I've read this thread yet again and I'm still surprised at the drawn out arguments and over-complication of such a simple matter.

Macof, I have one simple question for you: do you know at least one Edo person in real life?

Funny opening posts, but this story/interpretation of the pics is false. The photographer who took the photos even came out and said that Michelle was talking and laughing with the Danish prime minister as well, not just Barack as some of the photos suggest.

RandomAfricanAm, I only answered those questions you posed to me that seemed relevant to clearing up the confusion about what me and Kidstranglehold were disagreeing (or misinterpreting each other) on. I could give answers to the others, but it was unnecessary to do so to clear things up and as I said, I would like to keep things short and simpler.

Also, I think that you misunderstood osystein's question. He'll probably return to clarify what he was asking about though - or at least I assume that he will if he still has any interest in the thread.

RandomAfricanAm:

Much better! Now that is a much more coherent statement.

Questions:
1. In what way(s) are you suggesting that "modern black Africans are not the same (in terms of skeletal morphology, for example) as humans from many tens of thousands of years ago"?

delineators
a. Erect posture
b. Skull morphology
c. Limb ratio
d. Height
e. Other

2. Are you saying that Qafzeh 9 fits the above limitations?

3. Are you saying that the humans we are referring to do not fit into what is commonly referred to as "modern man"?

4. If such early people are deemed modern man, What use are such limitations when Modern Africans have no uniform skeletal morphology short of a tropical adapted morphology?

I'm not saying that Qafzeh 9 "fits the above limitations" and my point (besides the issue of the difference in the genes of the individuals under consideration) is about skull morphology (unless I see evidence otherwise), though I'm sure height would probably be another significant difference.

But, putting your other questions aside (I don't see the point of carrying out two detailed, stretched out debates with two different posters on the same issue in the same thread), are you suggesting that because "Modern Africans" have no uniform skeletal morphology it would ever be correct to suggest that they were the same as the people that we are referring to from many tens of thousands of years ago?

KidStranglehold:
No that was what my post was SOLELY about, so I do not get what you were trying to imply. Again I already told you what I disagreed with.

So, you do understand that whether those people from many tens of thousands of years ago "looked like what we call black" is not relevant to my original comment? I still don't know why you brought that up to explain why you disagreed with my original comment.

No it doesn't work like that. NO non African carry those clades.

Did I say that any non-Africans carry those clades?

Africans are not one monolithic group, but what I said is that modern day Africans as a whole are the oldest people.

And you're using "oldest people" here to mean what exactly? I'm sorry but this sounds like mere semantics. It seems like what you really want to say is "have the oldest clades", but for some reason keep saying "oldest people."

Clades just dont form, mutations happen and even so that clade is still descendant of that larger clade.

lol, yes clades don't just "form", so where did the first clades come from? But anyway, imagine that a new one emerged among a population - does that make that group suddenly a "younger people" than another group even though they share the same ultimate ancestry and origin with that other group? I'm not getting this "older people" stuff, and I'd appreciate it if you could state what you mean by it clearly.

I don't get how non-Africans are "less old" so please break it down to me.

What?? Who said I was just speaking about skin color?? I said I was correlating black with negroid(not genetically like almost everyone does but physically) since black is a loose term.

You brought up skin color, but my point is that it has no relevance whatsoever to my original comment. I don't know why you even brought it up. As far as being "negroid" physically, I would avoid that term unless you can define it exactly and precisely and show how peoples from many tens of thousands of years ago would have been "negroid" physically (since you're apparently not talking about skin color).

Yes. And I repeatedly told you a million times that they were NOT the same as modern day Africans because MOST of the lineages associated with modern day Africans did not arose yet...

lol, how could you have been telling me a "million times" that they were not the same as modern day Africans, when that was the very point of my initial comment, which for some reason you said was wrong but now are saying you've been telling me over and over again

I think you misinterpreted me.

lol, I think I understood you just fine. I don't think you've been understanding what I've been saying.

RandomAfricanAm:
So someone tell me again how we are not talking about looks ...but are talking about looks?

