Hip hop and rap are the modern equivalents of poetry. Only form to use constant meter and rhythm, as well as the extra poetic techniques found in Homer or the Pearl Poet. Word play is a big part of a rapper’s repertoire and the same goes for John Keats back in the day. The knightly code of a samurai or warrior poet writing a poem at death is also familiar in rap.

When people start comparing rap, a pseudo-improvisational attempt to keep up with a simple 4/4 beat and impress the audience by bragging about their lives, to poetry, like capital P Poetry, I have to question whether they've actually read poetry on a serious level.

Like, could Coates read Yeats's "He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" and pick up on how Yeats deliberately contrasts his first quatrain's dactylic beat with the second quatrain's anapestic metre to emphasise his narrator's bitter humility and better contradict his fantasies? Does he understand the sheer amount of effort, skill, and intelligence it takes to consciously manipulate the rhythm not of a sentence or a phrase, but of the very way each and every syllable itself is pronounced and arranged in order to represent a complex and emotional idea? To do this while maintaining a coherent grammatical and original rhyming structure AND while delivering a series of stunning images that range from religious ecstasy to poverty and psychological turmoil? To then subtly contradict this established structure in order to draw attention to yet another complex idea?

This isn't just a spread of internal rhymes, puns, and catchy slang; this is a man loading no more than eight lines with as much content as the English language allows.

Illmatic is a good album. Nas is a talented rapper. But to say that a 16 year-old kid from the projects operates at the level of a Nobel Prize-winning poet is absolute horseshit. No he fucking does not; he wrote his lyrics according to some DJ Premier beat and his own public image. You want to judge his writing as poetry? You want to look at his words when they're neutered from the music and live audience they were written to accompany? Okay, let's look. There is no coherent metre, let alone any conscious metrical technique. His rhyme scheme is all over the fucking place, and a lot of phrases were awkwardly forced in just to hit those incredibly simple end rhymes. The narrative is sloppy and its images are repetitive; he abandons ideas halfway through simply to survive until the next line. He brags about himself constantly and fills his story with non sequiturs that serve no purpose other than to highlight his knowledge of street slang and demonstrate how violent his life is.

As poetry, it's kind of trash. It's not very creative. It's definitely not skillful. It should be performed over music and never ever separated from it.

Yo I'm rapping here and I'm here to say
I'm rapping here in a major way
Yo!
Word!

>>24516779
>Nas Illmatic
Pick an actually good rapper like Method Man

My name is OP and I'm here to say
I suck cocks in so many ways

>>24516791
My name’s anonymous
Yeah I don’t get out the most
What does pussy feel like
I reel at a bitch (no sike)
I read boring books all damn day
And suck off dead writers like I’m gay
P.S.E.U.D and I am samefaggotry
I don’t burn trees. I have a gender studies degree
To each and every crew, I am haplogroup Jew

>>24516777 (OP)
>Equivalents of poetry
Stopped reading right there Timmy, RAP is literally retards attempting poetry and listening to rap has severe side effects regresses you to a monkey dumber than a fucking chimp

>>24516779
Ain't reading allat

>>24516798
My name is anonymous
Got rhymes poppin off
The top of this esophagus
Aint a poser like varg an euronymous
I stay prosperous, eating tendies
In my private offices
Slingin verbs and smoking herbs
Laughing at the wagie nerds

>>24516777 (OP)
Yeah and like every other modern equivalent it's shit. I don't get why people think this is some own saying rap is poetry. It's shit poetry. Just like how Harry Potter is shit literature. It's art? So what? It's shit art.

>>24517133
Rap has the highest vocabulary usage of any genre. Is all music shitty art to you? Are there aspects to music other than lyrics that makes it art?

>>24516779
Slight frown on the brow on the brim, color brown Runnin' wild on the route that was picked. When the clouds were enshrouded I'm out with my face in the shallow end, drownin' again

Can you read this for meter?

>>24517153
Holy shit kys immediately

>>24517153
What kind of stupid question is this? Since when are lyrics at all a requirement for music to be considered to be art? Do you think classical music for instance is less artistic than rap?

>>24517172
Rhetorical question, obviously.

