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Deeper: How To Read A Lyric
Deeper Lyrics
Who is the best MC? When an MC speaks to us and represents, it is like we finally met someone who knows our experiences and lives. Why rate an MC? We rate them because it's fun and interesting and it gives us yet another way to look at an artist. In general, artists' lyrics are rated based on three criteria: (1) longevity, (2) flow, and (3) readability assessment.
1. Longevity:
While we acknowledge that the Hiphop MC is a young person's game, we need to recognize those who keep and set the standards that we constantly refer to and those who continue to raise the bar and achieve new standards. Just as every serious jazz singer is judged based on whether he and she can sing the standards, it is also true in hiphop that artists are judged by whether their rhyming skills match the standards of the greatest lyricists and performers.
2. Flow:
The ability to flow is based on incorporating language ideology and philosophies in a creative way that represents local, social and dominant language varieties as well as hiphop language and discourse styles. To flow in hiphop refers to an MC consciously producing lyrics within a system of: representation and fragmentation, dislocation and symmetry, disruption and order and contradiction and unity. An artist communicates what he and she means, intends, and represents, through symbols, style, and contrasting aspects of artistic and linguistic skill and social life. Flow exists at multiple levels and includes stylistic rhyming, symbolic representation, and linguistic manipulation coupled with attitude and social standing. Thus achievement of flow demands that resources of language and discourse be employed in recognition of the complexity of social and public life.
3. Readability Assessment
Everyone wants to know the grade level of his or her favorite rhymes. There are many formulas to calculate level. These formulas consider things like number of syllables in a word and sentence length. The three most popular readability assessment tests are The Flesch Reading Ease Formula, The Fog Scale and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level. We also use SMOG, Powers, Fry and Forcast. While it is interesting to consider these formulas, please remember three things:
1. When someone rhymes, words and syllables are repeated. A low score may not be a low level of writing.
2. These formulas do not identify new words, creativity or non-words (e.g. qrtlp is a non-word)
3. Most lyrics are not written in sentences.
Where to go to evaluate lyrics.
Staple Crops is a site where creativity, technical savvy, style and the love of Hiphop come together. It started because its creator, Tehir Hemphill, wanted to celebrate his love of hiphop debates about what makes a good MC by incorporating his technical and theoretical knowledge. The pull between the formal education and hiphop education, between art and science informs this site. The result was The Hip-Hop Word Count (HHWC), a searchable ethnographic database built from the lyrics of over 50,000 Hip-Hop songs from 1979 to present day. The database is the heart of an online analysis tool that generates textual and quantified reports on searched phrases, syntax, memes and socio-political ideas.
Recently, staplecrops began featuring Jay Z lyrics. Selected songs from all of Jay's albums are analyzed through an inventive assessment of syllable length, word count and repetition, grammatical complexity and - most important - hiphop cultural and local reference. It's not just about who uses the biggest words but who has creativity, dexterity and overall skill in representing hiphop!
How To Use:
Search HHWC for your favorite artist and view the overall assessment. Go to Jay Z and view the information generated thus far. There are tables, graphs and basic information. Go to the Jay Z Google spreadsheet and search for lyrics and set up the assessment for yourself.
Black Youth Project (BYP) Rap Lyrics Database
The Rap Lyrics Database lets you search through lyrics of Billboard Music's top rap songs from 1989 to February 2009 in three different ways: (1) by the list of songs that appeared on the charts for 20 weeks or more (indicating heavy radio and video play), (2) by only the number one songs from the Rap charts, or (3) both lists at the same time.
How To Use:
You can browse the database by typing a keyword in the search box and adjusting the date range and data set. You can also narrow your search even more by clicking "add another term" to search for multiple words. Please ask them to include searches by artist. We're waiting!
Hiphop Archive (HHA) Deeper: Jay Z Lyrics
At present HHA offers all Jay Z lyrics in word documents and pdfs. It is the only source for all Jay Z lyrics in one place on the web. We invite you to conduct your own searches throughout the documents. We will provide on-line assessments in the near future. In the meantime, please see staplecrops HHWC.