RandomAfricanAm, the point of my post is that modern black Africans are not the same (in terms of skeletal morphology, for example) as humans from many tens of thousands of years ago - unless someone has evidence to the contrary. If/when I see such evidence to the contrary, then I'll retract my earlier statements. The issue of whether they "would have looked like what we call black" is not the point of my post. The issue is whether they were actually the same. I believe that Kidstranglehold agrees with me that they were not the same, so his disagreement with my original comment that he quoted was a bit surprising, but it could be explained if it turns out that my original statement was just misinterpreted.

KidStranglehold:

That wasn't for you. That was a general statement.

Ok, got it.

Kidstranglehold: My argument was only that the early humans(homo sapiens) looked like what we call black and that modern Africans are their closest descendants.

And, you do realize that isn't relevant to what I originally wrote? Or what are you disagreeing with?

In a nut shall, I'm basically only stating that modern day Africans are the OLDEST people on Earth since they obviously carry the OLDEST clades.

So, if new clades suddenly emerge among a group of modern day Africans in, say central Africa, would that suddenly make such a group go from being one of the "oldest" people on Earth to being one of the "youngest" people on Earth?

Perhaps it might be appropriate just to say that non-Africans who lack those oldest clades just lack those oldest clades.

No...I am disagreeing, because I assume you are implying that I am saying that modern day Africans are exactly the same as the early humans. When I said no such thing. I only said the early humans would have looked black due to environmental adaptation and anthropologist agrees with that. And also since the gene for lighter skin arose much later.

You used the phrase "looked black" again. You do realize that my original comment was not about skin color, right? Is that what this is all about?

So what were you trying to imply?? Because myp post were strictly only about the physical characteristics of those early humans(homo sapiens) and that they would have looked like what we call black.

And my post was not about what they would have "looked like." It was about what they were - do you get the difference? I don't think your comment had any relevance to my original comment, and I think you just misinterpreted me.

RandomAfricanAm:
@PhysicsQED I don't think you're making a fair call. If you're not talking about looks you indeed made a rather ambiguous statement.


Now if your not referencing morphology I.E what they look like
What are you referencing there weight

I am referencing morphology (skeletal morphology). What is ambiguous about my statement?

Kidstranglehold disagreed with my statement about "modern black Africans." Therefore, I inferred that he is aware of evidence (such as morphological evidence from a skeleton) contradicting my statement and asked him to provide it. The inference may have been wrong on my part or he may have misinterpreted my post and actually agrees with me completely (which one of his most recent posts makes me think is the case).

KidStranglehold: If the early Africans were not closely related to modern day Africans, then modern Africans wouldn't carry clades like Haplogroup A, B, L3 not only in high frequencies but exclusively in Africa.

So, could you explain to me where you got the idea that I suggested that "early Africans were not closely related to modern day Africans"?

I sometimes misstate or incorrectly type some things I write, so I may have written something incorrectly unintentionally. If I stated something that made you think I believe that "early Africans were not closely related to modern day Africans," then point it out to me and I will correct my mistake.

Kidstranglehold,

Obviously at least one of us is having a difficulty with interpretation here (or maybe both of us). I'll keep it simple because I don't want to drag this out. It seems like some very trivial disagreement over something vague is occurring and I wouldn't want to stretch such a potentially tedious discussion out just to seem "right" or come across as besting someone (this isn't a competition, just a disagreement of some sort).

My post that you quoted was about whether there were or were not modern Africans many tens of thousands of years ago - that is very clear in my post and I don't see how anyone could not get that.

You, however, disagreed with the content of my post. But now you're saying that your comment somehow wasn't about "modern Africans" because you "never even mentioned modern African." If it wasn't, then why were you disagreeing with me, and what relevance could anything you're saying have to my post?

I didn't comment on what they "looked like" and don't see what the significance of that is in the context of my statement to Royal. I think it's beyond obvious that ancestral populations of modern humans had a significant physical resemblance to modern humans, so that issue doesn't even merit debate, and I don't recall that anybody in this thread disputed that idea.

Could you state, simply and clearly what it is that you disagree with about my original comment? And please avoid the word "looked like" or any variations of that phrase in your response (since that's not relevant to what I originally wrote). Thanks.

