Kendrick Lamar, "For Free? (Interlude)" Sheet Music Transcription & Notation

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly Review - Rap Music Analysis

Let me set the tone for this piece right off the bat: To Pimp A Butterfly is the greatest rap album of all time.

Now, I know a lot of rap albums, and practically study them over and over through playing them not just all the way through in one take, but also on multiple mixes and playlists. For instance, one single song — “How We Do” — occupies 4 different playlists on my computer (a swag one, a Top 10 Dre Beats one, a workout one, and another playlist.) In fact, iTunes tells me that I’ve listened to Cam’ron’s song “Dip-Set Forever” 95 times, which is about 4 minutes long. That works out to 372.4 minutes, or about 6.2 hours. That’s almost a week’s total of listening to only that single song, and that play count doesn’t even take into account how many times I’ve listened to “Dip-Set Forever” elsewhere, like on my iPhone. I mention all of this for two reasons: 1.) To show that I can judge Kendrick’s TPAB against a lot of other rap albums, and 2.) To show what kind of listening treatment To Pimp A Butterfly got from me.

One of the contexts I want to judge TPAB against is the format of the rap album throughout the genre. Now, for me, the format of rap albums breaks down into two basic categories that really describe a spectrum. First, there are rap albums where every track has a completely different sound from the next one. On the other side are rap albums where every track leads in a very unified manner from one to the next. In the first category falls a lot of the mega-albums, like Lil Wayne’s The Carter III. “A Milli,” by Bangladesh, has an electronic, chopped and screwed sound. Meanwhile, Kanye’s beat “Let The Beat Build” has a soul sample that sets it completely apart from Bangladesh’s production. The fact that these albums sound so different from one track to the next is primarily a result of the fact that there are different producers for every track. 

But then there are albums that largely have only one sound world, and each track then works to explore and expand out that sound world. A great example of that album is Dr. Dre’s Chronic: 2001.It’s no surprise, then, that Dr. Dre produced every song on that album. His ability to guide the album in a single direction means that all the songs sound similar, without ever being repetitive. For example, many of the songs use the minor scale, which gives the album that dark feel, as between “Forgot About Dre” and“Let’s Get High." 

Kendrick’s TPAB, then, is an album that falls into the latter category. It has an incredibly unified sound, even though there are many different producers on it. For example, we have Pharrell, Flyin Lotus, and Boi-1da as credited producers. But it’s actually Sounwave who appears the most on tracks, a total of 7 times. But every track except 1 has more than 1 producer listed in the credits on Wikipedia. In fact, “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” has a grand total of 4 producers listed! But somehow, overall, Kendrick managed to pick beats that all sound related. Jay-Z probably has one of the best ears for a beat in the game — discovering Kanye, discovering 9th Wonder — but Kendrick is right behind him. The difference is Jay-Z follows the sound of his time, while Kendrick, like Kanye,is currently defining it. What I think is interesting about Kendrick’s own unique type of unification is that it doesn’t consist primarily of subgenres of rap, or the sounds of his songs; it actually consists of strictly musical aspects, like harmony. For instance, there are tons of jazzy chords on “For Free?”.

On this song, normal, triadic (3-note) chords are replaced and extended to have lots of notes (into chords that include 4 or even 5 notes.) These extended, spacy chords are reflected all over the album, as on“Institutionalized,” or the opening of “Hood Politics.” Jazz has been in rap for a while, as on Tribe Called Quest’s songs. But those were always samples. TPAB sometimes comes across as a live performance of a jazz quartet where the lead singer just happens to be rapping. But, of course, most of those aesthetic choices were made by session musicians, not Kendrick himself, who almost definitely doesn’t know any harmonic music theory. In this way, then, Kendrick shows the ability to guide his unofficial artistic collective as well as RZA did Wu-Tang, or Dr. Dre did Aftermath records. RZA coached all 9 members of his clan to huge success, making all of their beats and business decisions (such as what label each group member, like Raekwon, would sign with.) Dr. Dre, meanwhile, also obviously made beats for Snoop Dogg, N.W.A., and others, but he also launched Aftermath Records, which directly or indirectly discovered Eminem, 50 Cent, and Game. Kendrick, in picking unified beats and session musicians that worked great together, displays the same kind of foresight and genius. 

I’ve always thought it interesting that rap is almost inherently a collaborative process. No one blinks twice when a producer makes a beat and then gives it to a rapper, with almost no interaction or aesthetic discussion between the two. In fact, 50 Cent wrote the raps for “In Da Club” without ever having heard the beat. This would make almost no sense in other arts, or musical arts. For instance, classical composers write their own complete music, and then give it to musicians to play. Kendrick seems to be an excellent mediator of this relationship. In fact, I wanted to pitch an article to one of my freelance media outlets, WatchLoud or Pigeons and Planes, that would be a complete review of To Pimp A Butterfly without ever mentioning Kendrick Lamar once. That’s how essential part I think the session musicians and unheralded or unnamed contributors are to this project. 

As for Kendrick’s rap itself, this album continues a general theme in Kendrick’s music. Since Section.80, and down through good kid, m.A.A.d city on to To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick has slowly simplified his technical style. Since “Rigamortis” on Section.80, Kendrick hasn’t ever utilized a musical motive to the same complex, sophisticated extent, an idea that I covered for Pigeons and Planes here. But, somehow, this doesn’t really matter to me. That’s because his poetic message is so strong. There are some interesting musical aspects to it though. 

But he does do something melodically (strictly musically) that I’ve only heard once before, from Pharoahe Monch. I want to compare Kendrick’s own rap verses and the variations form in classical music. In classical music, variations is a form where a composer takes a small idea and creates a series of somewhat different sections of music that places that small idea in extremely different contexts. The idea is to show that the composer can come up with a great melodic idea that is flexible and inventive enough to appear in tons of different places, like an imitative canon, or a dance. Such an example is the “Variations On A Shaker Melody” form Aaron Copeland’s masterful 1944 piece “Appalachian Spring,” which you can hear here. 

If you listen closely, you can tell that sometimes the opening musical idea is played quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes in by one group of instruments, sometimes by another, and so on. In this way, the entire piece is unified, and Copeland displays his versatility and originality. 

I noticed on TPAB that Kendrick does something similar. On the opening song “Wesley’s Theory”, he raps these words: 

What you want? 

You a house or a car?

Forty acres and a mule, a piano, a guitar?

Anythin', see, my name is Uncle Sam, I'm your dog

Motherfucker, you can live at the mall… 

This song “Wesley’s Theory” has a musical speed of 120 Beats Per Minute (BPM.) This speed is quite fast for a rap song. 

Later on in the album, on the song “Alright”, Kendrick actually raps an extremely, unmistakably similar verse: 

“What you want, you a house, you a car?

40 acres and a mule, a piano, a guitar?

Anything, see my name is Lucy, I'm your dog

Motherfucker, you can live at the mall…” 

But the speed of “Alright” is actually much slower than when that same exact verse is rapped on “Wesley’s Theory.” The speed of “Alright” is 56 BPM, much less than the 112 BPM of “Alright.” It’s also important to mention that the musical rhythms from one song to the next on those bars are also the same, allowing the astute listener to recognize them as the same melodic idea. In this way, then — by placing the same melodic idea in a new musical context — Kendrick is engaging with the variations form in a way that rappers often don’t. 

So, yes. That whole 1500 page article is actually only a small, small part of why I think To Pimp A Butterflyis the greatest rap album of all time.

Rap Music Analysis #14 - Kendrick Lamar, "Good Kid, m.a.a.d. City"

Jean Grae endorsement! Find links to my blog on her twitter and in her bio:

If you’ve been alive recently you know that Kendrick Lamar just released his much-anticipated “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City album.” Overall I really, really liked the album, the album of the year I think. However, this is not yet another GKMC review. Instead, I want to take a look only at Kendrick’s rap, not the beats of his songs. When I say rap, I mean the words and rhythms that Kendrick speaks, and how they interact together.

            It’s my belief that, when discussing rap (which here refers to something completely different from hip-hop), we can move the discussion beyond the “Drake sucks, Eminem rules” kind. We can look at rappers and, by describing their musical and rhythmic tendencies, group them into different categories. Ultimately, who is good and who is bad will be left up to the listener, but I know what I prefer, and will offer my value judgments based on what I believe to be the core, fundamental principles underlying all good rap.

            To that end, just what are these different tendencies that we can describe? First, what differentiates rap from so many other vocal and poetic genres: their rhymes. It’s obvious that some rappers rhyme more (Eminem) and some rappers rhyme less (Drake.) By counting the number of rhymes that a rapper uses per bar, which is a musical duration of time just like a second, or an hour, we can differentiate between various rappers. Furthermore, we can describe just how these rappers use these rhymes. For instance, do they use more than one syllable? (“To waking up my throat SCRATCHY / that’s how I spit it, NASTY”, Nas, from the song “Don’t Get Carried Away”, where the capitalized words rhyme together, and each is more than one syllable long.) Just one syllable long? (“And when I leave I always come right back HERE / The young spitter that everybody in rap FEAR”, Drake, Successful) Are the rhyme sounds always repeated in the same order? (“Way past the MINIMUM, entering miLLENIUM” – Mos Def, RE: DEFinition, where the vowel sounds of –“ih”, “uh”, and “uh” are in the same order) Are they mixed up? (“His palms are sweaty / knees week, arms are heavy / there’s vomit on his sweater already” – Eminem, Lose Yourself, where the “ah” and “ee” vowel sounds occur in different orders, as indicated by the bold and italics.)? Do they occur in the same place in the musical bar, which is again, a duration of time?

