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Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop
If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today. The media uproar in response to its controversial lyrical content has obscured hip hop's revolution of poetic craft and experience: Only in rap music can the beat of a song render poetic meter audible, allowing an MC's wordplay to move a club-full of eager listeners.
Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes explores America's least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.
Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes explores America's least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.
272 pages, Paperback
First published December 30, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
January 1, 2012
The problems with Adam Bradley's Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop? Where do I start? That the only references to female MC's are 2 sentences about Lauryn Hill, and one reference to Mc Lyte, Roxanne Shante, Sha rock, and Jean Grae? That there are no-count em-no references to Queen Latifah, Salt and Pepa( or Spinderella), The Mercedes Ladies or TLC? Or that his choice in hip hop is so throughly modern, as in his slavish defense of lil Wayne at a time where millions of black people aren't interested in defending him?
No, the one that sticks out for me is that Bradley is eager to defend the use of metaphor in Lil Wayne's music and eager to excuse his proclivity for threatening to shoot a pregnant woman in the stomach. Early on he recognizes that the lyric's he's defending are vile, but asks the reader to excuse them in the context of society, and find " the meaning that extends beyond the offensive surface". Like so many comfortable, educated thirty something hip hop acedemics, Bradley wants the world to recognize every bit of his culture's humanity without granting a bit of humanity to anyone else. His defenses- to paraphrase what George Orwell once said of Auden's spain- are written by someone who Death, Crack, trauma and Rape are at most words; a brand of amoralism only possible of you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when someone is killing a loved one, destroying a community with drugs, sexually assaulting a woman, or tormenting a tortured, tortured people.
In a sense, the marriage of mainstream hip hop and mainstream academia is a perfect one in it's toxicity. Both are populated by a majority of men who like their horror core ( Roth, Mailer, Seidel, Baraka) (Weezy, eminem, rick ross, and now kanye) will stop at nothing to defend it, and will stop at nothing to castigate anyone who tells them otherwise. Their union in Book of Rhymes follows in both traditions in that it is a love letter to something that so many people hate: less an intellectual exercise than a highbrow example of the psycho sexual masculity that has plagued liberalism from Cleaver to Clinton's 08 primary. it is not only-to paraphrase Orwell again- "playing with fire without even knowing the iron is hot", it is kindling the damm fire.
No, the one that sticks out for me is that Bradley is eager to defend the use of metaphor in Lil Wayne's music and eager to excuse his proclivity for threatening to shoot a pregnant woman in the stomach. Early on he recognizes that the lyric's he's defending are vile, but asks the reader to excuse them in the context of society, and find " the meaning that extends beyond the offensive surface". Like so many comfortable, educated thirty something hip hop acedemics, Bradley wants the world to recognize every bit of his culture's humanity without granting a bit of humanity to anyone else. His defenses- to paraphrase what George Orwell once said of Auden's spain- are written by someone who Death, Crack, trauma and Rape are at most words; a brand of amoralism only possible of you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when someone is killing a loved one, destroying a community with drugs, sexually assaulting a woman, or tormenting a tortured, tortured people.
In a sense, the marriage of mainstream hip hop and mainstream academia is a perfect one in it's toxicity. Both are populated by a majority of men who like their horror core ( Roth, Mailer, Seidel, Baraka) (Weezy, eminem, rick ross, and now kanye) will stop at nothing to defend it, and will stop at nothing to castigate anyone who tells them otherwise. Their union in Book of Rhymes follows in both traditions in that it is a love letter to something that so many people hate: less an intellectual exercise than a highbrow example of the psycho sexual masculity that has plagued liberalism from Cleaver to Clinton's 08 primary. it is not only-to paraphrase Orwell again- "playing with fire without even knowing the iron is hot", it is kindling the damm fire.
August 3, 2023
RAP IS POETRY!!! a must read for hiphop/rap fans & poets alike.
March 15, 2010
Disclosure: I'm into poetry and prosody, wrote my masters thesis on poetry, and also am deeply interested in and ambivalent about hip hop as a poetic form. Not only is hip hop a (the only?) poetry that is popular in the marketplace -- it's gone a long way to reshaping the scene of popular american songcraft as well. Many interesting things to be said about it, and I am ready to get into that conversation.
