"...Speakin through the face of Ronald Reagan" Roc Marciano

Rolling Stones recently came to a Fenway Park and damn near shut the city down. Weeks later, Jimmy Buffet came through and had they whole area wasting away in Margaritaville.

It's no secret that this genre, unlike another, eats its old. Hell, it even devours it's young...sometime irregardless of talent and skill level. (see Ali Vegas, Elzhi, Charles Hamilton)

Since every motherfucker that saw 8 mile, and Hustle and Flow think they can rap, we are faced with a severe overpopulation of "MC's" in the game. As a result, many real quality lyricists get lost in the shuffle.

My first example of such neglect/oversight is Roc Marciano.

"Everybody talkin bout pistols, gats are boring...

...he came with a new topic to flip you, vats of urine" - DANGERDOOM

The evolution of subject matter MC's rap about has been an interesting one. Early on, they would use any phrase or utterance to keep the party going and support the DJ. Melle Mel swore that people did not want to hear about the things that were going on in their neighborhoods before he penned the classic, The Message. Braggadocio and sucker MC's is tried and true. Basically the rage of topics covered in songs can be a little short, so I want to do a series of posts of songs that have atypical topics.

"It's Mostly the Voice" - Guru

"I hit studio didn't know what to write

First line should it be about the hoes or the ice?

fo-fo's or Black Christ?

Both flows would be nice

Rap about big paper or the black man's plight?" Nas

That Nas line was in my head when I was first starting to think about what to write in response to the passing of Keith Elam. It is hard because there are so many different angels to take. First of all, he was an MC's MC. Great delivery, versatile content, and of course, that voice. But also he is from Roxbury so I always held a special place in my heart for him. While I don't really remember any specific songs of his from those early days, I do remember there were two groups with the name "Gang Starr", and that they had a lil beef around it. Years later I actually shared a few brief words with him one time about about 11 years ago. I think i'll start there.