, though, is that the correct
(whatever this might mean) usage of unpleasant or
even obscene lyrics can project an altogether
positive message. It may seem offensive to some,
whose tolerance towards swearing or adult/taboo
themes is not as high — often, because of personal
reasons — however, this often might transform into
an unproportionally positively charged and
motivational source of information and what some
people call “energy” or “vibe”.
I have to note that I only base this upon my own
observations, “hip-hop instincts” and how I interpret
these so-called “energy” of rap music. I myself
grew up listening to The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch
Up”and I feel that encountering this music has been
one of the best experiences of my life. I also
haven’t made a habit of smacking bitches up,
either, luckily for all of us.
Enter hip-hop. My theory is, rap can be mentally
beneficial and mentally harmful or negatively
charged, and in most cases it’s connected to what’s
really happening inside of the emcee’s brains at the
moment of delivering the message. Not what the
emcee’s rapping about, but with what
purpose the emcee is rapping.
I recently took part in a casual discussion about
materialist themes in rap lyrics and music videos,
more precisely — how individually these
materialistic symbols are perceived. In hip-hop,
there’s a lot of different things to take in account
besides the music. The concept of personality, for
instance: in hip-hop, everybody’s telling their own
story. This might even not be expressed in lyrics but
in the life of the rapper, their experience, their life’s
choices, views etc. This is why it’s important that
the listener can get to know the rapper, so that he
could absorb his story properly.
A banal, but fitting example: Soulja Boy and J Dilla.
Both of them like expensive vehicles (in Dilla’s case
— trucks), both of them like diamonds (who
doesn’t?). But, in the eyes of a hip-hop patriot,
Dilla’s diamonds have a completely different value,
because they symbolize practically opposite things.
The real question here is… what does it mean? Is
this bragging? Is this pride? If so, for what? Is there
even anything to be proud of?…
It is quite possible that the rapper on the stage
who’s rapping about money, really just raps about
money: about how happy it makes him that he’s
getting it, about how glad he is about his crib where
he throws crazy parties and abuses quality drugs.
It is also possible that the rapper on the stage who’s
rapping about money raps about the dreams he’s
fulfilled, about the power of not giving up, about the
barriers he’s overcome, about setting a good
example and how you have to work hard to
succeed. The most important thing here, however,
is that the listeners, blinded by bling, stereotypes
and jealousy, don’t forget to ask themselves
— what does it mean?
What you hear or read surprisingly often may not
even be close to what it means. A dude rapping
about how he doesn’t give two shits about what the
haters say, has, most likely, been hurt by hate. By
saying “and fuck them haters I’ma just keep
movin’”, the message he delivers to a more-or-less
experienced hip-hop listener is “I hope that now
when I’ve publically expressed my displeasure with
the Internet hate it will drastically reduce the
amount of objective and biased criticism towards
my music and myself.” And all this confusion and
contradiction does not assist the delivery of a
deliberate message; instead, all that is created is a
product of duplicity, egoism and falsehood. And,
while in terms of content this can be interpreted as
a great message, all that this emcee involuntary
delivers to our minds is his untreated problems that
are expressed in an alternative way and won’t in
any way motivate veteran hip-hop heads, because
they will sense this a mile away.
This is why I believe that every word that has that
iceberg quality to it, every word that has been
spoken from heart, and every word that carries a
weight and with an aim to aid good, even if using
negative means, is a far greater and more valuable
investment in humanity that a pile of regurgitated
preachments and nice sounding words that have
been formed into a sentence because of completely
different reasons than it might at first seem,
without any intention to create something that
really has an influence and natural resonance.
What I mean is, you can write a cheesy and
intentionally motivational song about dreams and
how important it is to follow them, but as soon as I
notice that you have no idea what you’re talking
about, to me, it means nothing; they’re just rhymes,
without any kind of substance. I don’t know what
the situation in schools is nowadays, but I
remember we used to get graded better for what I
could only call fake thoughts. This, however, is hip-
hop, and if you can’t speak from your heart, I won’t
feel your shit. I’m not saying this should matter to
you, but what I am saying is this is what I believe to
be of utmost importance. Stay true to yourself.
Written by ansis
Rapper, beatmaker/producer, Dj,
podcaster, hip-hop citizen