            To understand this, we need to know what a bar is. Contrary to what you’ve heard, reading music rhythm is not difficult. It works like this: every piece of music has a time signature. It is expressed as one number over the other, but it is not a fraction. The top number if how many beats there are to a bar, and the bottom number is what note duration (again, a measurement of musical time) gets the beat. For instance, in a time signature of 6/8, there are 6 8^th notes to a bar, and the 8^th note gets the beat. In 3/2, there are 3 half notes to a bar, and the half-note gets the beat. Almost all rap is in 4/4. This means that there are 4 quarter notes to a bar, and the quarter note gets the bar. Thus, the bar, when represented on paper in notation, looks like this:

       A beat is another way we organize music. When we say a note gets the beat, it means it is emphasized when it’s played. If you look at the picture, you’ll see those 4 quarter note rests, the squiggly things. You’ll also notice that some beats are marked strong, and some are marked weak. This is another way we organize music. Within this 4/4 bar is where rappers place their words/notes. Every rapper’s words can be represented in this bar with the correct note values. And, in a 4/4 song, every musical bar is identical to the next one in terms of this structure. Thus, we can compare whether a rapper keeps his rhymes in the same place, or in different places.

            Watch this video as I listen to Kendrick’s “m.a.a.d. City” song to see how I count the beat.

            You’ll notice that all of my table taps are equally spaced out. When I tap slightly to the left, that means it is beat 1 and the beginning of the bar. I am counting the beat. They are informed by where the bass kick (low drum sound) and snare sound (high cracking drum sound) are. We can listen for where a rapper’s rhymes sound in relation to these to see whether a rapper places his rhymes in the same place in the bar, or in different places.

            In 2pac’s “Changes”, he raps, “I wake up every morning and I ASK myself / Is life worth living, should I BLAST myself” You’ll notice that, if you tap like how I was before, the rhyme “ask” with “blast” both land on beat 4, where the high drum sound is. This means that 2pac has kept the rhyme in the same place in the bar.

            Not all rappers do this. In Lauryn Hill’s rap on the Fugees’ song “Ready Or Not”, she places them in different places. (Lauryn’s amazing rap is often overlooked because she was such a good singer, and people think of her as a singer first.) For instance, if you count the beat evenly. She raps, “Bless YOU, if YOU represent the FU / but I hex YOU with some witches BREW if YOU DOO DOO” The first “you” is on beat 2, “fu” is on beat 4, and “brew” is on beat 3. This is another way to classify rappers.

            Another way is whether their rhymes fall at the end of lines, which is basically a sentence, or inside the line. When Young Buck raps, “I CAME in the GAME knowing niggas go’n hate me”, the rhymes come before the end of the sentence, and so are called internal rhymes. Again, not all rappers do this. Lil Wayne, on “Walk In”, raps, “Don’t mean to SPOOK YOU / this is New Orleans, so my queens do VOO DOO”, the rhymes are at the end of the sentences. These are called end rhymes. There are even more ways to classify rhymes, such as mosaic rhymes (when multiple syllables are rhymed but are made up of more than one word), but this is enough for now.

            One final, excellent way to classify rappers is by the nature of where they place their sentences in the bar. The sentences can either line up completely with the bar, cross the bar line, or, as is usually the case, some mix between them. For instance, in “Hypnotize”, Notorious raps, “Girls walk to us, want to do us / screw us/ who us / yeah, Poppa and Puff”, the slashes separate the different sentences. You’ll notice that they are all pretty short, and fall inside the 4/4 bar if you look at the music, where sentences are indicated by the curved lines called slurs. Or, they can line up with the bar. When Kanye raps, “Somebody tell these niggas who Kanye West is”, you’ll notice that it falls across those 4 beats of the bar, with the strong beats 1 and 3 on the bass kicks and the weak beats on beats 2 and 4.

            Now, using these different systems – the nature of their rhymes (how many syllables, inside or at the end of sentences, in the same order or mixed up, in different places or the same in the bar) and the rhythmic placement of their sentences, we can classify different rappers. As a quick summary of different rappers’ flows, you can say this:

1.     Eminem, while skilled with one-syllable or multisyllabic rhymes in different places in the bar, largely favors complex multisyllabic rhymes in the same order but in different places in the bar. However, his command of all different techniques of rap is formidable, and doesn’t really have any weaknesses. He is in a class alone, possibly with one other rapper: Nas.

2.     Kanye West usually has one-syllable end rhymes in sentences that usually fit completely by the bar. He relies on puns rather than complex musical raps in order to make his rhymes interesting

3.     Nas is similar to Eminem, but favors less rhymes, although this is done consciously; his rhyme skills are likewise in a class of their own. His rap flows more, although this is not a judgment call at all. Like Eminem, he uses sentences of varying length and structuring in order to vary his rhymes.

4.     2pac’s flow is hard-hitting. He will fit many rhymes in lines usually organized by the bar without any consideration for how quickly they come; he goes 100% all the time. He couples this with amazing storytelling abilities in order to be correctly considered one of the greatest of all time.

5.     Lil Wayne, at his best, usually fits multisyllable rhymes at the end of lines that equally fall within the bar or not. However, he has a bad tendency of repeating certain words that make his flow stop because he doesn’t rhyme. His flow is also very syncopated, meaning he places a lot of notes between the beats of the 4/4 bar.

Thus, you can use this system to classify any kind of rapper. I could go on forever like this, but these quick summaries are enough. Besides, I have more in-depth analysis of these rappers, including a nas post and an Eminem post. But I originally started this article as a way to describe Kendrick’s flow on “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.”, so let’s get there.

            I will be making summarizing remarks about Kendrick’s flow in general on the album, but examining more in-depth the 2 songs that seem designed to showcase Kendrick’s sick rap skills. These are “Backseat Freestyle” and “M.A.A.D. City”.

            First, “Backseat Freestyle.” Kendrick starts with a 4-bar hook instead of a verse. He fits sentences organized completely by the bar, starting at the bar’s start and ending at the bars end, and fits short yet multisyllabic rhymes at the end of them. This is pretty standard for a hook; it makes it easy to remember and rap along to. Take a look at the sheet music to see this:

In the first verse, though, Kendrick gets to why the hype was so crazy for him and this album. He starts off by pacing his rhymes: he doesn’t drop them all at once, because to come on so strong means any effect of a climax that should come at the end of the song (as all good musical pieces do) would be very weakened. So he starts off slow, rhyming “amazing” with “matrix.” However, he immediately jumps in: “My MIND is living on cloud NINE and this NINE is never on VACATION”, where vacation rhymes with “matrix” in the preceding line. So, using the organizing principles described above, we can say the following: Kendrick here uses mostly few-syllables internal and external rhymes in different rhythmic positions in relatively long sentences that are largely organized by the bar line. This is a very good general remark to make about Kendrick’s flow in general, but of course it is much more detailed than that.

            Next, Kendrick gets to another hallmark of his style. Often, he fits a number of syllables other than 4 to a beat. Just as the bar is divided into 4 beats, each beat can be divided into 4 16^th notes (called quadruplets), which is what happens in 4/4 music. However, that is not to say you can’t divide it in other ways, such as by fitting 5 sixteenth notes (“quintuplets”) or 6 sixteenth notes (“sextuplets”). This means that more notes are being fitted in the same amount of musical space, the beat, so they sound faster. As you can see from the sheet music here:

 

On the “And I pray”, he fits 3 sixteenth notes (“triplets”) where usually only 2 goes, such as for the words “lobby”, which are on 2 sixteenth notes. He does this again later on in the bar when he repeats “and I pray.” This is what that bracketed 3 means above the notes. Throughout the rest of the bar, Kendrick continues all of these tendencies we just described, such as accenting interesting words in the sentence (like “up”, or the “-ping” of “popping”), and using internal and end multisyllable rhymes. The same can be said for the 2^nd verse, but here the sentences largely follow the bar line. The third verse is the most interesting, though, so we will skip there.

            Here, Kendrick changes the end of the hook to make it transition flawlessly into the 3^rd verse. We call this “elision” in music, where the end of one phrase is joined to the start of the next one. Notice here how Kendrick ups the musical tension by increasing the speed of his rhythms: you can see the triplets with the three above them, as well as 32nd notes (the word “mother” in the phrase “motherfucking Hit Boy beat” – the more lines, called beams, there are above a notehead means the shorter the note value is. The 16^th notes have 2 beams, such as on the word “options”; the 32^nd notes have 3 above them, which you can see here)

Here in the 3^rd verse Kdot also increases the rate at which sentences come. We’ve been calling them “sentences”, but that isn’t really correct, because fragments (sentences with a noun but no verb) are also structural units unto themselves. For instance, when he says “Bee-otch” again and again, we hear those as separate from each other. You can see here:

That there are six fragments in a 2 bar space. This increase in their pace raises the musical tension, a very good idea to do at the end of a song. He again elides the phrase by changing the rhyme “go play” during the 2^nd “Bee-otches” to rhyme with “OJ” instead of repeating “go play again.” This makes the whole verse very tightly knit and connected.             And, like any good music-maker – producer, composer, whoever – he brings the tension down at the end of the song to resolve it. He shortens his multisyllabic rhymes to single-syllable ones, and increases the length of his sentences while making them fall within the bar.