I think you should try and understand what I'm saying next time so there's no confusion. If you're confused about something I wrote, you could ask what I meant next time. I didn't say that you said the Qafzeh 9 were the same as modern day Africans. In fact, I stated that I knew that that couldn't be what you were referring to (as a relevant piece of evidence against what I stated) when you were disagreeing with me. So I asked for a reference to some actual fossil evidence you were aware of that made you think my original comment was incorrect.

But then you replied with stuff like this, showing that you didn't even understand what I was saying in my original post that you quoted:

KidStranglehold:

Where the heck did I state the Qafzeh remains were exactly the same as modern day Africans?? I said the earliest humans would have looked like what we call black.

The early humans would have obviously looked like what we call black, due to the environment they lived in.

My post was completely unambiguous, but you misinterpreted it to make an irrelevant statement. There was nothing in that quote from me about "what the early humans would have looked like." It's about what those people were many tens of thousands ago. They were not modern black Africans - unless you have some actual fossil and genetic evidence otherwise.

My post was not about whether there were some people who might have "looked like" some modern people today that are called black. My post was about there not being modern black Africans many tens of thousands of years ago.

KidStranglehold:

Actually they did...Based off of physical remains/genetic remains.

Could you explain what you're saying here? The "the Qafzeh 9" fossils you referenced above are definitely not the same as modern Africans' skeletons, so that's obviously not what you're referring to. So could you refer to the fossils from "many tens of thousands of years ago" that are the same as those of modern black Africans and enlighten me?

nateevs:


I am open to your points. What do you think my points are ignoring?

Well, I don't think I can say much more than I've already said as far as what my views are about the other aspects of lyricism, so we should probably just let the issue rest. It's been an interesting discussion though.

coogar:

that's eminem's best flow ever - especially that 2nd verse. the verse all through was symmetrical. he was rhyming a whole sentence with the other at a point - i have never seen such wizardry in lyricism. 1000 nasir jones cannot come up with such.

Well, we might have different understandings of what "flow" really is, so that might be part of why we couldn't see eye to eye on this stuff. Not only do I not think it's his best flow ever on a song, I don't think his flow on that song is even good.

I respect your opinion on the song, but I don't agree with it - we're clearly just listening to the music differently.

nateevs:


It is. That's the essence of rap. It's basis of Rap. The art of rhyming. And then evolved into the art of content, flow and technical delivery. (Take content only and no one tops the likes of KRS One, Rakim, Pac, Nas. We can close up and all go home.)

Time went on and MCs try to undo one another. Style and delivery thereafter became the yardstick. The more complex the technical delivery, the harder to compose. And it follows that the harder to compose the more in-depth the rapper thinks and works and hence, in my opinion, the more astute the rapper is, as long as it isn't at the expense of rich lyrical content. (Shigidi migidi figidi like Idris Abdul Kareem )



You can make a case for as many rappers as you want. I for one love Erick Sermon. No one in the game also compares in my eyes to Style P and the way his rap is structured. However this is not a discussion about those we like and their style but how their style out-does one another and how seemingly difficult it might be to do what they do. As much as I have respect for many MCs, no one does it like Em. No one holds a rhyme scheme longer than Em and then do it over and over again with unconventional rhyming patterns.

There's no use posting 2-line multies from rap artist who don't remember to do it for the next five tracks.

It's like you're reading what I'm writing, but not really taking it in. I think that you pretty much misunderstood my post if you're bringing up Erick Sermon or Styles P in this discussion. Anyway, to keep it short and simple (I don't think there's a point to a detailed response, since it seems we're just inclined to disagree about this stuff), I don't really buy the "technical" arguments/claims you guys are making because they seem to be ignoring a lot of things.

coogar:

stay wide awake is weak? a song that was generally accepted by hip-hop fans worldwide as the best use of eminem's pen game? the verse i quoted was just a hook - it's not part of his verses. trust me, it's the best technical rap song ever waxed on record.

the flow on that song(ignore the rhymes) Is the best ever. it subdues anything i have heard from the rap pioneers. just type "2nd verse of stay wide awake" on google & see what the rap community has to say about it.

It's a weak song (music-wise) and his flow on it is weak - maybe that's because of how he was trying to fit all those multi's to that particular beat?