So the good thing about this book is that in reading it, I got to spend a lot of time reading through hip-hop lyrics with an enthusiastic guide, and it did deepen my appreciation for a lot of what's going on in the hip hop tradition (and it is a tradition). Just getting exposed to a collection of lyrics, all in one place, putting different eras and artists side by side, is valuable mind-food.
The bad news is that this enthusiastic author, while cheerful and well-meaning, makes almost NO COHERENT CONCEPTUAL CONTRIBUTION to our understanding of hip hop or its prosody. He is basically just pointing and saying, "Here's something else cool!" He invokes traditional poetry tropes like alliteration or rhyme, but without a good understanding of why these techniques are worth using, in either poetry OR hip hop. So shallow. Dude has a PhD from Harvard but delivers maudlin old chestnuts about rhyme you could get from the "Sound & Sense" textbook in high school. Some hip hop rhymes are weird and interesting; some are frankly boring and childish. This book makes no distinction.
In terms of hip hop's content problem -- e.g. rampant, systematic misogyny and homophobia -- he mounts a weak, half-hearted defense. On the matter of the hip-hop tradition of a speaker with exaggerated braggadocio, there's a ton of interesting stuff to say going back through the blues and beyond, and he does at least gesture in the direction you would want to go if you wanted to really engage with that issue. (Civil rights history, Jim Crow, masculinity, New Orleans, music economics...) But he's certainly not going to go there himself.
It's probably an OK book for a lay reader with little exposure to poetry or poetics beyond "Sound & Sense", but even that hypothetical reader will come away from this book, I think, strangely lacking any new critical tools. ("Rappers make a lot of creative rhymes!" They sure do.) Still, the book provides a mean to pay attention to something that's worth paying attention to, it's sympathetic to the subject, and it covers a lot of ground. So as far as the beginnings of some kind of sustained critical/intellectual attention to hip hop go, I guess it's a start.
So the good thing about this book is that in reading it, I got to spend a lot of time reading through hip-hop lyrics with an enthusiastic guide, and it did deepen my appreciation for a lot of what's going on in the hip hop tradition (and it is a tradition). Just getting exposed to a collection of lyrics, all in one place, putting different eras and artists side by side, is valuable mind-food.
The bad news is that this enthusiastic author, while cheerful and well-meaning, makes almost NO COHERENT CONCEPTUAL CONTRIBUTION to our understanding of hip hop or its prosody. He is basically just pointing and saying, "Here's something else cool!" He invokes traditional poetry tropes like alliteration or rhyme, but without a good understanding of why these techniques are worth using, in either poetry OR hip hop. So shallow. Dude has a PhD from Harvard but delivers maudlin old chestnuts about rhyme you could get from the "Sound & Sense" textbook in high school. Some hip hop rhymes are weird and interesting; some are frankly boring and childish. This book makes no distinction.
In terms of hip hop's content problem -- e.g. rampant, systematic misogyny and homophobia -- he mounts a weak, half-hearted defense. On the matter of the hip-hop tradition of a speaker with exaggerated braggadocio, there's a ton of interesting stuff to say going back through the blues and beyond, and he does at least gesture in the direction you would want to go if you wanted to really engage with that issue. (Civil rights history, Jim Crow, masculinity, New Orleans, music economics...) But he's certainly not going to go there himself.
It's probably an OK book for a lay reader with little exposure to poetry or poetics beyond "Sound & Sense", but even that hypothetical reader will come away from this book, I think, strangely lacking any new critical tools. ("Rappers make a lot of creative rhymes!" They sure do.) Still, the book provides a mean to pay attention to something that's worth paying attention to, it's sympathetic to the subject, and it covers a lot of ground. So as far as the beginnings of some kind of sustained critical/intellectual attention to hip hop go, I guess it's a start.
September 15, 2018
Useful book as a starting point for my English literature dissertation focusing on hip-hop lyrics. I read this in the hopes it would give me some grounding for the literary analysis of rap, especially because I'm not particularly good at analysing poetry full-stop, and it met my expectations on that! I'm sure I will be referring back to my notes from this as I get further into my research. Easy to read, and although it goes into technical, poetic terms (which is obvious from the title) it does so in a way that is fairly simple to understand. As a hip-hop 101, manual-esque book it is a comprehensive introduction for someone studying, or just interested, in rap from a poetic perspective!