            However, the song “M.A.A.D. City” is really where Kendrick puts it down, and the song that contains the best verse on the album.

            Again, he starts with a symmetrical 4 bar hook with short rhymes at the end of sentences that follow the bar line, which is kind of what a hook is supposed to be. He follows this same basic flow scheme for the start of his 1^st verse: low tension with sentences following the bar lines with short end rhymes. He starts to increase the rhymes and their complexity around bar 13

Where he has multisyllabic internal rhymes to increase the tension – “WARRIORS and CONANS / hope euPHORIA can SLOW DANCE with soCIETY the DRIVER’S SEAT”, where the capitalized words or syllables all rhyme.  He keeps the sentence length and organization largely the same, however; this shows a rapper in full control of all facets in his flow. And, like any good music-maker, he will of course vary this later while playing on the expectations he has set up in the listener. Starting with “That was back when I was NINE / Joey packed the NINE / Pakistan on every porch is FINE”, you’ll notice that the length of his sentences are greatly decreased, while the rate at which they come is greatly increased. His internal rhymes, meanwhile, have continued. This reaches a critical level in the phrases, “Picking up the FUCKING PUMP / PICKING off you SUCkers, / SUCK a DICK or DIE or SUCKer PUNCH…” “Dick” and “die” are capitalized there not because they rhyme, but because they are alliterated, which I believe also stands out naturally in the listener’s ear. A similar thing happens with, “Ain’t no PEACE TREATY just PIEces, BGs up to PREAPPROVE”. Kendrick then continues to set up thematically his 3^rd and final verse, which we’ll get to soon enough.

            In verse 2, after the beat flips, what do we find but our old friends the sixteenth note triplet from “Backseat Freestyle”, on the word “Cause I was.” If you aren’t understanding the sheet music, just listen for how Kendrick’s words speed up on those words. That’s basically what the music notation is describing. The same thing happens on the words “My mama’s pad.” Kendrick continues to have comparatively long sentences with single-syllable rhymes both inside and at the end of sentences in different places inside the bar – again, a very good way to summarize his flow, not that he’s one-dimensional, as we’ve seen.

            A great moment also comes at “I was straight TWEAKING / the next WEEKEND / we broke EVEN”, where Kendrick changes where an entire rhythmic phrase falls inside the bar. I won’t go too in-depth into it, because it’s kind of complex musically and more of a subject for another article, but it’s like this: look at the notes on “straight tweaking”, “next weekend”, and “broke even.” You’ll notice that, for each syllable in those 3 phrases of 3 syllables each, the first syllable gets an eighth note (one beam), followed by 2 syllables, both on 16^th notes (2 beams.) We can say that a rhythmic phrase is repeated in the form of an eighth note followed by 2 16^th notes for each respective phrase. What makes this so amazing is that Kendrick moves where the rhythmic phrase starts and ends over those 3 phrases. The first version of this rhythmic phrase falls right on the beat; “next weekend” starts on the 2^nd sixteenth note of the beat, and “broke even” starts on the 3^rd sixteenth note of the beat. This is called “metrical transference.” In any event, just compare those syllables graphically and you’ll see that, even though they sound the same, they aren’t in the same place on the paper.

            Finally, “Kendrick AKA Compton’s Human sacrifice” is probably the best line on the album. You’re a young kid, and you are your city’s HUMAN SACRIFICE? Damn dude. That’s some heavy shit.

            But the third verse is why we’re here.

            As I said before, just because a 4/4 bar divides its beats into 4 16^th notes normally doesn’t mean you have to. Before, with those triplets, Kendrick split them into 3. Here, however, he does something very complex. Now, dividing 6 by 4 is relatively easy: 1.5. That means that every triplet sixteenth note we saw before is 2/3 of a quadruplet (divided into 4) sixteenth note. To count this, a performer would count 3 while counting 2, which is just like it sounds: it isn’t that hard, relative to what we’re about to find. If you look at the music

You’ll notice that the number “5” is above the notes. This means that Kendrick is fitting 5 sixteenth notes where in 4/4 there are usually only 4 sixteenth notes. This means that he divides 5 by 4, which is 1.25. Now, what are you going to do to perform this? Count by 1.25? “1.25, 2.5, 3.75, 5!” Not happening. That means it’s hard to perform this. However, Kendrick does it incredibly well, while fitting in some sextuplet sixteenth notes for good measure. The rhythm, thus, is here just crazy: just try to rap along! It’s impossible. These are very complex rhythms, WHILE telling a compelling poetic story, WHILE rapping skillfully (internal single-syllable rhymes in different rhythmic positions in sentences of all types of length and organization.) That means a rapper is at the top of his game. Let’s look more in depth.

            If you listen to this verse, you’ll notice that the length between his different phrases vary greatly, and are pauses we wouldn’t have in speaking in real life: “If I told you I killed a nigga at 16…would you believe me?...or see me to be…innocent Kendrick…you seen in the streets…with a basketball”, where the periods represent rather noticeable pauses. How did he even come up with these rhythms?  In all my listening and transcriptions, I’ve only ever seen Andre 3000 (on the song “Aquemini”) and Eminem (on “What’s the Difference”) approach the complexity of these rhythms, and those two are likewise amazing rappers.

            Listen to this verse then and listen for those pauses. Listen to how the speed and lengths of the pauses and how fast he says the words are first quick, then slow, then a little slower, then quicker then ever. He’s continually manipulating these rhythms. Then, in terms of rhymes and sentences, he uses mostly single-syllable internal rhymes in different places in the bar with longer sentences organized by the bar. Like I said, this is the best verse on the album, and firmly establishes Kendrick as a force to be reckoned with.

            How could we more generally categorize Kendrick though? Are there any similar rappers? For my money, and not just for his similar LA connections, I’d compare Kendrick to 2pac. Both have musical skills, contrary to anyone who says 2pac is famous only because he died young. If I had to make a call, I’d say Kdot is better musically. However, they both just have a knack for storytelling. 2pac’s got “Changes”, “Brenda’s Got A Baby”, “Dear Mama”, “Life Goes On,” “Unconditional Love”, and more where he just puts his heart completely in his music. Not only is he skilled musically, but he feels what he’s saying, which can’t be said for all artists. It’s the same way with Kendrick. His song “Section 80”, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst”, “The Art Of Peer Pressure”, and others all deal with topics that other rappers just aren’t brave or courageous enough to deal with. To say you’re uncomfortable with killing in rap that’s paradoxically also gangsta is largely taboo. Just like 2pac, he broaches subjects in stories that put you in the first person that break new ground for the emotional narratives available to popular (not pop) rap music.

If you liked this analysis, check out my other ones! If you click to the top left of the navigation drop-down menu bar at the top of this page, you can find them under the "Rap Analysis" Transcriptions. The Jean Grae one describes what I call the “rhyme barrier”, while the one on Eminem's Business introduces rap phrases. For how I listen to rap music, check out my Eminem Drop The Bomb On Em. If rap production is more your thing, check out one of my two Dr. Dre analyses. For a deeper introduction to the basic concepts introduced here, such as multisyllabic rhymes and how to measure them, check out my Nas analysis.

You can find the full sheet music for the 2 songs below. Thanks for reading! And if you liked it, PLEASE tell your friends about it, post it somewhere, facebook rap forums, or something, and let me know! I'm trying to make this into some kind of job for me, write a book or something, so thanks.

           

Rap Music Analysis - Kendrick Lamar - Rigamortis, Pt. 2

*This article is a continuation of the first part of how to listen to "Rigamortis," which you can read here. You can hear the Kendrick Lamar song here.

As I mentioned in the first article, these exact lines below — what I'll call Refrain 1 — occur at 0:21, 0:59, 1:26, 1:36, 2:31, and 2:42, and last 4 bars:

[got me breathing with dragons] [i’ll /

crack the egg in your basket, you /

bastard] [i’m marilyn manson, don’t /

ask for your favorite rapper]


Below is the second refrain, Refrain 2. These exact lines occur at 1:31, 1:42, and 2:36, and also last 4 bars:


[he dead] /

[amen] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /


When you combine these 2 refrains, the entire 12-bar chorus that happens at 1:26 and 2:42 is this. It's Refrain 2 + Refrain 1 + Refrain 2.


[he dead] /

[amen] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /

[got me breathing with dragons] [i’ll /

crack the egg in your basket, you /

bastard] [i’m marilyn manson] [don’t /

ask for your favorite rapper] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /

However, there's a mismatch here. Refrain 2 happens at 0:59, but the chorus (which, again, should mention both Refrain 1 and Refrain 2) happens only at 1:26 and 2:42. How is this possible?