He raps the lyrics too slow and there are way too many pauses in the verses on that song for me to consider it lyrically impressive.

Coogar, I don't consider "Stay Wide Awake" one of Em's best by any means. In fact, both the song itself and lyrics in the song are kind of weak. Em's flow on the song is weak and the lyrics themselves are just average. I don't know what you're seeing there.

Even the new(er) rapper I mentioned in my last post above - Earl Sweatshirt - made a ('shock'-rap) song about the same revolting subject matter (which isn't something that Nas would ever rap about anyway), called "epaR," off his debut album, and that song is better than Stay Wide Awake both as a song and in terms of lyrics.

I don't really see the point of comparing a weak Eminem song to Nas's best stuff, but I guess I could compare probably the only thing I could find from Nas that has a little bit of screwed up subject matter: his verse on the song "Bravehearted" from the Bravehearts album. Nas's verse on that song is pretty good and I think it's better than any of Em's verses in Stay Wide Awake, but that's probably because I'm taking flow and delivery into account, which I don't think you are/would, if you really consider Stay Wide Awake a great song.

coogar:

it's the essence of lyricism.
a polysyllabic rhymes has his work cut out for him cos once he starts with a rhyme scheme, he must follow it through with similar words & make sense or punchline with it. do you know how difficult that is?

go & listen to legacy, any songwriter would tell you it's the most difficult aspect of writing. looking for words that fit & making sense with it. if not, anybody should be able to rap. i mean, i can just pick up a book & get a mic & speak fast.




bring nas' best work ever in lyricism & let's compare it to eminem's stay wide awake.

Coogar, there's something that you're missing here completely - it's not just about the polysyllabic rhyming. Listen to the track I mentioned earlier, "Don't Stop Keep Goin" by Daz, Kurupt and Nas:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLe-rlSRB4Q

The way Nas flows on the song has a huge effect on how his verses sound in the song.

Likewise on Rakim's "Follow the Leader", at a certain point early on in the third verse, he changes up his flow and tempo and it has a huge effect on how the lines sound:

"A furified freestyle - lyrics of fury
My third eye make me shine like jewelry
You're just a rent-a-rapper, your rhymes are minute-maid
I'll be here when it fade, I'll watch you flip like a renegade"


He does it again in another part of the same verse

"The R's a rolling stone, so I'm rolling
Directions told then, the rhymes are stolen
Stop buggin' a brother said dig him, I never dug him
He couldn't follow the leader long enough so I drug him
Into danger zone he should arrange his own
Face it, it's basic, erase or change your tone"

In the part that I put in bold, there's a change in how he says the rhymes that has a huge effect on how it sounds.

Flow & delivery are huge parts of rap - some rappers sometimes sound like they're just talking rather than rapping (such as Jeru the Damaja or Guru (DJ Premier's longtime collaborator) - although both of these guys made several really good songs regardless of this), because they usually have a weak or (deliberately) slow flow, and some of their rhymes have much less of an impact because of that.

coogar:

if KGR isn't using as many multis as eminem then why are we even comparing them? I have saluted KGR & the other old school rappers for paving the way but you cannot compare the lyricism of eminem to whatever was written in the 90s. it's incomparable & this is what i have been telling you.

this is why rakim said if eminem was black, he would be standing next to muhammad ali & that's the truth. game recognises game. rakim knows eminem's pen game has no peers. flow, delivery, multis, metaphors, humour & vocab - eminem's got it all.

lol, I don't think the lyricism can't be compared at all. I could easily compare the lyrics in Nas's "Deja Vu" (an unreleased mid-90s track) with Eminem's best stuff (although I would have to compare different styles of rap and different subject matter, so the comparison wouldn't necessarily be 1-to-1) and it would be on par or better.

Nateevs, I disagree completely with the idea that Pun's rapping was "largely mono-syllabic," and you even picked a weaker track of Pun's to analyze and not any of the one's I mentioned, which is surprising, but if you really like the lyricism in that track, then of course I'll respect your opinion.