August 9, 2023
I started this book as a summer reading assignment for AP Lit. I thought that the summer reading list had a lot of interesting books on it this year and I decided to give this one a try. I opened the book and saw a prologue and two other sections of introduction (Rap Poetry 101/201) that came before the actual book even started. There were 40 whole entire pages, and it took me two weeks to get through these pages because there was just nothing that kept me interested. The rest of the book was the same way and while it was good at explaining literary devices and techniques that are used in rap, the book was not very interesting to me and it took me almost an hour to read only 10 pages. So while the book was good at explaining how rap was poetry it started to get a bit repetitive towards the end for me.
May 27, 2016
He's trying to get people who respect poetry to respect rap music as a poetic form and at the same time he is trying to encourage hip hop heads to take the vocabulary that already exists for discussing poetry and use it to improve how we talk and think about rap. Where these audiences overlap is hard to say, but I do think he mostly succeeds, and he does get into more than just the literary and poetic terminology we learned if we'd paid attention in high school English. It is also fun when he draws from ancient poetic practices like Scottish kenning and ancient Greek capping to make his points. Although he is careful about race and doesn't make the mistake of white washing rap, he shies away from discussing class or advocating poetry programs in the "'hood" and I feel that he missed an opportunity there. He has a bit of a conservative bent throughout in that he doesn't address the politics of hip hop at all, but maybe that's good seeing as how he lists conservative grump Henry Louis Gates Jr Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a mentor in the acknowledgments. Lastly, the biggest problem with this book is the complete lack of women. They have simply been cut out of the story. Considering that, the entire thing becomes an apology for rap's misogyny ... something like (I know this stuff is super-sexist but) check out the assonance in this verse!
August 14, 2010
Disappointing, to say the least. This book, which claims to be about the "poetics" of hip-hop, is in fact a very pedestrian, shallow look at the most obtuse and evident aspects of hip-hop. (He dedicates 40 pages to repeatedly explaining the concept of rhythm. Really dipping into the platitudes too in having the chapter on wordplay be straight up explanations of fairly evident lyrics.) Disappointing to say the least, a decent primer for the non-listener but for anyone who has heard a hip-hop track and at least understood the basics, this will be a slow read.
August 7, 2023
This is the best work of music criticism I’ve come across in a while. Bradley focuses on rap’s lyrics as a serious object of study from the perspective of rhetoric and poetics. He succeeds in being both educational (I learned, among other things, what an antanaclasis and a kenning are) and passionate about his topic: By the end, you’ll be fully convinced that Notorious B.I.G. and Jay Z are among the most sophisticated men of letters of our time. I love the numerous insightful observations in the book, such as how rap, grounded in both musical and linguistic rhythm, managed to innovate without losing touch with its audience, unlike much contemporary free verse. Or how there are few covers in rap because rapping, as a means of vocalization close to speech, carries the presumption that speakers speak for themselves. Highly recommended if you love hip hop, but also if you are looking for a very readable refresher in stylistics.
October 23, 2023
Sections of this book were assigned in one of my college classes years ago, but I wanted to read the whole thing, despite not being a rap listener. I found the concepts very interesting and well explained. This book would be good for an upper level high school English class, especially for kids who love listening to rap.
September 3, 2015
Good--
Is Rap poetry? Can it be? How?
These are the main questions Adam Bradley answers in this book. He does the job well—though I was already convinced of Rap's poetic nature before picking this up—and is successful for the most part. There are moments when I thought he was stretching it a little, or saying something that applied to not just Rap but to any creative endeavor. So when talking about Biggie and Tupac's different styles, he says, "If we listen to them on their own stylistic terms, however, we can judge them against the forms of excellence to which they aspire" (132). Yes, that's true for any art (e.g. we don't complain about a fairytale that there are magical things going on). Or: "Rap is a vernacular art, which is to say that it is born out of the creative combination of the inherited and the invented, the borrowed and the made." But what creative anything doesn't combine "the inherited and the invented"?
Overall, though, the book is illuminating and clearly argued. What I was most drawn to were the chapters on rhyme (especially the innovations Rap has made over the years) and signifying, which for Rap consists of dissing and braggadocio. One particularly striking example of the kind of rhyme only Rap can do is what Bradley calls "transformative rhymes" whereby the rapper transforms the pronunciation to make it rhyme with another word. So Tupac on "So Many Tears" has these lines:
My life is in denial, and when I die
Baptized in eternal fire.