>>24517177
not that obvious that it was rhetorical, considering you were trying to argue that rap is art because of its vocabulary and lyrics.

>>24517183
I was replying to an anon to claimed it was shitty art due to lyrics (it not being real poetry)

>>24517133
>Harry Potter is shit literature
Filtered. It's comfy kids lit.

in english there are only so many rhyme patterns

>>24516779
Unbased faggot

Rap is performative poetry. Most of it stinks, some of it rules. Are you seriously trying to discount this as shallow rhymes?

Yo! I'll spit a racial slur, honky, sue me!
This shit is a horror flick, but a black guy doesn't die in this movie!
Fuckin' wit Lotto, dawg, you gotta be kiddin!
That makes me believe you really don't have an interest in livin!
You think these niggas gonna feel the shit you say?
I got a better chance joining the KKK.
On some real shit, though, I like you
That's why I didn't wanna have to be the one you commit suicide to
Fuck 'Lotto,' call me your leader
I feel bad that I gotta murder that dude from "Leave It to Beaver"
I used to like that show, now you got me in ‘fight back’ mode
But oh well, if you gotta go, then you gotta go!
I hate to do this; I would love for this shit to last
So I'll take pictures of my rear end so you won't forget my ass
And all's well that ends ok?
So I'll end this shit with a "Fuck you, but have a nice day!"

>>24517252
>>24516785
I can't tell if these posters are being ironic and are making fun of rap or if they genuinely think these are examples of profound lyrics.

>>24516779
You don't sound like a man moved by the emotion of that piece. You sound like an IT hardware technician describing why the AMD Ryzen is a better CPU than the latest Intel release.
All this technically precise art seems so arbitrary. It succeeds on a handful of metrics critics have chosen as good and that they repeatedly insist convey a particular emotion that nobody can feel. Do you think even 1% of the population could engage with that poem in that way? It's totally sterile as art. It doesn't live in the community the way that rap does. It just waits in a dusty old book to be picked up by a lit major who will autistically analyze it, unfeeling, before explaining to his teacher or classmate why it's good.
Rap is overflowing with vitality, it doesn't need to hide itself behind tricky metric changes, it's there and immediately felt. If there is complexity, then it is joined to simplicity. Rap is connected to people, places, histories, events. It's closer to Epic Poetry.

>>24517106
Unnnnhhhhh
Yeahhh
Unh
Jannie
He couldnt ban me
He's no fan of me
Resorting to plan B
Shadowbanning

I will choose to interpret this op as an indirect response to my post in another thread, and declare myself the winner of the argument

>>24516777 (OP)
>Only form to use constant meter and rhythm
Prose poetry seems to be mostly an Anglophone and particularly American fad.

Im a fuckin neet
I beat my meat
While your girl gets blacked
Fyodors gay
Blacks can rhyme
And blacks do crime

I prefer a lot of hip-hop lyrics to contemporary poetry. Like this.

My legs treadin' in this quicksand, beatin' eggs
I see the peak and dip the grease up the pan
Feed the senpai at sixteen, I wasn't no seasoned chef
It's predictable and funny we meet again
Whole 'nother thing comin' in these comin' years
We was snorin' 20s, roaring', wakin' up the dead
I speak to 'em, my grandma Juanita said it best
Roll with the punches, keep 'em comin', I'm prepared
I'ma parry sumn, variables made me bent
But I never fumble, carryin' it like a man
Even when I buckled under, egregious demands
Future said this shit colossal and I feel the man
This shit enormous, I know a pirate to set it further forward
Fly a flag high over your head
Keep a Eye of Horus when I rest over
My section focused, focal for the destitute and hopeful
Sped up on the tightrope, I seen they let it choke 'em
Cherish every moment, let it go
The cherry on top the weight off of my heavy soul
Never been lost, I remember "Nowhere2go"
New shit consumed quick, it's perishable
Embed it with gold and it's gon never get old
Turn the lights off, carry me home
Keep ya head still, the battle uphill
Stillwater's got depth, don't hold your breath
Or hold your breath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJCZprZzjeU

>>24516777 (OP)
Your beat is off pensive a masturbator's frenzy of Deleuzean all menses of coy penis envy/
Ghost dogging the whip but you're eating the shpoopoo there are no samurai only New Orleans VouIndians/
The beating you need is King James on his steed: that fuckboy Shakespeare prating is creed/
Thinking poetry is Romantic is the result of your panick: appeal to ancenstry just shows that you fear your own phallus.