I guess I'll just have to disagree with both you and coogar. We're obviously looking at this from different angles. I think I'll just say what I said to coogar earlier - multisyllabic rhyming is not the be-all and end-all of lyricism in rap. There are other aspects which you guys are seriously downplaying when making comparisons.

By the way, have you guys listened to any of Earl Sweatshirt's stuff? He's a newer rapper (came out in 2010), so you might not have heard his stuff (but probably already heard of the group he's with).

If complex rhyming structure in verses are your thing, he's pretty much leading all of rap (including Eminem) in that stuff right now - he combines wordplay and frequent double or triple entendres (a lot of the multiple meanings in his lyrics aren't obvious on the first listen - many of the meanings I didn't catch at all until I went to rapgenius) with practically constant multisyllabic rhyming. I can recommend some songs to check out if you're not already familiar with his stuff to see what I'm talking about as far as rhyming complexity. I don't consider him the best (new) rapper out right now or anything - I think there's more to be being the best than just complexity/technicalness or how many syllables they rhyme. A rapper's delivery (the way their rhymes are said), creativity (subject matter-wise), and how vivid or unique their diction/words are are other factors for me. But for somebody like you or coogar who focus mostly/exclusively on the multisyllabic rhyming aspects of lyricism in rap songs, he'll probably seem like the best thing you've heard since Eminem. However, I'm looking more at Kendrick Lamar as the next Nas of rap and I'm more interested in what Lamar drops next than I am in Sweatshirt's next stuff (although his last album was good) or Em's next project.

For me, there are other aspects of a rapper's style that can put them in contention for the top spots besides just complex rhyming patterns. For example many of Chino XL's verses are lyrically more complex than many of Biggie's in terms of both rhyming patterns and wordplay, but I don't consider Chino XL even close to a "top ten" rapper, and I rate Biggie higher than Chino XL because Biggie's delivery, flow and versatility on tracks are some of the best ever seen in rap in the short time he was out - the same goes for Big L. As another example of what I'm talking about, Nas isn't a battle rapper, but more "poetic" sounding in terms of rapping style, so I don't expect to see Canibus or Eminem types of technical rhyming in his verses usually. But Nas is better at what he usually does (that poetic street rap style a lot of rappers from the 90s brought to rap after Rakim and Kool G. Rap came out) than pretty much anyone. What Nas does with his subject matter and style on songs like "Street's Disciple", "One Mic", "Memory Lane" "N.Y. State of Mind" or "Deja Vu" (a classic unreleased track) pretty much no one has equaled yet in rap (I don't want to sound like a Nas stan here, because I'm actually not - but that's just how I see it.)

coogar:

i know this track - i perused the KGR's lyrics & while it's a dopë track with nice delivery & stuff, it lacked the technical brilliance we have been discussing about eminem's lyricism. the multis if any were really limited to 2-syllables.

where's the pen game & the thoughts only hours of ceiling-staring while chain-smoking can produce? i couldn't find any & this is why i said the difference between eminem's lyrics & KGR is akin to an i-phone 5 & a nokia 3210.

Coogar, I wasn't saying that KGR uses as many multi's as Em or some other rappers that came out after him. In fact, I think Nas usually uses more multi's. I only referenced those tracks to show that KGR isn't merely monosyllabic like you were saying in this thread. But KGR's flow is one of the best rap has seen - that's his real strength, not necessarily the number of multi's. Also, some rappers who can put a lot of multi's in their songs can't really flow the way KGR does on a track (when he's actually trying to be lyrical), while making it look effortless. The flow in verses like KGR's on "Know Da Game" and "Wishful Thinking" and many of his verses on the album 4,5,6 have been matched only by very few rappers (Pun and Nas are some examples). There are other "technical" aspects to rapping besides just the number of multis.

nateevs: You get this all the time. Most of those who believe Em is not god don't have any reasons. Most just say it's my opinion.



Mate you didn't do all the justice to Em's immaculate spits in Renegade.

Let me enhance it.

