So, Penn had its incoming freshman read Adam Bradley’s Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop as a means of generating discussion and bringing the class closer. We were prompted with the question, “Is hip hop art or entertainment?” Here’s what I wrote, including a really pathetic rap about the book. It’s kinda meh but I just wanted to share!

So, Adam Bradley wrote a book about rap,

But honestly I kinda thought the writing was crap,

The book made me slap on my thinking cap,

To analyze the crap that some consider rap.

Messages conveyed are forgotten and delayed,

We fail to realize what they sing’s a message that’s portrayed,

Til we find ourselves surrounded by the movement that’s been made.

I think it’s pretty cool that this year is Penn’s Year of Sound. I’m a very avid musician—a singer and a somewhat knowledgeable music theory student—and I firmly believe that music is the most powerful, and perhaps the subtlest form of communication. Adam Bradley spends much of Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop arguing the idea that hip-hop is mostly about the music, the sound surrounding the lyrics (I mean, he also spends much of the book expressing the same ideas over and over and over again, but I won’t get into that). Bradley expresses the idea that the music comes first, and the content comes second, and I found myself strongly disagreeing with the notion.

To put it simply, hip-hop is indeed art. In order to make this assertion, however, you have to take a step back and ask: what is art? Is it taking some Crayola crayons and rubbing them on a piece of paper, soon to be hung up on the fridge? Is it a statue of some random naked muscular man?

I believe that art simply describes a method of expression. It could be a painting—Picasso’s Guernica, for example—which is a form of visual expression. A painter wants to express a feeling about, say, a current event, and so he uses his brush and paint to illustrate how he feels. The only difference I can see between this and rap is the way in which ideas are expressed. Rap and all other forms of music are an oral form of expression. Musicians aren’t emotionless bodies; they have strong opinions about virtually anything, and to say that these opinions have no influence on their music is plain wrong. Musicians use the spoken word and supplement it with sound that can effectively enhance ideas; a mellow piano part, for example, or screeching guitar solos.

Music is the subtlest form of communication because of exactly what Bradley describes: sound first, content second. We find ourselves singing Blurred Lines, the song of the summer with an insanely catchy beat, without even realizing the impact of the words. The song is about rape. It’s not even an anomaly either; so many songs and raps are about rather cruel and inhumane things and we find ourselves passing along the message, often because of a captivating beat that aids delivery.

If rap was entertainment, the words would mean nothing. Rap would simply be an instrumental beat, perhaps alongside some gibberish. Rap’s lyrics hold meaning; they are ideas to be communicated, messages to be expressed, opinions to be exposed to us in perhaps the slyest of ways. Hip-hop is a form of art. The lyrics that we hear are often messages just waiting to get into the minds of an artist’s fanbase.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m a huge fan of rap. I can appreciate almost any form of music, and the dual rhythmic relationship commonly found in rap fascinates me. I’m a fan of Eminem for that reason; his rhythmic talent is insane and the dude can spit the most innovative of syncopations at blazing speeds. But my favorite rapper is Macklemore. Macklemore is a rapper. He is not an entertainer; he is an artist. Ben Haggerty uses the stage name of Macklemore to give his ideas to the people and let them run with them. The song Same Love is all about his longing for equal marriage rights; the music sparked a movement and brought awareness to many members of our younger generation who otherwise could have been clueless. Otherside explores Haggerty’s experience with drugs and how negative of an impact they can have on one’s life; he even references the fact that people come up to him and tell him that his song changed their lives. His song saved them. The song isn’t simply a catchy beat with some cool rhyming lyrics. The song is a message just waiting to be expressed.

Artwork, simply put, is the expression of ideas. Whether it be visually or orally, art exposes us to ideas otherwise difficult to understand simply using the written or spoken word. Hip-hop’s message might sometimes be worthless (Bitch Suck Dick and We Get Bitches by Tyler, the Creator are perfect examples, and you probably don’t even need to listen to the songs to understand that). But lyrics are messages nonetheless. It is an artist’s duty to understand their audience and the idea they’re expressing, because their music has the potential to start a movement.