Just like what we see in part 1 of this article, the answer is in how Kendrick manipulates the musical material that he already has placed in the chorus. At 0:59, he raps only the first 2 bars of Refrain 2, so that “amen, he’s dead,” is repeated only once. Right after, at 1:01, he cuts right back into his proper verse rap by continuing the thread of semantic meaning from the refrain into the verse. He does this by extending the sentence of “amen, he’s dead” in explaining who it is exactly that’s telling him his rap adversaries are deceased.

The astute reader will also have noticed that a Refrain 1, at 1:42, was also left out in the cold. It doesn’t appear to be part of any chorus, or at the least, it appears to be an extra Refrain 1 on the end of a chorus. How is this to be interpreted?

Here, Kendrick once again demonstrates an unfailing lack of the means by which a rapper creates semantic and musical meaning. That’s because when he starts the completely new material of his second verse at 1:47, he continues a rhyme on the final vowel pattern of the last word of Refrain 1. He takes the word “rapper,” from Refrain 1, and rhymes it on “casper,” “nasa,” and so on.


[got me breathing with dragons] [i’ll /

crack the egg in your basket, you /

bastard] [i’m marilyn manson] [don’t /

ask for your favorite rapper] [i /

wrapped him and made him casper] [i /

captured the likes of nasa] / …

Not only are the rhymes from Refrain 1 continued into this new musical section, but they are also the same types of rhymes musically. That’s because they also all happen at the end of bars.

This strong similarity means that instead of interpreting the chorus at 1:26 as the real chorus that lasts 16 bars, and the ending chorus at 2:42 as a shortened chorus of only 12 bars, I interpret the real chorus as lasting 12 bars, and this addition of another Refrain 1 as an elision into the verse. Thus, the Refrain 1 at 1:42 is really part of both the verse and chorus. On the one hand, it’s material from the chorus that we’ve heard before, but on the other, it’s part of the verse because Kendrick goes on to rhyme off its words. Kendrick has blurred the lines between what a chorus is and what a verse is. And without an aid from the production, such as a distinct musical idea that separates the verse from the chorus, we’re left answering that this section is both.

You're welcome.

Love,

Martin

P.S. If I'm Internet-famous enough to have what I think they call "haters," please click here.

Rap Music Analysis - Kendrick Lamar - "Rigamortis"

All of the rappers in my own personal Top 10 are unique and special in their own way, just like their mamas always told ‘em. However, there are also certain overlaps between their artistic oeuvres. For instance, André 3000 and Nas have both utilized metric transference, which stands as a good measuring stick for just how technically complex a rapper is. But Kendrick Lamar, along with Eminem, is one of those few rappers about who it can truly be said that they’ve made certain songs in rap music that have never been done before, and have never been imitated since, even poorly.

“Rigamortis” is one of those songs.

The title of the song alone bespeaks some sort of consciousness of the history of rap or its poetic themes, as it recalls his West Coast godfather Dr. Dre and his lines about turtles dying from the 1987 N.W.A song “Express Yourself.” Poetic? Not the most. Rhyming? Yep, and that’s often good enough for Dre when he isn’t using a ghostwriter.

That, of course, is not true when we talk about Kendrick’s lines. As I say over and over in my articles — I should really get it tattooed somewhere  — we can only appreciate rappers' musical abilities when we understand the musical conventions that they’re working on top of. The important convention in “Rigamortis” is how choruses (also called hooks) are written in rap. This knowledge will allow us to see how Kendrick cleverly deviates from what used to be unquestioned musical commandments in order to make something knew. To see this, we need just the tiniest bit of music theory. Rappers brag by saying, "I got bars, I got bars." Well, what the hell's a bar?

A bar is the base unit for the musical system of time, just like a second is the base unit for a chronological system of time. Musicians use bars though, and not seconds, because seconds always last the same amount of time, while music can be either fast, like Macklemore's "Can't Hold Us," or slow, like The Roots' "Boom!". Hence, bars can come at different speeds, because they don't always have to last the same amount of time. The use of a bar, and not a second, expresses this difference. But just like seconds, bars are repeated over and over in order to make up longer lengths of times, like a whole musical section of a verse or a chorus. About 99.99% of the time, those bars are added up in groups of 4 to make those larger sections. For instance, verses usually last 16 bars, and choruses usually last 8, although there are small, differing exceptions sometimes.

The chorus of “Rigamortis" seems at first to be no different, because it lasts for 12 bars. What Kendrick innovates here in a way few other musicians have before is in just how his rap over those 12 bars interacts with the musical accompaniment behind it. That's because this song's actual chorus of 12 bars occurs only twice, while material from the chorus as a whole is mentioned at least 5 times in the song. How is this mismatch possible?

In order to keep track of all of these moving parts, we’ll consider the following lines to be the first refrain, called Refrain 1, and say that multiple refrains add up to 1 full, 12-bar chorus during this song. You can hear "Rigamortis" here. In the below transcription, brackets [ ] surround the start and end of sentences, and the slashes / indicate where each succeeding bar stops before the next one begins.

These exact lines below occur at 0:21, 0:59, 1:26, 1:36, 2:31, and 2:42, and last 4 bars:

[got me breathing with dragons] [i’ll /

crack the egg in your basket, you /

bastard] [i’m marilyn manson, don’t /

ask for your favorite rapper]


Below is the second refrain, Refrain 2. These exact lines occur at 1:31, 1:42, and 2:36, and also last 4 bars:


[he dead] /

[amen] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /


When you combine these 2 refrains, the entire 12-bar chorus that happens at 1:26 and 2:42 is this. It's Refrain 2 + Refrain 1 + Refrain 2.

[he dead] /

[amen] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /

[got me breathing with dragons] [i’ll /

crack the egg in your basket, you /

bastard] [i’m marilyn manson] [don’t /

ask for your favorite rapper] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /

[he dead] /

[amen] /

However, the real chorus doesn’t appear until an unusually long time into the song, at 1:26. That’s because the first time the listener hears these lines it is in a far different musical structure than that more traditional, 12-bar chorus chorus. The first time a listener hears Refrain 1, it is in the varied form of what we can call Refrain 1B, at 0:13:


[got me breathing with dragons] [i’ll /

crack the egg in your basket you /

bastard] [i’m marilyn manson with /

madness] [now just imagine the /

magic i light to asses] [don’t /

ask for your favorite rapper]


Kendrick has now inserted a new line in the middle of Refrain 1. He’s added, “…with madness, now just imagine the magic I light to asses.” This makes refrain 1 not 4 bars long, but 6 bars long. Why did Kendrick do this? Put another way, why does this new refrain not just work, but work well?

The key is that those opening 6 bars just quoted start 10 bars into the song.

“But wait!”

Yes?

“Neither those 6 bars or 10 bars are a multiple of 4 bars that you said every rap section is made out of!”

Ah! You’ve got me. But what’s 6 bars plus 10 bars?

“Enough happy hours to put Bobby McFerrin out of business!”

Yes! But also…16 bars. Which is a multiple of four.

On the one hand, Kendrick could have repeated Refrain 1 in the exactly correct way so that it lasted only 4 bars. But that would have left his rap ending at bar 14. This is a problem because the musical loop behind him — made up of those melodically spiraling jazz instruments — is 4 bars long, so he would’ve ended the opening of the song halfway through his loop, which would sound awkward without some kind of explicit support (like a beat drop) from the musical accompaniment.

On the other hand, Kendrick could’ve again repeated Refrain 1 exactly and started at bar 8 or 12, which would line up the end of his opening with the end of his rap. But this would have been really, really boring, because that's what 99.99% of other musicians do. So he decided to do what was on the other-other hand, and balance the 16 bars into 10 bars of an instrumental intro, plus the 6 bars of a slightly modulated Refrain 1. This is so musically groundbreaking that if all of my dozens of articles could be summarized in short, I would need only those 16 bars.

That relationship that’s just been described — the one between the lines of Kendrick’s verse and the lines of his chorus — is what drives this entire song, in a way that previously seemed impossible in rap. This is the core musical game that Kendrick is playing throughout this entire song. 

If you want to hear how, check out part 2 of this article here.

*If you want more stuff like this — exclusive articles, sneak peeks of upcoming posts, excerpts from a book I'm writing — sign up for a weekly newsletter here.

Rap Music Analysis - Black Hippy

-Steven Bruno is a 22 year old author from Toronto Canada who writes short scary stories, you can find his work on his blog Blood In My Pen.”

Black Hippy Analysis: Kendrick Lamar & Ab-Soul

Intro:

This article was written to compare and contrast each member of the rap group Black Hippy and highlight the differences and similarities in their lyrical ability and content. I’ve chosen to split this article into two parts: the first centering on Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul and the second comparing Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock. The reason I’ve chosen to do this is simple: Kendrick has a lot more in common with Ab-Soul (in terms of their technical ability, what they rap about, their use of metaphors, etc) than he does with either Schoolboy or Jay Rock. Schoolboy Q on the other hand has a style that is more similar to Jay Rock than it is to Kendrick or Ab-Soul. This article aims to point out the more subtle differences between two similar rappers instead of the more obvious differences between two rappers who are not that much alike.