Cause see they call me a menace; and if the shoe fits I'll wear it
But if it don't, then y'all'll swallow the truth grin and bear it
Now who's these king of these rude ludicrous lucrative lyrics
Who could inherit the title, put the youth in hysterics
using his music steer it . . sharin his views in *his marriage
But there's a huge interference - they're sayin you shouldn't hear it
Maybe it's hatred I spew, maybe it's food for the spirit
Maybe it's beautiful music I made for you to just cherish
But I'm debated disputed hated and viewed in Americ a

as a motherfuckin drug addict - like you didn't experiment?
Now now, that's when you start to stare at who's in the mirror

and see yourself as a kid again, and you get *embarrased
And I got nothin to do but make you look stupid as parents
You fuckin do-gooders - too bad you couldn't do good at marriage!
(Ha ha!) And do you have any clue what I had to do to get here I don't
think you do so stay tuned and keep your ears glued to the ster eo


* modified pronunciation for ryhme. You have to listen to get it.



Let someone show me any rapper from yore who had such technicality in one verse. Don't just say he's not a rap god, tell us why he's not.

I don't think you guys have looked up most of the songs that I mentioned and actually listened to them (all of them are available on youtube), because if you and coogar listened to those verses, then I don't see why you would keep referring to the Renegade verse and doing all this red and black highlighting and italicizing. Everybody acknowledges that Em's verse on Renegade was classic, but nobody went as far with the over-praise as you guys are doing here, because they know that what he did on that verse isn't something that's unheard of and they know that great verses like that have been done before on songs. Mos Def, Ras Kass, Pun, Rakim etc. already did that kind of stuff. Have you taken the time to listen to their most lyrical songs and then proceeded to highlight in different colors all the rhymes and assonance as you have done here? I don't see the point of this post if you're not going to do that for other rapper's great verses to make actual direct comparisons. Start by highlighting all of the rhymes of Mos Def's verse on "Twice Inna Lifetime" (1998), Nas's verses on "Don't Stop Keep Goin" (a 1995 song with Daz and Kurupt), Killa Sin's rhymes on "Young Godz" (1996), and the lyrical patterns in Big Pun's verses on "Firewater" "Toe to Toe" " Dream Shatterer" "Wishful Thinking", "Verbal Murder 2" "Cross Bronx Expressway" "Hidden Hand" "Super Lyrical" "Parental Discretion" "Brave In the Heart" etc. and then you can make a comparison.

I still don't see why you guys think Eminem is doing something that other rappers haven't already been doing or aren't capable of doing. Yeah, he is one the best in terms of rhyming complexity when he's rapping at his best (but not really one of the best overall in terms of actual music, in my opinion), but you guys make it seem as if he's the best ever and make it seem like there's some enormous gulf between him and other lyrical rappers.

ekt_bear: Is this typical of South Africans or something? His eyes look strange to me.

EDIT: For more context, I'm watching a documentary on him right now.

Xhosa and Khoisan intermarriage from centuries ago. Those kind of eyes can be found among the Khoi and the San peoples of South Africa.

Not all South Africans have such features.

Coogar, I originally referred to the Buckwild remix of Kool G. Rap's "Fast Life" in my post above, but that was a mistake. I meant to write the 1996 "Norfside remix" of Kool G. Rap's Fast Life by Salaam Remi. That's the best version & I honestly think it's one of the best remixes (production-wise) ever in rap. Here's a link:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTiwlYvbXkk

Coogar, there was something you wanted to show me?

By the way, you've heard Naughty by Nature, right? Listen to some Naughty by Nature if you haven't already. You might see some similarity in the assonance and multi-syllabic rhyming one sees in their songs and in Eminem's songs. Listen to some songs on their first album that came out in 1991: "Yoke the Joker" (for assonance), and for multi-syllabic rhyming, listen to "Everyday All Day" (especially the 4th/last verse), Let the Ho's Go," "Pin The Tail On The Donkey", and Treach's verse on "1,2,3" (for multi's). I recall that Eminem mentioned Treach as one his favorite rappers and somebody who affected his writing.

As for that Renegade verse, if you want to hear a verse with the same kind of multiple internal rhyming, refer to Mos Def's verse on the "Twice Inna Lifetime" (1998) song that I already mentioned, or if that doesn't do anything for you refer to Ras Kass's songs "Remain Anonymous," "Reelishymn" and "Etc." (from the mid-90s during the 'golden era'). Also check out Organized Konfusion's "Prisoners of War" (also released during the 'golden era').

