Poetry Challenge #300-Rap-A-Rapa-Rap
Rap gets a bad rap. We, oldsters, now, ourselves raised on rock-n-roll, listen with our ears craning to pick out harsh sounds, harsh images, “nasty” words the same way our grandparents (parents?) listened to Chuck, Elvis and the Beatles—heads poised to shake, tongues already tsking. What they didn’t know—and so many of us seem to have forgotten—words, music, poetry is a way to express feelings-get them out. The first step to healing.
No one illustrates the healing power of words than Rapper—"embodiment of gansta-rap aesthecitc” –and actor, Tupak Shakur RIP. He was gunned down in Las Vegas and died on Sept. 13, 1996. His murder was never solved.
Tupak Shakur was born June 16, 1971, in Harlem, to Afeni Tupak, a single, struggling, mother of two. The family moved often, in and out of shelters, finally, fortuitously, for Tupak, to Baltimore. That move may well have made all the difference.
Recognized, immediately for his intelligence and personability, Tupak attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where biographer Robert Sam Anison noted in a 1997 Vanity Fair feature, Tupac felt "the freest I ever felt” …where, Tupac discovered the power and release and comfort of words. By seventeen, when he was already “obsessively” writing poetry and listening to Hip-Hop.
Below is Tupak’s poem “The Rose That Grew from Concrete” and here’s an analysis from Poet & Poem: CLICK!
With his music, his words, Tupak expressed the frustration, anger, pain so many others felt, and are still feeling. To date he’s sold over 75 million albums, making him one of the top-selling artists of all time.
If you’d like to read the lyrics to Dear Mama as you listen: CLICK!
The “main-stream” public found the power and rawness of Tupak’s music frightening and tuned out before listening (me included, until a friend’s son Xan shamed me into listening.) Tupac often complained that he was misunderstood—Sound familiar Elvis? John?
"Everything in life is not all beautiful. There is lots of killing and drugs. To me a perfect album talks about the hard stuff and the fun and caring stuff. ... The thing that bothers me is that it seems like a lot of the sensitive stuff I write just goes unnoticed."-2Pak
Poetry Challenge #300
Rap-A-Rappa-Rap
For today’s prompt let’s put aside any pre-conceived notions about Hip-Hop and Rap and try to write it.
Rap, also called Hip-Hop (which also includes the culture), by definition is a “musical style in which rhythmic and/or rhyming speech is chanted (“rapped”) to musical accompaniment.”
Which comes first, the rhythm or the words? That’s up to the creator. Some Rap is created by fitting words to an established rhythm. Others create rap by first writing a poem, then reread it and listen for a natural rhythm. Either way, once the rhythm is set, revise by changing, moving, rearranging words to make the rhythm strong and repeatable.
As Tupak did with his writing, challenge yourself to write about “the hard stuff and the fun and the caring stuff” in your rap.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Rap it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2600+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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