I’ve
finally gotten off my high
horse of analyzing
and opinionizing
(yes, “opinionize” is a word in my dictionary) hip-hop so ridiculously close.
However, you’re not going to get a new artist this week; rather, you’re going
to get an introduction into the greatest music-related website to ever be
thought of and created.
Rap
Genius was created in October of 2009, with the idea that rap lyrics, while
banal and stupid on many occasions, can still hold much cryptic and poetic
depth to them. It’s a crowd-sourced website, where anyone can make an account,
post lyrics to any song by any artist, and explain any lines they can. As their Facebook logo says, it’s a mixture of Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, and rap
lyrics. It is one of the most helpful tools you can have if you feel that rap
is a just bad rhyming and braggadocio.
As
a white boy from New Jersey (which you may not have known) who only got into
rap a few years ago (and even then it was limited to a very select group of
emcees), Rap Genius is my bible. So many times I hear a song that will make
reference to an artist, song, or lyric from a decade ago, or, in a rare case,
reference something like Plato’s Euthyphro
or 50 year old art-house films that I
have no knowledge about. Other times a rapper will make use of some street language that you don’t hear
and/or understand growing up in middle-class suburbia, and on occasion, some word play that can only be described as
subtly genius. And of course, due to the crowd-sourcing, they have easily the
most accurate, comprehensive, and varied lyrical databases in the world, making
it easy to understand what the
fastest rapper in the world is saying and allowing me to analyze unknown
rappers like OnCue
and Yung Jake (oops, did I just spoil next week’s article? I’m so silly).
Recently,
they’ve started up the “Verified” system. If that doesn’t explain it well
enough, I will now – it allows the actual rapper to explain their lyrics. And
it’s not just some lame dude whose Lil Wayne-inspired mixtape was posted by
himself; actual rappers like Immortal
Technique, RZA, and Nas have accounts and will explain a
couple of their lyrics. To me, it’s pretty damn cool to see the actual artists
explaining their lyrics to their fans. How many times have you wished to be
able know exactly what your favorite rapper meant when he said this or that
line? This solves it.
But
they just don’t just stop at explaining lyrics. They conduct interviews with
some of the greatest names in hip-hop, including RZA and Nas,
or with up and coming artists like A$AP
Rocky. And it’s not like these are poorly made emailed interviews with
basic, stupid questions (which you’ll never find here); these are engaging,
one-on-one video interviews. And let’s not forget about the blogs.
While some of them aren’t written as well as a professional journalist/editor
who was a communications major, they are certainly insightful and interesting
(which you will find here). They discuss various topics ranging from fun
discussions on who
would make up the Hip-Hop Cabinet to more serious introspective pieces
about Ronald Reagan’s
effects on the lower-class economy, and by extension rap. Every once in a
while, they’ll inform and inspire parts of my articles, such as the one I did
on Kendrick Lamar.
Stepping
away from the website itself, its Facebook
page and blog posts
introduces me to new artists (what, you want me to do a lot of research to find
new rappers?). They will post a link to an interesting, thought-provoking, or
fun lyric that they just happened to listen to (or just got explained), along
with topical songs (like the recent holographic appearance of the rapper who releases more music after his death than before). It’s really handy for writing
these articles, but also for just expanding my own knowledge and appreciation
of rap. And let’s not forget about the funny rap related statuses they post.
Remember
those horrible rock/rap mash-ups of yesteryear? (I know Limp Bizkit only came
out a few years ago, but bear with me). Well, this website is another one of
those, only it doesn’t suck. They created an offspring called Stereo IQ, which does the same
thing as Rap Genius, just for rock songs. Right now, they’re still pigbacking
off of Rap Genius’s servers and domain name. It’s a great tool, given its
proven accuracy with rap lyrics and many cryptic rock lyrics (ironically, much
like rap, it’s drugs. Always drugs). However, Stereo IQ is taking off, and will
hopefully get its own site soon.
I’m
sorry this was a break from introducing a new artist, or writing about an
interesting article about some insight my untrained ears have, but I use and
love Rap Genius so much that it seems only right to give them an article. At
the very least, you didn’t have to suffer through a 2,000 word article about
someone/something you don’t care about. But in case you miss the music, here's one of my favorite songs, "Family Business".
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