He makes "fire" rhyme with "denial" by pronouncing it like "file."
Mind. Blown.
Or take this from Kanye's "Can't Tell Me Nothing":
Don't ever fix your lips like collagen
To say something when you're gon' end up apolagin'
Or how he makes "writers" rhyme with "ideas" by distorting the former "wry-tears." This is definitely something literary poetry can't do (or not as easily).
As for the chapter on signifying, it was especially interesting to learn that the latter was firmly rooted in black American culture, in the ritualized exchange of insults called "dozens" and the exaggerated stories people tell in prisons or at barbershops called "toasts" (which is reminiscent of Beowulf). The part about dozens, incidentally, struck home for me personally because it put in perspective one of my black friends' behavior back in college: he always had comebacks to ANYTHING.
One thing to note is: this is not a book about HOW to rap, but about the similarities Rap shares with traditional, literary poetry.So if you're interested in finding out how Rap could be poetry, this book is for you.
Is Rap poetry? Can it be? How?
These are the main questions Adam Bradley answers in this book. He does the job well—though I was already convinced of Rap's poetic nature before picking this up—and is successful for the most part. There are moments when I thought he was stretching it a little, or saying something that applied to not just Rap but to any creative endeavor. So when talking about Biggie and Tupac's different styles, he says, "If we listen to them on their own stylistic terms, however, we can judge them against the forms of excellence to which they aspire" (132). Yes, that's true for any art (e.g. we don't complain about a fairytale that there are magical things going on). Or: "Rap is a vernacular art, which is to say that it is born out of the creative combination of the inherited and the invented, the borrowed and the made." But what creative anything doesn't combine "the inherited and the invented"?
Overall, though, the book is illuminating and clearly argued. What I was most drawn to were the chapters on rhyme (especially the innovations Rap has made over the years) and signifying, which for Rap consists of dissing and braggadocio. One particularly striking example of the kind of rhyme only Rap can do is what Bradley calls "transformative rhymes" whereby the rapper transforms the pronunciation to make it rhyme with another word. So Tupac on "So Many Tears" has these lines:
My life is in denial, and when I die
Baptized in eternal fire.
He makes "fire" rhyme with "denial" by pronouncing it like "file."
Mind. Blown.
Or take this from Kanye's "Can't Tell Me Nothing":
Don't ever fix your lips like collagen
To say something when you're gon' end up apolagin'
Or how he makes "writers" rhyme with "ideas" by distorting the former "wry-tears." This is definitely something literary poetry can't do (or not as easily).
As for the chapter on signifying, it was especially interesting to learn that the latter was firmly rooted in black American culture, in the ritualized exchange of insults called "dozens" and the exaggerated stories people tell in prisons or at barbershops called "toasts" (which is reminiscent of Beowulf). The part about dozens, incidentally, struck home for me personally because it put in perspective one of my black friends' behavior back in college: he always had comebacks to ANYTHING.
One thing to note is: this is not a book about HOW to rap, but about the similarities Rap shares with traditional, literary poetry.So if you're interested in finding out how Rap could be poetry, this book is for you.
June 23, 2009
BOOK OF RHYMES by ADAM BRADLEY..
Literary scholar Adam Bradley’s new book BOOK OF RHYMES demonstrates the connection between old school literary poetry and the rhymes of today‘s lyricists. Bradley utilizes a litany of lyrics and classic lines of poetry to support his claims. Each chapter is packed with analysis and anecdotes. The chapter titles are poetic devices: Rhythm, Rhyme, wordplay, Style, storytelling and signifying. Citing lyrics from Big Daddy Kane, Eminem, Nas, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Rakim, KRS-One, Outkast, Lil Wayne, as well as poets like Lord Byron, Milton, Shelley, Shakespeare, Yeats, Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens and Edgar Allen Poe, Bradley sheds light on the poetics of hiphop with a meticulous eye. He is one of the few people alive that knows Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER and Sugarhill Gang’s RAPPERS DELIGHT both utilize the ballad form and similar methods of storytelling.
