A little background here. I consider the rap genre to be the poetry of the modern day - or at least the only outlet that provides a reasonable chance for the public to hear something that has a chance at being poetic.
Sure, you'll get alot of Christopher Marlowe's out there spouting such wonderful lines as "No homo / You suck like Tony Romo / So fuck him, and fuck you too / Now go tell that to Bono" or "Woke up in the morning, fuckin' bought a yellow Aston Martin," but you'll also - albeit rarely - get such lines of Shakespearean beauty that remind even those most pessimistic about the state of modern poetry that rhyme and meter are not going gentle into that good night.
Lines like "You say you gotta lotta whips, well I got a lot" and "Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring." Lines like these:
10. Women say I talk more game than John Madden.
Ludacris, "Last of a Dying Breed (Move the Crowd)," 2008. 1:03.
This one barely beat out Nelly's "I spit game, 'cause, baby, I can't talk it" to get on the list. Although Ludacris can, apparently, talk game, he does so more than John Madden, which is impressive when one considers the amount of games John Madden has talked through. Even more so considering the amount of women John Madden has bedded.
It beats Nelly for two reasons:
a.) I like similes.
b.) Nelly's isn't even the best line on his track, which is a bevy of hip-hop highlights, including, but not limited to, "Girl, I think my butt gettin' big," "I was like, 'Good gracious, ass is bodacious," and "I got a friend with a pole in the basement / ('What?') I'm just kidding like Jason."
9. You should be honored by my lateness.
Kanye West, "Stronger," 2007. 0:56
This is certainly my most relatable lyric of the decade, if only my 9th favorite.
8. Rappin' for the hell of it, / Hella rich / Never have to sell a brick again, / Must I tell a bitch again? / The bullshit I'm addressing, check, / I'm on some next-level shit / Never been fucked in the game, I'm celibate. / Rarely out my element, / Barely out the ghetto with / One foot out and one foot in, / Intelligent as fellas get. / Listen, let's settle this: / Be clear, I could fall back 7 years / Still it ain't no one ahead of me. / Consider it a blessing if you get to stand next to me: / 5-star General, O.G. veteran, / Caked like Entenmann, / Blowing that celery, / Stack that cash like the U.S. Treasury.
T.I., "I'm Illy," 2008. Just hit play.
Yeah, I just included the majority of the entire first verse of this song. He rhymes everything with "hell of it"! It's absolutely incredible!
Highlights: The reference to celibacy, a favorite topic among rappers these days, also featured in Fabolous's "Imma Do It": "My attitude is celibate, I don't give a fuck." Also, the reference to Entenmann's baked goods is fantastic.
7. I take breath, the opposite of Primatene Mist.
Young Dro, "Shoulder Lean," 2006
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| This is precisely the kind of shit that Young Dro does not do. |
6. Call me George Foreman, 'cause I'm sellin' everybody grills.
Paul Wall, featured in Nelly's "Grillz," 2005. 2:20.
Paul Wall kills this track. Great track to kill, mind you.
5. You're now rockin' with the best, tre-pound on my hip, Teflon on my chest.
50 Cent, featured in The Game's "How We Do," 2004. 2:06, but it's edited? What the fuck?
Although The Game chooses to start off this song with the powerful simile, "Fresh like 'uh'," this line somehow manages to top even that dramatic opening.
4. When shit pop off, I'm jumpin' out just like "Wassup, ho."
Dem Franchize Boyz, "Lean wit It, Rock wit It," 2006
Largely because of such creative twists on classic hip-hop motifs as these, Dem Franchize Boyz entirely avoided accusations of relying too heavily on cliches. Also, this sentence would work surprisingly well in a Lewis Carroll poem.
Ed.'s Note: I can't find the version of the song that has this line in it, but I assure you it exists. Just look up the lyrics, it'll be there.
3. Man, what the fuck is Goyard, nigga?
Gemini, featured in Lupe Fiasco's "Dumb It Down," 2007. 3:37.
Even though this song contains such true poesies as "I'm peerless / That means I'm eyeless / Which means I'm tearless / Which means my iris resides where my ears is" and "I'm flying on Pegasus, you're flying on a pheasant," the entire song becomes overshadowed once Gemini asks this. The point of the song is that Lupe is too smart for commercial rapping, which he proves by using big words, referring to Ichabod Crane at one point, and making that play on the word "peerless" mentioned above. Also, I like the word pheasant, so I enjoy that little cameo.
Gemini is supposed to reinforce this fact during the hooks, pointing out how people won't get Lupe's rap unless he "dumbs it down," which the uncompromising Lu refuses to do. And while Goyard is apparently the most popular luggage in the Chicago hip-hop scene, as evidenced by Kanye's lyric: "The Goyard so hard that I'm Hugo's boss," Lupe's references to it in his rapping apparently make his songs less accessible to black youth - an argument the song later reveals is really just made up by the white industry execs to prevent young African-Americans from thinking "smart is cool" and, ultimately, keep the black man down.
Anyway, now that you have the plot, I just always thought the lyric's syntax was hilarious.
2. Las rimas, las pololas, las baterìas, las pistolas, las canciones, las camaradas desplegadas para inspirarte màs
Ana Tijoux, "Obstàculo," 2010. 0:51.
I'm not even pretending that I understand what she's saying here. From the words pistolas and baterìas, though, I think I can make out that it has something to do with battery-powered handguns. Either way, the repetition of "las" is impressive. However, I will admit that I'm not sure if that's even hard to do in Spanish. I'm also not sure where this lyric begins and ends grammatically, so if someone wants to inform me that I should have started it earlier, go ahead.
1. I'm living in that 21st Century, doing something mean to it.
Kanye West, "Power," 2010. 0:11.
I just can't get past the image of Kanye continuously flicking the entire 21st Century in its shoulder and giggling about it that this lyric provides. The line is one of the best to open a song ever (compare to The Game up there, at least), and there's some truth to it: Kanye is certainly redefining the boundaries of a hip-hop artist, considering the Runaway film and G.O.O.D. Fridays, and his Twitter page is second only to Shaq's. Now it's not necessarily interrupting the 21st Century's acceptance speech at the VMAs to tell it that someone else's video was more deserving, but I guess I can see "something" mean in what he's doing. Continuous flicking should at least get annoying after awhile.
The best part about this list? 5 of the 10 songs contain name brands. Whoa.
Ed.'s Note:
If it weren't a mixtape, I would also include:
T.I., the entire mixtape "Fuck a Mixtape," including such gems as:
- Is there a message from the greatest? / Yeah, go get yourself some paper, player. / Try to do as I do, guy / But I anticipate your failure.
- Hey, throw this cat a G, I don't want broke niggas to talk to me.
- Never have a better car than mine / Though you may buy and buy / And by the time you buying what I'm riding / I be flyin' by.
- I know you think we out here trappin' 'cause we wanna be, / but it's a trickle down effect of the economy. / Hey, what you want from me? / And why you stare at us? / Hey, you the one who wanted Bush to run America.
- Stack money like Jews.
- Can't tell a lie, tell the judge I'm guilty.