This brings me to another detail that I should mention. Before you begin reading, you must realize that each member of Black Hippy imitates eachother’s style to a certain extent across the whole of their music. They have spent countless hours in and out of the studio together, so it is expected that they have inspired eachother’s flows to a small degree. What this article tries to focus on is how the rappers tend to rap, or what techniques make up their own unique signature style. Okay, now let’s start with a (very) brief history of Black Hippy and the rappers we will be looking at in this article: Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul.

Black Hippy was formed in 2009 and consists of rappers Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock, who are all signed to the label Top Dawg Entertainment. The group was purposefully formed after each artist had established themselves individually, which was revealed by Kendrick in this interview. “We had a plan with this shit. We said we was gonna get each individual artist off first, let the world identify them with these artists, and at the end, bring them together was a collective.” Each artist has publicly stated that they doubt a Black Hippy album will come to fruition, and Ab-Soul has jokingly called it “Detox 2” (the joke being that it will never come out).

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth is a 27-year-old (born June 17, 1987) rapper from Compton, California. He released his mixtape “Youngest Head Nigga in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year)” under his rap name K-Dot in 2003 while he was just 16 years old. This led to him securing a contract with Top Dawg Entertainment. He changed his name to Kendrick Lamar soon after he dropped his 2009 mixtape “C4”.  His most widely known records are “Section.80” (2011) and “good kid, m.A.A.d city” (2012).

Herbert Anthony Stevens IV is a 27-year-old (born February 23, 1987) rapper from Los Angeles, California. Shortly after his birth, he moved to Germany with his family until he was 5 years old, when he moved back to a suburban area of California. At ten years old he was diagnosed with Steven-Johnson syndrome, which is a rare condition that is responsible for his dark lips and light sensitive eyes (hence his nickname “black lip bastard” and the fact that he is always wearing sunglasses). He recorded his first song in 2002 but didn’t sign to TDE until 2007. He released his first mixtape “Longterm” (one of four) in 2009 and then his second one, “Longterm 2: Lifestyles of the Broke and Almost Famous” in 2010. His first studio album “Longterm Mentality” was released in 2011, followed by “Control System” and “These Days…” in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

FLOW:

Let’s start off by taking a look at Kendrick’s flow. I think it’s safe to say that Kendrick is a very complex and unique rapper. He’s able to weave bars and rhyming patterns together so effortlessly that you often cannot detect where exactly he transitioned from one pattern into to another without taking a closer look at his lyrics. There are a few general techniques that he utilizes when writing lyrics, and I think an examination of the first verse of the song “Rigamortus” will help serve as an introduction into identifying these techniques.

            [and this is RIGAMORTUS and it's GORGEOUS when you DIE]

      [ali RECORDED, and i'm MORPHEUS, the MATRIX OF MY MIND]

      [i'm out the ORBIT, you an ORPHAN and a hairdresser COMBINED]

      [i'm on the TOILET when I RHYME, if you the SHIT THEN I DECLINE]

      [i CLIMAX where you BEGIN and then i END on CLOUD NINE]

      [and that's IMPORTANT when you MORPH INto a ANGEL IN THE SKY]

     

If you haven’t heard the verse before, I highly suggest listening to it before continuing with this article, which will emphasize how smoothly he blends together each rhyming pattern. Although this song is not a prime example of the speed he usually rhymes at, it does showcase a few important pieces that contribute to his signature style.

First let’s break down and categorize some of these rhyming patterns. Although I capitalized every rhyming word, is it still difficult to see on the surface exactly where each pattern intersects and combines to form a new pattern. If we start with the first line,

[and this is RIGAMORTUS and it's GORGEOUS when you DIE]

you can already see two patterns begin to emerge. We can classify Pattern A as words containing both the long –o sound and the short –u sound and Pattern B as words containing the long –I sound.

Pattern A	Pattern B
(long –o, short –u)	(long –i)
rigamortus	die
gorgeous

The structure of the bar is pretty simple here. He uses two internal rhymes containing two rhyming syllables and one end rhyme containing one rhyming syllable. Let’s look at the next line:

[ali RECORDED, and i'm MORPHEUS, the MATRIX OF MY MIND]

Here he adds two words to Pattern A ([RECORDED] and [MORPHEUS]) but pay attention to the rest of the bar. [MIND] is a close family rhyme of [DIE], so it fits perfectly into Pattern B. But [MATRIX IN MY MIND] as a whole rhymes with [ANGEL IN THE SKY], which he spits four bars later, and integrates the one syllable rhyme from Pattern B (the long –i) into a new three syllable pattern (long –a, short –e, long –I, if we ignore the syllables in [IN], [MY] and [THE]), which we’ll call Pattern C. A lot of popular rappers do this, but what makes Kendrick’s approach so unique is the consistency of which he utilizes this technique. In the next few lines he sandwiches the same type of combination pattern in between Pattern C. Let’s quickly categorize the rhymes in the next line first before addressing this:

[i'm out the ORBIT, you an ORPHAN and a hairdresser COMBINED]

[ORBIT] and [ORPHAN] both loosely fit into Pattern A because he stresses the long –o syllable in each, and [COMBINED] can fit into Pattern B because [-BINED] stresses the long –i sound. [hairdresser] does not rhyme with [ANGEL IN THE] at all, so it cannot be put into pattern C.

He follows the same structure basic structure as the first bar, using two words from Pattern A in an internal rhyme and one word from Pattern B as an end rhyme. Again, this is nothing too out of the ordinary for a skilled rapper. So:

Pattern A	Pattern B	Pattern C
(long –o, short –u)	(long –i)	(long –a, short –e, long –i)
rigamortus	die	matrix in my mind
gorgeous	mind	angel in the sky
recorded	combined
morpheus	sky
orbit
orphan

But the real genius lays in the next few bars.

[i'm on the TOILET when i RHYME, if you the SHIT THEN I DECLINE]

[i CLIMAX where you BEGIN and then i END ON CLOUD NINE]

Here he changes the structure of the bar a bit, while adding a third multisyllable rhyming pattern that utilizes words from Pattern B. Instead of internally rhyming two words from Pattern A, only one word belongs to the pattern this time ([TOILET]) and the second word belongs to Pattern B ([RHYME]). His entirely new pattern (Pattern D) is created when he rhymes [SHIT THEN I DECLINE] with [END ON CLOUD NINE] (the short –o vowel is [CLOUD] is stressed almost like a short –e sound, which rhymes with the short –e vowel from [DECLINE]). This new pattern is created in between Pattern C ([MATRIX IN MY MIND] and [ANGEL IN THE SKY]).

But that’s not all he does. He transitions to the next bar by stressing the long –I vowel in [climax] at the beginning of the bar, which is stressed in [DECLINE] at the end of the previous bar. [Climax] does not belong to any pattern, but carries the same vowel sound and two of the same consonants in the same order (“cl-”). This is part of a larger technique that Kendrick uses to transition between bars that I will talk about more in depth later. The bar also contains two internal rhymes [BEGIN] and [END], which belong in an entirely new pattern themselves but also fit into Pattern D. Then he finally returns to the structure that he used in the second bar with:

[and that's IMPORTANT when you MORPH INto a ANGEL IN THE SKY]

by utilizing two words from pattern A and then ending it with pattern C.

So now the his rhymes could be categorized as:

``Pattern A	Pattern B	Pattern C	Pattern D	Pattern E
(long –o, short –u)	(long –i)	(long –a, short –e, long –i)	(short –i, short –e, long –i)	(short –i)
rigamortus	die	matrix in my mind	shit then i decline	shit
gorgeous	mind	angel in the sky	end on cloud nine	begin
recorded	combined			end
morpheus	rhyme
orbit	decline
orphan	nine
toilet	sky
important
morph in-

Or if looked at differently:

A	A	B
A	A	C
A	A	B
A	B	E	B
E	E	B
A	A	C

He manages to create 5 different rhyming schemes in 6 bars and continues to create and intermingle new ones during the rest of the verse, all while staying inside the 4/4 time signature. He consistently hits anywhere from 14-17 syllables per bar, going as high as 21 syllables per bar in the second verse. This may be 10 syllables fewer than the fast part of Eminem’s Rap God but it’s still a respectable number to hit, especially considering how smoothly he integrates his different patterns together and how efficiently he creates new ones.  