The book is the perfect blend of being accessible to every man and still deliver intelligent analysis for the graduate students. Bradley has a PH.D. in English from Harvard and is equally versed in hiphop lyrics and classical poetry. Those serious about poetry, hiphop or both will appreciate the comprehensive history presented and well timed examples. Bradley makes a great case that rappers rank among the greatest public poets of all time. Whether he’s breaking down Shakespeare’s similes, puns by John Donne, how Lauryn Hill and John Milton use alliteration or how Jay-Z uses metonymy, Bradley offers a fascinating read for heads and academics.
Literary scholar Adam Bradley’s new book BOOK OF RHYMES demonstrates the connection between old school literary poetry and the rhymes of today‘s lyricists. Bradley utilizes a litany of lyrics and classic lines of poetry to support his claims. Each chapter is packed with analysis and anecdotes. The chapter titles are poetic devices: Rhythm, Rhyme, wordplay, Style, storytelling and signifying. Citing lyrics from Big Daddy Kane, Eminem, Nas, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Rakim, KRS-One, Outkast, Lil Wayne, as well as poets like Lord Byron, Milton, Shelley, Shakespeare, Yeats, Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens and Edgar Allen Poe, Bradley sheds light on the poetics of hiphop with a meticulous eye. He is one of the few people alive that knows Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER and Sugarhill Gang’s RAPPERS DELIGHT both utilize the ballad form and similar methods of storytelling.
The book is the perfect blend of being accessible to every man and still deliver intelligent analysis for the graduate students. Bradley has a PH.D. in English from Harvard and is equally versed in hiphop lyrics and classical poetry. Those serious about poetry, hiphop or both will appreciate the comprehensive history presented and well timed examples. Bradley makes a great case that rappers rank among the greatest public poets of all time. Whether he’s breaking down Shakespeare’s similes, puns by John Donne, how Lauryn Hill and John Milton use alliteration or how Jay-Z uses metonymy, Bradley offers a fascinating read for heads and academics.
April 20, 2010
I wanted this book to either teach me the technicalities of rhyme in an entertaining way or teach me about the history of rhythmic structures in rap, but it was mostly disappointing on both counts. It would be better attached to a freshman poetry class with a professor going into more detail where Bradley falters. In fact, I got the feeling this book was written for freshman poetry class. It was also written for people who don't actually listen to rap (from the horrible intro describing what a rap show is really like.. the smoke fills the room blah blah blah... to the arguably off-topic defense of violent, sexist lyrics...). The good parts were when Bradley devoted some detail to specific verses. The great parts were when he quoted from the rappers themselves. Which leads to the conclusion that I got what I deserved. Reading this subject matter when written by an academic is LAME.
December 29, 2012
Looking back at “the Humpty Dance” it’s hard to take hip hop too seriously as a form of poetry... by reading this book, though, you'll see a good argument made for the seriousness of hip hop and rap; the true meaning and intensity of these lyrics. It gives good reasons as to why these are some of the most important developments in poetry in the last thirty years.
January 18, 2013
Very deep analysis of both rap's close connection to poetic forms and devices and the stylistic differences that distinguish MCs, like voice, flow, subject matter, etc. I felt like he could have gone more into some other aspects of hip-hop culture like live performance, collaborations, remixing - but otherwise, solid book. Definitely listen to the tracks he mentions as you're reading.
July 5, 2016
I took a long time to finish this one, but it's one I will keep for a long time. I like hip hop and I like books that deal with creative writing, so this was a perfect hybrid, a great balance of academic writing and interesting stories and lyrics from the world of hip hop. Anyone interested in hip hop and lyrics would like this book
September 22, 2015
This is a must-read for any fan or pseudo-fan of hip hop. It breaks down style, voice, flow, storytelling snd characterization, all while keeping great pace. ...and quoting some awesome lyrics along the way :)
September 7, 2021
I debated for some time whether to give this book a lower rating but I think I'll settle on a "just passed" for now. (Actually lowered the rating from 3 to 2 stars during the writing of this review, as I felt the frustration take over the more I wrote.)
For a book called "Book of Rhymes", there just weren't that many rhymes ... What I wanted from a book with this title was to learn to appreciate more "the poetics" of different hip hop artists (of the known and less-known, or "known but misunderstood", etc), discover a wider body of work that heretofore was unknown to me, and feel the players in this great story of rap come to live on the page.
