For a black poet for the letter "i", I needed to go to the "Anthology of Rap" edited by Adam Bradley and Andrew Dubois. Rap is poetry backed by a lot of music or little bit and is quite contemporary, two examples provided are work by rappers Ice-T and Ice Cube. The streets that appear in both rappers music are much gritter than the photography below of a New York City intersection. They are places where people trade drugs and use guns. Rap tends to be much more profitable than poetry because of the music business and people's desire to connect and dance.
Both rappers use pairs of rhymed lyrics in long stanzas of song. Both are narrative poets, they tell a story of events that continue for the duration of the poem. I will discuss Ice-T's rap "6 'N the Morning" while my other option was Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" that I provided below in Youtube format. This latter rap has an element of humor because it ends with a famous "Not" meaning he laughs at the very idea of his poem.
Ice-T's rap "6 'N the Morning" is very long, separated by the use of Word to mark changes in the story. His rap starts vividly with action everyone can relate to "Fresh Adidas squeak across the bedroom floor, out my back window I make my escape, Didn't even get a chance to grab my old school tape" to the event of having the police arrive at his home. Most of the events are about being out on the street which many in the poetry world could not relate to: "Didn't want trouble, but the shit must fly, squabbled with this sucker, shanked him in the eye." Part of his appeal is the series of events, getting paid lots of money, getting dressed up, making love, escaping the cops, which can be as exciting as a movie, thus narrative poetry.
Writing Assignment: Write a narrative poem with pairs of rhymed lines making your day seem exciting
Ice-T's rap "6 'N the Morning" is very long, separated by the use of Word to mark changes in the story. His rap starts vividly with action everyone can relate to "Fresh Adidas squeak across the bedroom floor, out my back window I make my escape, Didn't even get a chance to grab my old school tape" to the event of having the police arrive at his home. Most of the events are about being out on the street which many in the poetry world could not relate to: "Didn't want trouble, but the shit must fly, squabbled with this sucker, shanked him in the eye." Part of his appeal is the series of events, getting paid lots of money, getting dressed up, making love, escaping the cops, which can be as exciting as a movie, thus narrative poetry.
Writing Assignment: Write a narrative poem with pairs of rhymed lines making your day seem exciting
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