"...a Patriotic tomboy, like Mary-Ellen from The Waltons" - The Gza/Genius

Me and my man B Lee used to call the time between after the NBA playoffs end, and the NFL season begins, the "dead zone", cuz there wasn't shit to do or watch. Baseball is cool but it doesn't heat up till October, and lets face it, football is the greatest game ever invented. Of course by football I mean real, American football (no disambiguation).

With the triumphant return of the

Jesus i

n the flesh Tom Brady, I have been slowly getting into my gridiron mode.

This reminded me of a joint that the GZA did from the DJ Muggs vs GZA album. The album itself was crazy underrated and featured heat from both the producer as well as the lyricist. However the track I am speaking of is written in the mold of GZA's other "concept" tracks where he selects a topic and spits elements that fit under that topics umbrella (see Labels, Animal Planet, Publicity, etc). This song in particular however tapped into my primal love of the game of football.

"You can find me in the club..." 50 Cent

So, I'm cool with songs about a night out in the club. I am equally okay with songs by men talking about all of the women that they "meet" at the club. Hell, you could write rhymes about buckets of piss for all I care, so long as you do it right. And by "right," of course, I mean with thought, effort and skill.

Lupe Fiasco did just that on his song Sunshine from his Food & Liquor album. The Chicagoan begins by fleshing out the awkward nature of approaching a woman "up in tha club" and how chasing chics is usually not his thing.

During the second verse they step outside, now less nervous, they chop it up a bit and he begins to spit game;

"...now that's 21 MCs ate up at the same time" - Rakim

"You see 8 MCs/I see one pizza/Them 8 slices that come with a free 1 liter" - Grafh

"Eat a rapper for lunch, and spit out the chain" - DOOM

Rappers spitting about how nice they are on the microphone is nothing new, and a number of them have pushed it to a whole different level in recent years. However for me, there is no more enduring theme of "i'm-nicer-than-you" type rhymes than the "eating" MCs theme.

The whole idea is just so primitive and primal but for some reason I love it. Think about it. In any form of competition there is nothing more demoralizing than being "eaten up" by an opponent. Yeah you can say you'll "school" someone, shoot someone or out-battle someone, but none of those can hold a candle to the concept of "eating" someone for lunch.

Many MCs have taken this theme and flipped it crazy different ways, DOOM, Sean P, just to name a few. But Grafh took it and freaked it on his song Chew 'em Up featuring Slaughterhouse's own Crooked I.

FTR, Crooked I's verse goes waaay harder overall though.

Grafh - Chew Em Up feat. Crooked I

"Begged him on the regular for kegs of more Vomitspit" - DOOM

This is a segment where I go over an MC's lyrics detailing some mark of brilliance. Whether it is content, flow, wordplay, or just raw spit, these MCs brought their A game to the party.

One of the things that makes hip-hop music so unique as a poetry form is that it must be listened to as well as read in order to fully assess the skill of the MC. You need to hear the song to hear how the author flows on the beat. So listen while reading.

My first post on this is from Mos Def's Black on Both Sides album. Using the Nation of Gods and Earths Supreme Mathematics as a guide, he delivers a hard hitting narrative about city living and its place in a larger context. There is not a lot of slick wordplay or fancy delivery here, just raw spit about issues of the day.

"Yo, it's one universal law but two sides to every story
Three strikes and you biddin for life, mandatory
Four MC's murdered in the last four years
I ain't tryin to be the fifth one, the millennium is here
Yo it's 6 Million Ways to Die, from the seven deadly thrills
Eight-year olds gettin found with 9 mill's
It's 10 P.M., where your seeds at? What's the deal
They on the hill pumpin krill to keep they belly filled
Light in the ass with heavy steel, sights on the pretty shit in life
Young soldiers tryin to earn they next stripe
When the average minimum wage is $5.15
You best believe you gotta find a new grind to get cream
The white unemployment rate, is nearly more than triple for black
so front liners got they gun in your back
Bubblin crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty
and end up in the global jail economy
Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence
Budget cutbacks but increased police presence
And even if you get out of prison still livin
join the other five million under state supervision
This is business, no faces just lines and statistics
from your phone, your zip code, to S-S-I digits
The system break man child and women into figures
Two columns for who is, and who ain't niggaz
Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings
but you push too hard, even numbers got limits
Why did one straw break the camel's back? Here's the secret:
the million other straws underneath it - it's all mathematics"

Mos Def- Mathematics

"I think I like her like a metaphor" - Lupe Fiasco

Metaphors are tools, and similes are like tools. Rappers often misidentify similes as metaphors, but what is clear is that when done well, skillful MCs can use both forms of figurative language to create vivid pictures in the minds of listeners. This little segment will illuminate such examples of skill.

