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  • A few weeks ago, I interviewed one of my favorite rappers, Open Mike Eagle. And immediately

  • we started geeking out over the masked emcee, MF Doom.

  • His flow I have to be careful with his flow because his flow lives in my mind and in my

  • heart. I can almost get into his mind on how he writes. You know?

  • This is what MF Doom sounds like. Just listen.

  • Hell have entire bars that rhyme. Like the entire set up bar rhymes with every syllable

  • in the punchline bar. It’s incredible.

  • It made me wonder:

  • What can I learn from rappers simply by looking at how they rhyme with the beat?

  • I try to start off with 16 dots on the paper.

  • That’s Rakim. He’s widely regarded as one of the most influential MCs of all time.

  • If 4 bars was this long. I see like a graph between them four bars. I could place so many

  • words and so many syllables. I could take it to the point where there were no other

  • words you could put in those 4 bars.

  • So, before we get into rhymes we need to know what beats and bars are.

  • Martin: I always try to find the beat of the music first.

  • That’s Martin Connor. He’s analyzed the most rhythmically dense rap songs down to

  • the last syllable. And he writes about it.

  • Martin: A bar is a grouping together of 4 beats.

  • Before guys like Rakim came along, rhymes in rap songs were pretty basic.

  • Take one of the first commercially successful rap songs from 1980, “The Breaksby Kurtis Blow

  • This simple AA BB rhyming pattern with no word play or puns is pretty predictable, lyrically and musically

  • But, fast forward to 1986 and youve got songs likeEric B. Is Presidentfrom

  • Eric B. & Rakim.

  • Compare this toThe Breaksand it’s clear the frequency of rhymes is greater.

  • But not only are you seeing more rhymes youre also starting to see different kinds of rhymes.

  • IndeedandProceedare internal rhymes because they happen inside the sentence.

  • Man made a mixandband-aid to fixare multisyllable rhymes

  • The other thing Rakim does later in the verse is cross the bar line and he does it in a

  • tremendously clever way.

  • Crossing the bar line happens when a sentence likeThe rhyme can’t be kept inside

  • doesn’t end when the bar ends.

  • If you listen closely youll hear that the second syllable of inSIDE

  • Lands on the first beat of the next bar.

  • Rakim even references this in the lyric. And it’s pretty clever.

  • Now, fast forward 11 years and Notorious B.I.G's “Hypnotize" cleverly used Rakim’s techniques

  • to make one of the smoothest rap songs ever.

  • Martin: What I like most about this is that it’s not predictable and it’s always changing.

  • So sometimes Notorious B.I.G.s sentences are long. Sometimes theyre short.

  • Like the moment in this verse here:

  • He’s also completely comfortable delivering a sentence across the barline.

  • But, what makes this song stand out the most to me is that before one rhyme scheme ends, another

  • one begins.

  • Like this moment in verse 2.

  • The first group of rhymes is theoorhymes and it links the first and second sentence

  • which then begins theihand so on.

  • It’s a huge reason Biggie sounds so smooth here.

  • Now, as much as Biggie daisy chained an entire song together with rhymes, he was, for the

  • most part using single syllable and single word rhymes.

  • And this is where artists like Mos Def push things even further.

  • His verse onRe:Definitionfrom 2002 hits nearly every note within the bar with

  • 4 syllable rhymes.

  • And he does it across a whopping 14 bars.

  • In Re:Definition, Mos Def is very clearly rhyming each word with the beat.

  • This is where Andre 3000 shakes things up with his verse in Aquemini. Focus on the beat first.

  • Now listen to each syllable, with the beat in mind.

  • Most rappers would have dollars, parlors, and bottles all rhyme similarly on the beat.

  • But Andre is accenting each rhyme within different places relative to the beat and bar.

  • People say that the word orange doesn't rhyme with anything. And that kinda pisses me off because I can

  • think of a lot of things that rhyme with orange...

  • In fact, Eminem, does this exact thing on his 2002 songBusiness

  • Eminem doesn’t just pack in tremendously dense multi syllable rhymes, he also tells

  • incredibly vivid stories.

  • And for a lot of people that wins in a battle.

  • This is whereLose Yourselfcomes in. It was the first rap song to win an Academy

  • Award.

  • Whew the Oscar goes to Eminem, for Lose Yourself from 8 Mile.

  • Martin: I’ll see the line and I’ll separate it all into not just words or sentences,

  • but into their syllables.

  • When you group all of these rhymes together, this incredibly complex rhyme scheme emerges.

  • It’s unpredictable, it’s complex rhythmically and lyrically but -

  • It’s not just that youre rhyming, It’s that while youre rhyming youre

  • still telling a good story. And "Lose Yourself" is like that.

  • Today, rappers like Kendrick Lamar are carrying on the tradition of artists that are able to use the musicality of rhymes

  • to create really memorable songs.

  • Let’s look at Kendrick Lamar’s “Rigamortus

  • The first thing youll notice is that Kendrick has created a very clear motive with his rhymes.

  • What’s a motive? It’s a short musical idea. A musical fragment or succession of

  • notes that has some special importance in a composition.

  • Here’s probably the most recognizable motive in the history of music.

  • Thatdu du du dummmmmis carried out through the entire piece. It’s 3 quick notes

  • followed by a long note.

  • The musical motive inRigamortusis two short notes followed by a long note,

  • stringing the entire song together.

  • When Kendrick goes into 4th gear he keeps the motive going. And the motive keeps him in check.

  • As much as Biggie’s “Hypnotizesounds completely different fromRigamortus

  • there are a lot of musical similarities.

  • Remember how Biggie daisy chained rhymes? Kendrick does that too here. InHypnotize

  • Biggie also creates a motive with the sequence of rhymes here:

  • Now, let’s get back to MF Doom. Two years afterLose Yourselfwon an Academy Award,

  • MF Doom released 3 full albums including

  • Madvillainy - which is widely considered one of the best underground hip hop records period.

  • Mos Def can’t even contain his excitement talking about Doom.

  • For the most part, MF Doom rhymes on the beat but he uses multi syllable rhyming phrases

  • up with wazoo often rhyming entire lines together.

  • This is called a holorime.

  • Mike: Hell do setup punchline. Like his following bar will be referencing the punchline

  • but not in a way that hell be setting up a another one, he just starts to go in another

  • direction, but just acknowledges where the last bar was.

  • This is what Mike is talking about.

  • MF Doom understands the power of rhyme and the beat and completely manipulates it in

  • a humorous way.

  • As Pitchfork points outthe rhyme's pattern and rap's topical stereotype demands the word

  • "bitches," yet Doom hilariously says "booze" and uses that rhyme to connect the next sentence.

  • Where artists like Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and Andre 3000 are telling very vivid stories

  • with their rhymes, MF Doom is using his dense rhymes like a villain would use his superpower.

  • Before you know it youre being hit with a killer punchline, double entendres, and clever wordplay.

  • Martin: I love rappers with that syncopated uneven phrasing where the sentences don't line up with the bars

  • because, like you said, you can't predict what's going to happen.

  • The point of appreciating it is to see what the very most clever human beings are capable of doing

  • that you didn't think possible.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed one of my favorite rappers, Open Mike Eagle. And immediately

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