JAY Z onstage.

You’ve all heard it.

You’re kicking back with friends, waxing poetic about life and love (or, more importantly, the last episode of Stranger Things on Netflix) with music playing in the background. Suddenly, the latest JAY Z track comes on. Your “hip-hop” friend’s ears perk up. Their head starts nodding to the rhythm like a marionette manipulated by the beat. They’re completely taken out of the conversation. Then, like a wildebeest in heat, they let out a thunderous “OOOH!”, their face a scrunched mess. All you can do is nervously laugh at their odd display of auditory elation.

This unusual behavior is the direct result of a great rap line. It’s a hard-earned kudos that is instantly recognizable among other hip-hop heads, and it roughly translates to, “Did you HEAR that shit?? I wonder what the boy Shea Serrano is gonna say about this!”

Before We Go Any Further

I know how pretentious that title might seem: “HOW to listen to rap? I’ve got two ears and a brain, dude. FOH.”

The incredulous reader’s face, right about now.

Well, that’s just it. There’s a difference between hearing and listening. Most anyone can physically allow the vibrations of music to travel through their head and interpret them. But what’s going on poetically within the hip-hop genre, especially its so-called “underground” scene, often gets overlooked. Of course, I’m speaking in generalities here, but it’s a story as old as rap itself:

Popular rap songs that get national radio play (“hip-pop,” as I like to pretentiously dub it) more often than not showcase that familiar, often demonized section of hip hop that glorifies bitches, money, cars, and drug slingin’. In the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s, white moms and older black parents alike advocated against this new wave of in-your-face abrasiveness with seemingly inherent negative stereotypes and messages. Picket signs and boycott lines abounded, and the stigmatization of rap culture has persisted ever since. But that is merely a sliver of the tip of the proverbial iceberg of the hip-hop nation. Just browse /r/hiphopheads and you’ll see how diverse, complex, hilarious, and confusing the hip-hop culture really is.

Let’s Push Things Forward

It ain’t hard to tell, I kick the skill like Shaquille holds a pill

Vocabulary spills I’m Ill — Nas, “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” Also pictured above.

We’ll eventually get to the importance and significance of those quote-unquote negative cultural aspects of the genre in this series, but my goal lies elsewhere for the time being.

I want to show readers what makes certain rap lines great.

I want to explain why artists like Kanye West, André 3000, and Nas are highly revered and integral not only to hip-hop, but to music as a whole.

I want to advocate for the ART of RAPPING.

Whether it’s flow, internal rhyme, double time, cadence, double (and triple!) entendres, alliteration, multis, or just plain old storytelling, there are many factors present when a fan is keying into the music and the message.

It’s never just as simple as pressing play.