I am going to get this segment jumped off with a set of bars from two different MCs.

The Gza is known for bringing words to life and his verse on The Jump Off from Wu Tang Clan's The W was no exception. A master at economy of words, he used just a few lines to convey his point through an extended metaphor. Read and listen to the verse in its entirety.

Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)- Wu Tang Clan (skip to 3:45)

Run on the track like Jesse Owens
Broke the record flowin, without any knowin
That my wordplay run the 400 meter relay
It's on once I grab the baton from the DJ
A athlete wit his iron cleat in the ground
Wireless nikka who sprint off the gun sound
The best time yet still 7.0
Swift flow made the cameramen clothes blow

In the opening line, The Gza sets the foundation for the verse by letting the listener know he is going to draw direct parallels between his voice on the track (beat) and Olympic legend Jesse Owens' prowess on the race track. One of the most interesting things about this particular comparison is that Gza's flow is everything but fast, however he makes it work by trying to connect the idea of high skills in both respective art forms.

The next MC that demonstrated effective use of an extended metaphor was Joe Budden. In an attempt to share his perspective on his situation with his then label, Def Jam, he turns to a sports analogy to help illuminate his point.

Joe Budden - Broken Wing ("Free"style)

Feel like A-Rod, some say his time's up
Boo a nikka at home, yup I'm in my prime But
he by far the best player on the team
And then turn around, drop 'em to the bottom of the lineup
Should get traded, but he don't wanna move
'Cause this the only city he got somethin' to prove
And that's why I'm seen with heaters
'Cause you can't be the man when you on the same team as Jeter Ya dig

Joe Budden, signed to Def Jam at the time , was frustrated with what he believed to be lackluster support and promotion of his projects on the label. Def Jam President Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, according to Joe, could and should have done more to support him because of Joe's talent and skill. Joe sees this the similarities in his situation with that of, at the time, newly acquired New York Yankee 3rd baseman Alex Rodriguez. While Alex struggled mightily in the early stages of his time as a Yankee, team captain and favorite son Derek Jeter was showered with accolades while Rodriguez was pelted with boos. This, despite Rodriguez being a far superior player to Jeter. Clearly Joe feels as though Jay-Z is the Derek Jeter of the "team", more loved, but less skilled. Joe also seems to imply that Def Jam put him lower in the priority list as the Yankees lost faith in Rodriguez and "dropped him in the line-up" in their batting order. In the last line Budden delivers the most poignant comment of the verse where he acknowledges the uphill battle he faces in trying to become a big name on the same label as the biggest name.

zero to sixty...

Olympic level track athletes have the ability to get to their top speed in a short amount of time. They work tirelessly to shave tenths and hundredths of a second from their lap times. We hear announcers talk about athletes getting a clean start out of the starters block.
Many rappers also pride themselves on the first few bars of the rhyme begin the strongest. In many ways - along with the beat-it can be the difference between holding the listeners ear for the entire verse. Inspectah Deck is one MC that wastes no time hitting his full rhyme stride.

"I leave scientist, mentally scared, triple extra large
wild like rock stars who smash guitars
poison bars from the god blow holes through your mirage..."

from, Above the Clouds - Gang Starr

"I bomb atomically
Socrates philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be droppin these
mockeries
lyrically perform armed robbery
Flee with the lottery
possibly they spotted me..."

from, Triumph - Wu Tang Clan


I can't believe I forgot to add Guillotine (Swordz) from the OB4CL album!
Not only does Deck start off strong, but he completely blacks out on on the rest of the track.



"Poisonous
Poisonous paragraphs smash ya phonograph in half It be the Inspectah Deck on the warpath
First class
leavin mics with a cast
Causin ruckus like the aftermath when guns blast
Run fast,
here comes the verbal assaulta
Rhymes runnin wild like a child in a walker
I scored
from the inner slums abroad
And my thoughts are razor sharp I sliced the mic from the cord
First they criticize,
but now they have become mentally paralyzed with hits that I devise
Now I testify, the rest is I Rebel INS your highness, blessed to electrify
With voltage of an eel
truth that I reveal'll
Crush the amateurs who screamed to keep it real
Caesar black down hoodied up and fatigues
Part time minor leagues receive third degrees
Attack like a wolf pack once I pull back the God - U
and bust through like a fullback"


I know there a bunch of others so put me on!