And on Kool G. Rap, I don't know why you keep saying he's a monosyllabic rhymer. It's not true. That's why I asked you to listen to 4,5,6 earlier. Maybe you're listening to only the earlier stuff before 4,5,6, that he did with DJ Polo (but even that stuff isn't always entirely monosyllabic rhyming on all the songs) and you're assuming that that's what his music has always been like. Listen to Kool G. Rap's verses on "Allied Meta-Forces," "Know Da Game," "3 to the Dome," his verse on "Wishful Thinking" (Pun's verse on that song is also good) and his verses on "Fast Life" (the best version of this song is the 'Norfside remix', by the way - the beat on the original version and the other versions (like the Buckwild remix) kind of suck by comparison). He's not a monosyllabic rhymer by any means and definitely not when he's actually trying to be lyrical.

The spam bot pretty much mutilated and killed this interesting and informative thread for no reason, and the mods did nothing about it. That's a shame.

@ some username, if by any chance you're still around, I have three questions I'd like to hear a native Russian's perspective on.

1. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky? (Which of these author's work do you prefer or consider superior and why?)

2. Bulgakov or Nabokov? (same question as above)

3. What's the best book (non-fiction or fiction), in your opinion, that you've read that was written by one of your countrymen/women?

Rest in peace.

coogar:

i wish i could make a youtube video of my iPod so you can see for yourself. i have spent more than £10,000 on copping all the relevant rap albums there is from 86 till mainstream hiphop became shyte in 2011. i have listened to that track several times & it's the same example fans of the old school rap usually bring up. it's tired & overplayed.

"4,5,6" is the name of the album I was referring to. "4,5,6" is just one track on there that shares the same name as the album. There are other, better songs on there. It's a classic album, and if more rappers flowed like that today, the music would be better off for it.

I"m not a fan of "the old school rap" in particular, I just like good music from any era. I've been listening to Schooboy Q's "Man of the Year" song that just came out recently, and there's nothing lyrical about that song nor is it "old school", but it sounds good so I like it.

that's the thing though....big pun & co did this like few times in their albums while it's the main writing technique of eminem. eminem's first single - my name is started with......

"hi kids, do you like violence? wanna see me stick nine inch nails through each one of my eyelids? wanna copy me & do like i did? try 'cid and get fücked up worse than my life is?"

just look at the rhyme pattern, the set up & how eminem is using this to paint a story while applying those polysyllabic rhymes with perfect timing. this is why he's great.

hi kids = violence = nine inch = eye lids = i did = try 'cid = life is. this is just lyricism at it's best. he's not only telling a story that's keeping you entertained, he's applying internal rhymes to go with it.

i need you to name any rapper in the past that does this consistently in every song or someone who did it better than eminem. i'm sure you wouldn't find any.....and this is why his pen game is unrivalled.

lol, Pun did that "a few times"? I don't feel like going over his verses in detail, and I already know that's not true. I shouldn't have to go into detail to show why that's false because you should already be familiar with (most of) his songs. I'll give two more Pun quotes that I remember, but I don't think I'm going to go digging up lyrics to multiple songs to prove something that's obvious:

"My squad is honored like Elijah Muhammad, but I'm God-retard3d, ain't no righteousness in this heart of violence" - from "Classic Verses"

"I'm all about business and enterprisin', advisin' financial advisors on franchisin' to widen their horizons, divisin' ideas with masterminders, movin' on a stash of diamonds, first we get the cash, then we laugh like minors/miners" - from "Firewater"

And I don't see how it's true that Eminem raps like he did on "Lose Yourself", "Criminal", "Till I Collapse", etc. on every song. I shouldn't have to demonstrate that that's false either - are we listening to the same rapper? He definitely doesn't rap that way in every single song. I kind of wish he had though, because the quality of his music probably wouldn't have declined as much as it did in his career.

hahahaha - internal rhyming is half the job done. what about the polysyllables? the ones that run for about 5-6 sentences & give the listener an eargasm? then again, another thing eminem does better is how he bends & rhyme words that shouldn't even rhyme on paper. this techniques were nonexistent before him.