So how does Ab-Soul’s style compare to Kendrick’s? Let’s take a look at the first verse of one of his most well known songs “Pineal Gland”:

*Side Note: As I said in the introduction to this article, each member of Black Hippy has their own unique style, but you can also hear them copy and emulate eachother’s techniques during their songs. I did not choose to look at “Pineal Gland” as a comparison to “Rigamortus”, I chose it to serve as an overall look into Ab-Soul’s unique flow and how he raps in general. Try to read this verse in Kendrick’s voice or any verse from “Rigamortus” in Ab-Soul’s voice; you simply cannot do it. This is because these two songs perfectly encapsulate each rapper’s distinct style, whereas the first two verses of “Say Wassup” are a lot more interchangeable, for example.*

[it was all a dream, i swear it NEVER HAPPENED]

[i WROTE LIKE EDGAR ALLAN, i was PO' LIKE EDGAR ALLAN]

[let me hit the WEED, you know i really NEED THAT]

[MISSING SCREWS, BENDING RULES like KNEECAPS]

[i don't even know what's real, i'm just BEING REAL]

Pattern A	Pattern B	Pattern C	Pattern D	Pattern E	Pattern F
(short e, short –a, short –a, short –e)	(long –o, long –i)	(long –e)	(long –e, short –a)	(short –i, short –i, long –u)	(long –e, long –e, short –e)
never happened	wrote like	weed	need that	missing screws	being real
edgar allen	po’ like	need	kneecaps	bending rules	being still
edgar allen

[making moves, you just another human being BEING STILL]

Instead of going through each individual line, I am just going to group together the rhyming patterns and then expand on a few things that make this song a perfect example of Ab-Soul’s signature flow.

A
B	A	B	A
C	D
E	E	D
F
F

Right off the bat you can see that this verse is not as structured as Kendrick’s. Ab-Soul is capable of organizing verses like Kendrick does (and vice versa), but normally his verses are structured in a style similar to this. You can see that he tends to switch rhyming patterns a lot more and the transitions between them are more prominent and a lot easier to spot. In “Rigamortus”, Kendrick references words from Pattern A in the first and sixth bar, while Ab-Soul ends Pattern A in this verse after the second bar and doesn’t go back to it. Kendrick tends to stretch his schemes a lot more than Ab-Soul does, as well.

Let’s look at how he utilizes internal rhymes in this song. Pattern E contains a set of internal rhymes ([MISSING SCREWS] and [BENDING RULES]) that do not intermingle with any other patterns in the song (although [MISSING SCREWS] comes at the beginning of the bar, I count it as an internal rhyme because it only rhymes with [BENDING RULES], which comes in the middle of the bar). This is how he commonly utilizes internal rhymes. Kendrick on the other hand often mixes his internal rhymes into other patterns, as seen countless times in “Rigamortus”.

Although this is how they most commonly use internal rhymes, examples of them doing the opposite can be found too.

 [the bass bit the BAIT, I'm STRAIGHT, you a GAY COUPLE]

From “Black Lip Bastard (Remix)”, Ab-Soul rhymes two words internally ([BAIT] and [STRAIGHT]) but mixes one into the end rhyme ([STRAIGHT] is a family rhyme of [GAY], which is part of the pattern [GAY COUPLE])

[in RETROSPECT i REMEMBER DECEMBER being the HOTTEST]

[squad CARS, neighborhood WARS and stolen MAZDAS]

From “Ronald Regan Era”, Kendrick uses an internal rhyme ([REMEMBER] and [DECEMBER]), which is not part of any other pattern.

There are a couple of other things that Ab-Soul does in this verse, but I will come back to them in the appropriate section.

I now want to talk about each rapper’s unique usage of homonyms in their songs. First let’s go over a few definitions in case you were sick that day in grade three.

A homonym is a word that looks or sounds the same, but has a different meaning. There are three important subsets of homonyms that we should keep in mind when analyzing Kendrick and Ab-Soul’s flow:

1.    Homophones are words that sound the same but have different spellings or meanings (i.e. “ate” and “eight”).

2.    Homographs are words that are spelt the same and have the same or different sounds, but have different meanings (i.e. “content” meaning happy and “content” meaning material).

3.    Heteronyms are a subset of homographs, which are spelt the same but sound different and have different meanings (i.e. “dove” referring to the bird and “dove” referring to the act of diving).

Now let’s take a look at these bars from the song “Hol’ Up” to see one of Kendrick’s utilizations of homonyms:

[BACK in this BITCH in the BACK of that BITCH, with my BACK against THE WALL]

[and your BITCH on the edge of my DICK, JUMP-OFF]

These lines contain examples of Kendrick’s use of (specifically) homographs because both [BACK] and [BITCH] are spelt the same but are used to refer to different things throughout the verse. [BACK in this BITCH] is a pretty common saying, meaning that he is “back at it” or “back doing his thing”. When he says [in the BACK of that BITCH], he’s referring to the back of the airplane, where he is currently writing this song [i wrote this record while thirty thousand feet in the AIR]. [With my BACK against THE WALL/and your BITCH on the edge of my DICK, JUMP-OFF] uses the word [BACK] to refer to the back on his actually body, and the [BITCH] he is referring to is an actual woman, most likely the stewardess that he mentioned at the beginning of the song [stewardess complimenting me on my nappy HAIR].

He makes use of each subset of homonyms in his music, but I’ve found that he is mostly a fan of using homographs like the previous lines. In the second verse of “Fuck Your Ethnicity” he uses them almost in the same fashion with the word [KNOCK]:

[it's TREASON and i'm TYLENOL, i KNOCK out when you KNOCK IT OFF]

[KNOCK on the doors of opportunity, i'm too INVOLVED]

Or from the first verse with the word “mind”:

[had a brain, then i LOST IT, I'm out of my MIND]

[so don't you MIND how much the COST IS, penny for my thoughts]

But in “Hiiipower” he uses homophones:

[and she always told me PRAY for THE WEAK, UHH]

[them demons got me, I ain't PRAYED in SOME WEEKS, UHH]

[WEAK] and [WEEKS] are words that sound the same but have a different spelling and meaning (i.e. homophones).

Kendrick utilizes all these different types of homonyms to fill up space in the middle of his bars while giving the illusion that he is rhyming different words together (which he technically is, since they are not considered the same word). But he also uses homonyms to transition between rhyming patterns. Here is an example from “Blow My High” of him using (specifically) homophones to do this:

[the galaxy ain't got ROOM FOR Y'ALL]

[ain't nothing gonna happen SOON FOR Y'ALL]

[while I'M HERE and every day I HEAR]

[your bullshit, SELF-PITY]

[reason why you never DEALT WITH ME]

The homophones in question here are [HEAR] and [HERE], which are used to transition between the rhyming schemes of [ROOM FOR Y’ALL/SOON FOR YA’LL] & [SELF-PITY/DEALT WITH ME]. You can catch these types of transitions in all his music but especially his older tracks.

Ab-Soul uses homonyms too, but not to the extent and amount that Kendrick does. Most of the lyrics I’ve found only show Ab-Soul utilizing two meanings of a word, like his use of homophones in “Black Lip Bastard (Remix)”:

[swung two AXES and knocked the earth off AXIS]

where [AXIS] and [AXES] are the homophone in question. Homonyms are not a part of his signature style like they are with Kendrick, but are something that he uses sparingly. The area that Ab-Soul really shines with (and is arguably a building block of rap music) is his ability to create some of the most unique and near perfect mosaic rhymes I have ever heard.

You have all heard mosaic rhymes before, even if you are not familiar with the definition. Simply put, a mosaic rhyme is a multisyllable rhyme where one word is rhymed with two or more words. For example, “jealous” and “tell us” would be a mosaic rhyme, as the syllables of one word (“jealous”) are being rhymed with the syllables of two words (“tell us”). Ab-Soul uses these types of rhymes so often and so well that I believe it is one of the only areas where he fully outshines Kendrick. To illustrate this, let’s first take a look at one of Kendrick’s general mosaic rhymes, this one from the song “Fuck Your Ethnicity”:

[i'm just a MESSENGER, yeah, i know life's a bitch, get the BEST OF HER]

The words we’re looking at here are [MESSENGER] and [BEST OF HER]. If you look at the vowel sounds, they line up almost perfectly. [MES-] and [BEST] both stress the short –e vowel while [-GER] and [HER] both stress the short –u vowel. [-EN] and [OF] stress short –e and short –o respectively, but they sound close enough to be acceptable, especially considering that they come in the middle of the mosaic rhyme and not at the beginning or end. This is an example of a standard mosaic rhyme in rap music.

Ab-Soul takes it not one but two steps further. First, the vowel sounds in his mosaic rhymes more often than not line up perfectly, which is something that not all rappers do. But instead of only the vowels lining up, Ab-Soul will also make sure that the consonants line up as well. Take a look at these three examples, all from the second verse of “Illuminate”:

[POPPING COMPTON OR TIMBUKTU]

[i might even sell my new shit FOR TEN BUCKS TOO]

[This is a shift in PARADIGM, i remember when i couldn't SPARE A DIME]

[Now i step in with a PAIR OF DIMES, on P's, y'all KNOW ME]

[i PAID DUES, even got that shit TATTOOED, hiiipower on another PLATEAU]

[i know you know we need a few PLAQUES TOO]

In the first example, the mosaic rhyme is made up of the words [TIMBUKTU] and [TEN BUCKS TOO]. As you can see, each vowel lines up perfectly:

[^1.TIM^2.BUK^3.TU] and

[^1.TEN ^2.BUCKS ^3.TOO]

1. Short –e

2. Short –u

3. Long –u

But if you look closer, the consonant sounds also match up perfectly, with the only real exception being the [S] in [BUCKS].