Instead, what I got is what felt like half the book going on between the different types of rhyme (on second thought, so maybe the title was accurate?!) and going on and on in quite academic terms about what this all is supposed to mean. Okay, great that the book places rap and hip hop in its wider history and specific context, but by the time I got to that I already felt beaten down by all the academic squabbling that I was close to giving up.
In short, the book lacks many things: the characters in this story and even the rhymes themselves are merely props in this dissertation, there are like almost 0 female rappers mentioned, and importantly, this writing style is not how you capture the living art of hip hop.
Admittedly, I had high expectations for the book. I did have some takeaways from reading the book and discovered a couple of great tracks but these findings were far and few between, making this read ultimately quite disappointing.
For a book called "Book of Rhymes", there just weren't that many rhymes ... What I wanted from a book with this title was to learn to appreciate more "the poetics" of different hip hop artists (of the known and less-known, or "known but misunderstood", etc), discover a wider body of work that heretofore was unknown to me, and feel the players in this great story of rap come to live on the page.
Instead, what I got is what felt like half the book going on between the different types of rhyme (on second thought, so maybe the title was accurate?!) and going on and on in quite academic terms about what this all is supposed to mean. Okay, great that the book places rap and hip hop in its wider history and specific context, but by the time I got to that I already felt beaten down by all the academic squabbling that I was close to giving up.
In short, the book lacks many things: the characters in this story and even the rhymes themselves are merely props in this dissertation, there are like almost 0 female rappers mentioned, and importantly, this writing style is not how you capture the living art of hip hop.
Admittedly, I had high expectations for the book. I did have some takeaways from reading the book and discovered a couple of great tracks but these findings were far and few between, making this read ultimately quite disappointing.
July 19, 2024
I started this book as a summer reading assignment for AP Lang. I thought that the summer reading list had a lot of interesting books on it this year and I decided to give this one a try. I opened the book and saw a prologue and two other sections of introduction (Rap Poetry 101/201) that came before the actual book even started. There were 40 whole entire pages, and it took me two weeks to get through these pages because there was just nothing that kept me interested. The rest of the book was the same way and while it was good at explaining literary devices and techniques that are used in rap, the book was not very interesting to me and it took me almost an hour to read only 10 pages. So while the book was good at explaining how rap was poetry, it started to get a bit repetitive towards the end for me.
January 21, 2022
This is a good book to read to understand the artistry behind rap music. The author is a professor of English and he starts with an intro into the style, history, and influence of rap, then the rest of the book is a close read of rap, analyzing the ways rhythm, rhyme, wordplay, style, storytelling, and signifying contribute to the craft. He unpacks specific rappers’ lyrics and style, and he often examines similar traits in classical and contemporary poems. I’m an English teacher myself, so this close read was right up my alley, but it might be too dense for a lay reader and more suited for rap aficionados or people like me. Still, anyone who wants to understand why people listen to rap will get a lot of of this book too.
June 25, 2023
This is a such a unique and exceptional book in many ways. I bought it with the primary intention of learning more about rap history and how rap lyrics relate to rhyming poetry. But it taught me more than just that and it eventually helped to spark my interest in the field of prosody.
Although this book is written using academic language (and I do not have an English/literature degree), I found that I understood most of what this book was covered in it. I purchased the revised edition (from 2017, which does not have a separate entry here), and this edition has appendices with various kinds of lists, e.g. examples of rhyme types and figurative devices in rap songs.
Although this book is written using academic language (and I do not have an English/literature degree), I found that I understood most of what this book was covered in it. I purchased the revised edition (from 2017, which does not have a separate entry here), and this edition has appendices with various kinds of lists, e.g. examples of rhyme types and figurative devices in rap songs.
July 27, 2023
This is a great guide that serves as a look into Rap music from a literary perspective. Each chapter is a different poetic form/element and within are lyrics and artists used as examples.
This book followed up well on its premise and I believe accurately informed and displayed the beauty of rap music as a form of poetry.
This book is great because it is able to speak to both sides of the coin.
To big fans of rap music this will help to dive deeper and explain the composition of some of the genre’s biggest and best songs and lyrics. And for those who are unfamiliar, this book explains the appeal, and significance of rap as a written form and why it should be valued.
This book followed up well on its premise and I believe accurately informed and displayed the beauty of rap music as a form of poetry.
This book is great because it is able to speak to both sides of the coin.