Harden up little drip and get that shit sorted amoxyillin'll fix what you got from that whore who's deported
Write a sonnet a day until you learn that you suck the only way out is hard work fuck your luck
Repetition is perfection repetition is perfection repetition is perfection: repetition is perfection.
You're 10 years too young for what you could write, every day every night catching up if your fight.

>>24516777 (OP)
You are totally right OP. Rap actually achieves definite form and mnemotechnic . What's great about it is it does this in a totally naive way--unlike the studious anons here, whose attempts at poetry always reek of awkwardness and a painful desire to be seen as smart and sophisticated. Any anon who gets worked up about you saying this is without doubt dull and incurious. Someone like Pound or Eliot would be very interested in this naive form of expression.
>The knightly code of a samurai or warrior poet writing a poem at death is also familiar in rap.
Yes it reaches a true intensity because its proximity to essential passions, values, honor. Generally speaking the more gangster the rapper, the better the artist. Rap works best in the vein of Miltonic satanism--its aesthetic foundations are totally comprehensible in this tradition, though those involved are unaware, probably don't know exactly what they are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjEoo14xHRs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvBfiRWLj_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz5o4EjCNLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y-edrXIZjA
From a general moral perspective, regarding the health of society, the influence of rap is probably negative, in that it provides a luciferian release valve from the generally bureaucratic and stultifying experience of modern capitalism (therefore serving an essential role is maintaining the present order) and embodies some dangerous values--but that's not my concern here
>>24516779
Dang you already posted this to me once. What a fag lol
>>24516783
Most rap, like most verse, is bad--but unlike contemporary verse some of it is actually very good!

>>24517321
You OBVIOUSLY don’t know shit about poetry. Talking about the community lol...

>>24520079
>but unlike contemporary verse some of it is actually very good!
That’s where you entire post fails lol. Easier to listen to that slop than read poetry though I’ll give you that. Own it at least.

>>24520089
A lot of rap is very good for what it is; it achieves its aims with purity (in fact, for what it is you cannot do better)
Song like this create a genuine community of feeling which continues over generations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JZom_gVfuw
That's what art is, it creates community, whether elite or more general; and it is very good at doing so

Taylor Swift mogs most rappers, as witnessed by her sales. Her lyrics engage in the community much more, are instantly understood by everyone in a way that rap, with its obscure slang and derivations, can never emulate. The real epic poetry of our time is found in her songs, using simple clear language, not hip-hop lyrics which only a minority find accessible

>>24520086
He overstates his case but he's right
>>24520095
No, what you are describing, in your dull attempt at sarcasm, with Taylor Swift is pop music (descending from the Beatles) repackaged as a therapy cult. What we are considering with rap is a metrical form (it's not singing--and actually Americans all sing in a manner that comes from African churches) developed spontaneously in the inner city
The whole meaning of your argument seems to be "Just because something is popular doesn't mean its good like Taylor Swift is popular!" This isn't as insightful a point as you may think. Of course, when it comes to art, posthumous fame is the most informative

>>24520099
No, the argument is that Taylor Swift’s lyrics are better than rappers, despite your attempt at condescension. As if rap isn’t also pop music! She is using classic ballad forms that have evolved in America from the bible to the Romantic poets to Emily Dickinson to country music, and adapted them and made that tradition relevant not just to America but to the entire world, as evinced by her sales and popularity which no rapper comes close to. Her string of albums is the epic poem of our time.
As as far as the test of time goes, she is still as popular as ever nearly 20 after her debut, while most rappers of a similar vintage have fallen by the wayside

>>24520118
I don't have to attempt at condescension, I naturally stand above you and all other instances of puny cleverness. You don't know anything about poetry. One has to be born to know such things

Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
Leading us in sin, away from the Creator
In the garden we couldn't picture this
I drive a Chevrolet movie theater

Not only is OP a faggot, he has a humanities degree to prove it.