[TIM/TEN] = the only difference is the [N/M], which are consonants that sounds extremely similar anyways

[BUK/BUCKS] = the [K] replaces the [CK] to create the same sound, the addition of the [S] is the only exception

[TU/TOO] = both [U] and [OO] stress the long –u vowel, [T] remains the same.

He does the exact same thing in the second example with [PARADIGM] and [PAIR OF DIMES], where [S] is the only out of place sounding consonant again. I remember when I was introduced to Ab-Soul and first heard this song; this was the only line that stuck with me after the first listen. His mosaic rhymes are so memorable that it is absolutely mandatory to consider them a part of his signature style.

The third example is a bit rougher yet is still a quality mosaic rhyme, and it showcases a technique that Ab-Soul uses quite often. The [–TEAU] in [PLATEAU] is normally pronounced by stressing the long –o syllable (like you would pronounce the word “toe”), but Ab-Soul enunciates it with a long –u sound so it matches the vowel sound of [TOO] in [PLAQUES TOO]. Again the vowel sounds line up perfectly and the consonants line up almost perfectly too (the exception being the [K] sound’s absence in [PLATEAU].

He’ll also use the same principles when rhyming either multisyllable words or multiple words together. The vowel and consonant sounds in each word tends to match up so perfectly that it almost sounds like he is using homonyms or rhyming the same word. Here’s an example that illustrates this from the song “Black Lip Bastard”:

[i TOLD niggas, caught wrecked, then i TOWED niggas]

[TOLD] and [TOWED] are not homonyms but he makes them sound as if they are by stressing the long –o syllable and short –e syllable in both words and by pronouncing the [L] in [TOLD] as a [W]. It’s quite easy to find examples of him utilizing this technique, in fact he does the same thing with the word [DRAWERS] in the very next line by stressing a long –o syllable to make it rhyme with [TOLD], [FOLD] and [CLOTHES]:

[FOLD niggas like CLOTHES and DRAWERS, nigga]

Now let’s look at a technique that Kendrick has adopted into his flow, one that probably contributes to his signature style more than anything else, and that is how he manipulates root words. He will often rhyme a root words (or a very, very similar sounding word) with said root word + suffix/prefix. If we go back to the previously quoted lyric from “HiiPower”:

[and she always told me PRAY for THE WEAK, UHH]

[them demons got me, i ain't PRAYED in SOME WEEKS, UHH]

you can see that [PRAYED] is rhymed with its root word [PRAY]. He does this all the time, but usually tends to place the two words either beside each other or very close together in the bar. Here is an example from the song “Hol’ Up”:

[they checking my PASSPORT, i'm too ACCUSTOMED with CUSTOMS]

and one from “Ronald Regan Era”:

[strong enough to stand in front of a travellin' freight TRAIN, are you TRAINED?]

But he will also do the exact opposite of this by keeping the suffix or prefix the same and changing the root word instead. Here’s an example from “A.D.H.D.” where he places the words close together in the bar:

[and they probably RELATIVES RELEVANT for a REBEL'S DREAM, yep]

The prefix [RE-] is being repeated here while the root words change. But let’s take a closer look at this line to see how well he makes this sentence flow. The three words that we’re looking at here are [RELATIVES], [RELEVANT] and [REBEL’S]. Obviously the prefix [RE-] is being repeated, but he also repeats the letter [L] in the first two words, as well as two short –e vowels at the beginning of all three words. Doing this greatly adds to his flow, and he doesn’t restrict this technique to only words placed beside eachother. In fact he more commonly spaces the words out across multiple bars, as seen in this example from the song “Textbook Stuff”:

[the gang-banging and VIOLENCE, is the sweetest SONG]

[and i ROAM with the heart of a VIOLIN]

[don't VIOLATE my PATIENCE i'm WAITING, to kill a man]

[VIOLENCE], [VIOLIN] and [VIOLATE] all follow the same principle but are spaced out among the bars. This is probably one of my favorite things that Kendrick does. It gives the illusion that he is rhyming more words than he actually is, even though most of them are included in one rhyming pattern or another.

Ab-Soul sometimes utilizes the same technique, but not with enough consistency to justify including it as part of his signature style. Here is one of the better examples I found, from the song “Black Lip Bastard (Remix)”:

[PERPETRATING, bitches popping percocet and PERCOLATING]

This line is very similar to something Kendrick would spit; the similarities are uncanny. Each word has the same prefix [PER-], and both [percocet] and [PERCOLATING] take it a step further by lining up the letters [-CO-], as well as [PERPETRATING] and [PERCOLATING] being a part of the same rhyming pattern, similar to [VIOLENCE] and [VIOLINS] from the previous example. It is quite obvious that Ab-Soul can pull off the same technique but he has chose not to make it a central part of his flow.

The few times that Ab-Soul does use this technique, he really goes all out and uses it to stress the meaning of the lyrics that he is spitting instead of using it to dress the lyrics up (not to say that this is how Kendrick uses it). My favorite example of this is from the song “Terrorist Threats”:

[peep the CONCEPT]

[you've got PROGRESS, you've got CONGRESS]

[we PROTEST in hopes they CONFESS]

[just proceed on your CONQUEST]

That’s seven words with the same prefixes (PRO- and CON-) lined up perfectly within two bars. He takes it a step further than Kendrick here and uses two opposite prefixes to stress that what the government [CONGRESS] does is the opposite of what should be done to advance our society [PROGRESS]. It is unfortunate that Ab-Soul does not play with prefixes and suffixes more often, as he is quite good at it.

CONTENT:

As previously stated, the reason that I grouped Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul together in this article is because they rap about very similar topics in their music, although they do have a few major differences of opinion as well. The evidence supporting this is most strongly shown in the song “Ab-Soul’s Outro”, which is included as track fifteen on Kendrick’s album “Section.80”. I linked the song, but its general mood can be summed up by the variations of the same lines that Ab-Soul keeps repeating:

[what's your life about, ENLIGHTEN ME]

[is you gonna live on your KNEES, or DIE ON YOUR FEET]

[take out that student loan, and pay off your COLLEGE DEGREE]

[and do exactly what you SEE on TV]

[what's your life about, ENLIGHTEN ME]

[is you gonna live on your KNEES, or DIE ON YOUR FEET]

[is you gonna PLEAD the fifth, or SOUND the HORN]

[the TIME is NOW my CHILD, come ON]

The main theme of this song is going against the system and questioning what society dictates as the right and “proper” thing to do, which I think are major themes in both Kendrick’s and Ab-Soul’s music (although they rap about a variety of different things, a lot of it could be boiled down to this). They are both very socially aware rappers (although Kendrick seems to disagree) and are very frustrated with the way society is structured and the way people are taught to act. You can hear this frustration in Ab-Soul’s voice when Kendrick tells him to repeat the previously quoted bars, as if the audience he is speaking to just doesn’t understand him and the concepts he is trying to get across.

Kendrick’s “No Makeup” and Ab-Soul’s “Double Standards” are two songs that I think perfectly showcase each rapper’s individual desires to change the world and how the people in it think. “No Makeup” introduces the character of Keisha; a prostitute that Kendrick sympathizes with who is featured multiple times across his albums. The general message of this song is that women don’t need makeup to be sexy, and he uses the theme as an analogy for how people cover up and hide from the world (like makeup is used to hide your flaws) instead of facing reality (or being comfortable with how you really look). It points out a societal problem that is rarely addressed in rap music now adays, and it’s hard to deny that Kendrick is trying to change people’s perceptions when he says (at the end of the song) [and you ain't gotta get drunk to have fun, you ain't gotta get drunk to have fun]. In “Double Standards”, Ab-Soul delves into the double standard surrounding men and women when it comes to sex. He addresses the fact that in today’s society, men are commonly congratulated when they have slept with a lot of women but women are scolded and called sluts. He sums it up neatly in the last verse with the line:

[my auntie told me always treat my lady RIGHT]

[my uncle told me only love 'em for a NIGHT]

[you can see the IMMEDIATE DISCONNECTION]

[between a man and a woman, the REASON FOR REGRESSION]

But as much as they tend to be similar, they also tend to have very different views about a couple of subjects. Kendrick tends to speak about societal problems involving the hood and issues that are faced on the street; a good percentage of “good kid, m.A.A.d city” is about these kinds of topics, including songs like “The Art of Peer Pressure”, “m.A.A.d City”, and “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst”. Ab-Soul is concerned with the state of the streets as well, but his major topics pertaining to societal problems tend to be on the subject of control (specifically governmental control). This is most strongly evidenced by the fact that he named his second studio album “Control System”. The song “Terrorist Threats” is the best example of him attempting to tackle this issue; in it he mentions not wanting to be “chattel” (a slave), Aleister Crowley, the city of Babylon and “Selassie’ eye”. The difference in subject matter between the two rappers can most likely be contributed to the environment they grew up in. Ab-Soul was born in Los Angeles, California, but relocated with his family to Germany and spent the first four years of his life there. (Read the whole story of his childhood here). When they moved back to the United States, his family settled in the suburban part of Carson, California, so he was not raised around constant violence of drug usage, and his family was not poor. He says, “I was broke but not broke in a sense of poor. I come from Carson, CA. It's the suburbs. So, I was safe.” Kendrick on the other hand grew up in Compton, California, which is well known for its abundance of gang violence, sex and drugs. This is what he was exposed to growing up in Compton, which is evidenced by the fact that the album “good kid, m.A.A.d city” is essentially a retelling of his childhood. It’s quite obvious how their respective childhoods have influenced their views on societal issues and what they choose to talk about in their music.