To big fans of rap music this will help to dive deeper and explain the composition of some of the genre’s biggest and best songs and lyrics. And for those who are unfamiliar, this book explains the appeal, and significance of rap as a written form and why it should be valued.
April 7, 2018
Bradley's analysis of the intersection between poetry and hip-hop (including rap) is interesting and insightful. While he sometimes prattles on without adding much substance to his argument, he nevertheless offers some meaningful insights into the connection between ancient song and modern music. As someone who has never really been into rap, I can attest to the interest this book generated within me. Anyone concerned with either medium could benefit from at least flipping through this little book.
February 16, 2023
A powerful bridge between poetry and rap/hip-hop. It's difficult to vocalize that connection, but its so prominent. People are secretly obsessed with modern poetry, and this book fleshes that out.
I mostly appreciated the way the author breaks down a rapper's personal delivery. Rap is evolved from poetry, because many raps cannot be written and read the way a rapper would deliver it. Slant rhymes can sound so full when delivered by a certain rapper.
Lyricism is pure art, it's evolving, and this book articulates it well
I mostly appreciated the way the author breaks down a rapper's personal delivery. Rap is evolved from poetry, because many raps cannot be written and read the way a rapper would deliver it. Slant rhymes can sound so full when delivered by a certain rapper.
Lyricism is pure art, it's evolving, and this book articulates it well
November 4, 2024
“Rap wants to be understood.”
a laudably comprehensive and enriching analysis, driven by historical and (somewhat) modern influences alike. in awe of the amount of research and immersion that led to this book, as well as the breadth of the poise and critical poetic thought demonstrated throughout. a really important text for anyone even remotely interested in rap lyricism and culture, and a required text for any washed-up motherfucker who claims rap is neither respectable nor an art at all. this book is waiting to enlighten you!!!
“Great art is defined by both invention and refinement.”
a laudably comprehensive and enriching analysis, driven by historical and (somewhat) modern influences alike. in awe of the amount of research and immersion that led to this book, as well as the breadth of the poise and critical poetic thought demonstrated throughout. a really important text for anyone even remotely interested in rap lyricism and culture, and a required text for any washed-up motherfucker who claims rap is neither respectable nor an art at all. this book is waiting to enlighten you!!!
“Great art is defined by both invention and refinement.”
June 26, 2018
This book had a pretty neat concept and from reading about it online, there was a lot of hype surrounding it. Some of Adam's analyses are spot-on and taught me a bit more about some classic lines, but overall I found it to be a bit bland and unoriginally done. He discusses the importance of rhyme, rhythm, wordplay, and all that. This would be a great intro for someone who literally knows nothing about rap, but it didn't do anything more than scratch the surface.
April 1, 2020
I think ultimately this book suffered from academia-ism. Really, there wasn't enough content to sustain the number of pages. Also there weren't enough women, and non-black-male artists were Eminem. For a book about hip-hop there was a startling lack of diversity, which wouldn't have been a problem if the book hadn't been insisting that it was capable of discussing hip hop in its entirety, rather than a specific sub-section of the genre.
September 8, 2022
Didn’t read carefully through the end but did my best through first five chapters. Maybe I shouldn’t have said I finished, but I’m finished trying and skimmed the “Signifying” chapter and epilogue. Generally the book did not, as I hoped it would, invigorate me to understand or listen to rap more fully. It was a lot more technical / literary than I expected and felt like a chore to read, rather than fun.
October 23, 2025
Arguing for treating Hip Hop as an art form that we can study like poetry is super my vibe. Which I'm aware, is a pretentious fart noise of a take, but remains the kinda nothing-burger take I wanna talk about all the time. Your enjoyment of this will probably depend on how high your tolerance for that type of energy is. I mostly enjoyed it, but after living through 2024, even I found the chapter, where some dude tells me about how "hip hop is a sport actually" to be unbearable.
December 22, 2019
The is an enjoyable look at the beginning of Hip Hop, rap, rhythmic beats, and poetic lyrics in the urban music scene. I enjoyed most of the information, but be warned there are some profanities quoted from songs. It is a beautiful look into the way rhyme working in the music industry.
June 2, 2020
Gave me a new appreciation for the art and skill of rap, and poetry in general. Too bad so much of rap is vulgar and misogynistic. It doesn't take the sparkle off this gem of a book though. A new all-time favorite for me.
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