Did you listen to each of the songs I listed? Should "pharoah" really rhyme exactly with "borough" (in the song 'R.A.K.I.M.')? Should "thorough" rhyme exactly with "hero" normally? No, but Rakim makes that happen. You keep mentioning stuff that's not exclusive to Eminem as evidence of stuff that he can do that others can't. It's just not true that stretching the sound of words that don't ordinarily rhyme to make them rhyme was "nonexistent" before Eminem. I don't even know why you would think he was the first one to do that anyway.

eminem has been writing before all the songs you listed here. have you heard infinite? the album would blow your mind away & it was out as far back as 96 & recorded in 95.

Yes, I've heard Infinite. The rapping style on that album is heavily derivative of Nas and AZ - it's imitation (after Nas's Illmatic, which has "Life's a B1tch" and "Memory Lane" that I mentioned earlier, had already been released). He changed his style after Infinite (to a style that was more like Redman, Masta Ace, Kurupt, etc. in terms of flow than early Nas or AZ) once he had gotten over the influence of Illmatic.

at this point, i think you should print the verses of the cats who have done this in the past. let's compare & contrast. i am not talking of a single phrase or a bar out of a verse. i am talking about consistent way of writing throughout. old school rappers were rhyming one word or two at most - eminem rhymed a whole sentence in stay wide awake. there's lyrics & there's lyrics.

eminem is a rap god - no one comes close.

Well, I gave the names of the songs so you could look them up and actually hear them instead of just reading them. Rapgenius or AZlyrics and some other sites usually have the lyrics and those can be looked up as well. I don't think Eminem is actually consistent with writing complex multisyllabic rhyming verses on all his songs at all. As for "no one comes close," we'll just have to disagree on that.

Coogar, you say you've heard "every relevant rap album" (I know you don't mean this exactly literally - no one person has heard every relevant album in any genre of music), but if you haven't heard "4,5,6" by Kool G. Rap, I don't think you can really assess whether or not people who rap the way he did in the past would be "laughed at" today. I doubt that you've listened to that album if you could make that comment.

And basically, what I disagree with is this idea that Eminem pioneered some supposedly unheard-of aspect of rap: multisyllabic rhyming or internal rhyming. Nor do I think that he took that aspect of rap to some new level that hadn't been done before. I think that's completely untrue. Take Big Pun’s line from “Twinz” off of his debut album: “Dead in the middle of Little Italy, little did we know that we riddled some middle men who didn’t do diddly”. That’s an example of exactly the kind of internal rhyming that you’re praising Eminem for (and claiming is somehow exclusive to him), yet for some reason you won’t admit that this style of rapping emerged during the “golden era” of rap, that it was used by multiple other rappers (like Pun in a few lines on “Twinz” and on multiple lines in songs like ‘Dream Shatterer’), you seem to be downplaying the fact that Rakim (more or less, there may have been one or two before him) pretty much created/established that aspect of rap and you seem to be giving Eminem undue credit for it.

A few examples of internal rhyming from the originator himself: (1) the song “Lyrics of Fury” (1988) in its entirety, but especially the 2nd verse, (2) the song “R.A.K.I.M.” (2002) by Rakim, especially the 1st verse, and (3) Rakim's verse on the song "Streets of New York."
Also, Nas’s verse on “Life’s a B1tch” from his first album contains internal rhyming throughout the entire verse. And then there’s “Memory Lane.” More examples of multisyllabic rhyming/internal rhymes: Chino XL’s verse on the song “Beastin,” Mos Def's verse on "Twice inna Lifetime" (1998) and all his verses on "Definition" (also 1998), Big Pun's verses on "Super Lyrical", Black Thought's verses on The Roots' "Concerto of the Desperado" (1996), Big L's verse on "Dangerzone" (from the Children of the Corn album), Inspectah Deck's verse on "Triumph," Killa Sin's verse on "Young Godz" (1996), etc.

I watched that video you posted, and I'm telling you that there’s nothing about that kind of rapping which is somehow exclusive to Eminem and I don't see how you don't see that. He didn't do something that hasn't already been done by rapping like that.