The main subject that they stand starkly in contrast with is their views on drugs. Ab-Soul is a user of drugs and a firm believer that drugs can be taken to enhance consciousness and spiritual connectedness. His song “Pineal Gland” talks about one of the most potent (and, in the United States, one of the most illegal) psychedelic drugs known to man: DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine). With lines like [enjoy your mind trip but don't trip on your MIND, no man is safe from the war going on OUTSIDE] he is stressing the point of safe drug usage, asking his audience to enjoy their psychedelic trips but not use them to escape reality or forget about their troubles. His viewpoint on drugs has clearly affected the content of his album, as the “war on drugs” and “government control” are two subjects that go hand in hand. He is also an avid weed smoker, which can be evidenced by a brief listen to any of his albums.

Kendrick on the other hand doesn’t do any drugs, but he also doesn’t avidly detest them. The song in which he speaks most bluntly about this subject is appropriately called “H.O.C.” (which stands for High Off Contact). In it he has lines like [i go in studio sessions and feel like a NERD, cause i'm the only nigga there not smoking no HERB. You telling me the kush make you think on LEVEL FOUR? i'm on five, you saying that I can LEVEL MORE?]. He’s simply telling the world that he doesn’t smoke weed but can spit better than anyone who does. People will often urge him to smoke weed, saying that he’s “crazy with it now but if you smoke this blunt you’ll be thinking like a motherfuckin’ alien on steroids” or something to that effect, but Kendrick is adamant about the fact that he doesn’t need weed to rap on a higher level, he can do it despite being sober. And although he doesn’t personally smoke, he doesn’t speak against it much either, and he actually has a few songs that advocate it somewhat (The song “The Recipe” featuring Dr. Dre comes to mind). When it is mentioned, he often treats it as a metaphor or symbol for some greater concept, like in “Kush and Corinthians”, where the image of kush and a bible are meant to paint a vivid picture and symbolize his quest for finding answers and questioning life. He is also not silent on the matter of drug abuse either, with songs like “A.D.H.D.” and “Swimming Pools” (remember, alcohol is a drug, guys) being on the forefront of these issues.

Wordplay

I originally wasn’t going to write this section; after a month of having both Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul on repeat in my car, I still found it difficult to decide who has the best wordplay, as “wordplay” encapsulates so many different things. I can talk about something as subtle as how Kendrick pronounces [fuck that] (like “fuck thought”) in “A.D.H.D.” to contribute to the underlying meaning of the song, or I can talk about his more obvious lines: [hotboxing like George Foreman grilling the MASSES of the WORKING WORLD]. Ab-Soul and Kendrick pack their music with so many different forms of artistry that it’s hard to analyze all of them, so to keep it simple we’ll look at one verse in one song by each of them that I think summarizes their general individual approaches to wordplay.

The first song we’re going to look at is “HiiiPower” by Kendrick Lamar:

[back to put you backstabbers back on your spinal BONE]

[you SLIPPED YOUR DISC when i SLID YOU MY DISC]

[you wanted to DISS but jumped on my DICK]

We have already talked enough about Kendrick’s use of homonyms to refrain from mentioning it again in detail in this segment; it’s quite clear what he’s doing with the words [back] and [DISC]. Also, as a side mention, it’s interesting to note how well these bars flow, with the b/b/s/b/s/b sounds being stressed in the first line and then it switching to s/d/s/d/d/d.

So what exactly is he saying in the first line? Well, the definition of a backstabber is someone who metaphorically “stabbed you in the back” or did you wrong in some way. Your [spinal BONE] is a reference to your spine, and [SLIPPED YOUR DISC] is referring to the intervertebral discs that make up your spine. So on the surface you can group each of these words together in the same category (having to do with the back). But the head is also attached to the spine, so when he says [back to put you backstabbers back on your spinal BONE], he is saying that he has come to put your head back on straight. He reveals that you [SLIPPED YOUR DISC when i SLID YOU MY DISC], referencing to the fact that your spinal disc slipped out of place (your head came undone) when he handed you his CD, and you had the urge to jump on his dick instead of diss him. This wordplay is not spelt out for you, but you also don’t have to delve too deep into it to figure it out.

[I got my finger on the mothafuckin' PISTOL]

[aiming it at a pig, Charlotte's web is going to MISS YOU]

This line is very surface level and an easy to understand play on words with “pig”. It doesn’t need to be explained.

[my issue isn't TELEVISED, and you ain't gotta TELL THE WISE]

[how to stay on beat, because our life's an INSTRUMENTAL]

This line is a bit more difficult to understand. First, notice the wordplay with [beat] and [instrumental] and the fact that they are synonyms. [THE WISE] refer to his fellow members in the HiiiPower revolution; you do not need to have their issues [TELEVISED] because they will always be aware of the issues [STAY ON BEAT] because they live with them and see them everyday [life’s an INSTRUMENTAL].

[this is physical and MENTAL, i won't SUGAR COAT IT]

[you'd die from diabetes if these other NIGGAS WROTE IT]

Another easy line to analyze. Diabetes is a disease directly related to the amount of sugar in your blood. When Kendrick says he won’t [SUGAR COAT IT], he’s telling the audience that we don’t have to worry about him “dressing up” issues to make them look better because he will always be blunt with us. Other rappers will dress up and sugar coat the issues so much that they will not only give you diabetes, you will also die from the disease (It’s very possible to live with diabetes).

[i don't want PLASTIC NATION, dread that like a HAITIAN]

Calling something “plastic” is another way of saying it’s fake, so Kendrick is simply stating that he doesn’t want a fake nation (one where people worship material goods, listen to everything the government says, etc). The simile used here is very easy to understand too: Haitians often have their hair styled in dreads.

Now I know Kendrick has a lot of other high quality metaphors and intricate wordplay examples, but I think this song is an accurate sample of his general usage of wordplay. If you are interested in analyzing a song with more intricate wordplay, I suggest listening to his “C4” mixtape or “The Art of Peer Pressure”Now let’s look at the second verse of “Illuminate”. I chose this song because we have already gone over some examples of wordplay from it,

[POPPING COMPTON OR TIMBUKTU]

[i might even sell my new shit FOR TEN BUCKS TOO]

[This is a shift in PARADIGM, i remember when i couldn't SPARE A DIME]

[Now i step in with a PAIR OF DIMES, on P's, y'all KNOW ME]

but he packs a few more genius bars in this verse. Here’s one that I would have never fully gotten if not for the amazing analyst skills of the people over at RapGenius:

[COLD SHIT, i'm HOT THOUGH, like COAL GET, ab-SOUL]

On the surface, this line doesn’t seem too hard to analyze. Rappers use the adjective “cold” to mean “amazing”, “great”, “sick” or any variation of the sort. They call themselves “hot” to mean the same thing. Pay attention to the duality of the line; he’s calling himself “cold” and “hot”, two opposite adjectives that he uses to describe the same thing about himself. This is a nice example of wordplay, but it is not what makes this line so attractive. He tells us that he is hot like [COAL GET], because once you light fire to coal, it gets hot. But the way he enunciates [COAL GET] sounds like “Colgate”, a brand of toothpaste that provides both a hot and cold sensation in your mouth. This gives a whole new meaning to the bar, and is a prime example of the sort of wordplay that Ab-Soul tends to use in his music.

[and as WE PROCEED to follow THESE DREAMS, i ain't losing no SLEEP]

[NO, NO on them NODOZ, just KNOW "NO" if it's NO DOUGH]

Once you know that NoDoz is a caffeine pill, the line is quite easy to understand. He’s following his dreams and he’s not losing any sleep in the meantime. Therefore he says “no” to any caffeine pills, and tells you to understand that if there’s no money involved, his answer will also be a “no”.

This is a beautiful example of him combining multiple techniques into a short space. [NO] is used four times in a slightly different context but is also matched with its homophone [KNOW]. Not too mention that [NODOZ] and [NODOUGH] is a near perfect mosaic rhyme, where only one consonant sound (the “Z” in [NODOZ] and the “GH” in [NO DOUGH]) is different.

[SO high but i'm SOULO]

Although this line looks very easy to analyze, there are actually four different meanings behind it. I’ll let RapGenius explain because they already did an amazing job of it.

[TOO ILL WHEN I JOT THESE WORDS, TRUE EEL WHEN I SHOCK THE WORLD]

This line is pretty easy to understand as well. [TOO ILL] = [TRUE EEL], and what does a [TRUE EEL] do? It shocks things. I mentioned this bar mainly because Kendrick has a very similar line on the song “Phone Home” off his mixtape “C4”, and it’s cool to note the comparison:

[i'm sick and electrifying, that's double ILL]

WILL BE CONTINUED WITH PART II: SCHOOLBOY Q & JAY ROCK, PART III: BLACK HIPPY