/lit/ - Literature

>>5394381
Oh hey, I'm listening to this again right now.

It seems to get better after each listen, used to only listen to BDKMV/Swimming Pools/The Recipe/Black Boy Fly but honestly all the songs are really good too.

Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst is amazing for a 12min song.

I still prefer Yeezy since I tend to relate to him a lot better, on a lot of levels, rather than Kendrick.

>>5394397
Also for what it's worth, I have 250 plays on Black Boy Fly, it's not what you'd think about the title at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPAxrGT2emw

It's really a perfect song that most of /lit/ can relate.
Shame it's a bonus track.

>>5394381
Last time I tried a thread like this it dilapidated into unnecessary bagbacker arguments and hipsters who couldn't help but be vague about the faults and then degenerated further into a "black people vs white people " argument .

The number of fucks that I give
Is ever so small
I just don't give a shit
No, no, not at all.

The old literary guard are dying out. They need something to relate to the kids. So they turn to popular music. Nothing new, they did the same with comic books in the 80-90's and now comics are on college reading lists.

>>5394448
>and now comics are on college reading list

Although highly unlikely, this does make me worry.

I don't know what are you trying to achieve on this literature board,OP, but you will get justifiably ridiculed, no matter how many shitposter's threads a day there will be on /lit/. So better pack your - what I believe you know already - banal shit and go back to /mu/.

Good Kid wasn't even the best hip-hop album of 2012. This guy's an idiot. Something needs to be done about post-colonial studies before they destroy every other kind of humanistic study.
>>5394397
>Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst is amazing for a 12min song.
>amazing for a 12min song
Pleb.

>>5394381
Are you just going to keep posting this?

fuck off with your crap rap you dumb pleb

>>5394487
Because comics don't matter http://cartoons.osu.edu/

>>5394397
>I still prefer Yeezy since I tend to relate to him a lot better

You're a rich, self-absorbed hack?

great record, I'm sure there's a tonne of analysis they can meaningfully learn from, and it's certainly a better source than something like of mice and men. I did my thesis on hip-hop language and passed with an a*

Suggesting its "next to Joyce" is obviously just provocative click-bait fodder but I'm sure the actual course is fine. There's a lot there to be drawing from, and aave really needs a greater amount of attention in English courses, its quite obviously one of the most notable innovations in language in the past century

>>5394448
>The old literary guard are dying out.
Good.
>actually pretending to be oldfags too good for the riff-raff
>"they're talking about funny books and that jungle music in the schools now! don't they know the only thing that matters is rereading The Brothers Karamzov and Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire over and over and over and over!"

>>5395098
hey come on I'm sure there's many of us here myself included that dig gkmc and the brothers karazmov

it's retarded to think gkmc will stand next to shakespeare or joyce, but that doesn't change that it's a good album

>>5394397
>So I'm saying "What up what up. Nigga you made it." (x3)
>I used to jealous of Jayceon (x2)

I gave Kendrick a chance, heard the ''ya bish'' song, decided to give it one more try, just heard a bunch of nigga this nigga that and I stopped listening to it.

white guilt and rap. nothing better

>>5395107
Seems like you've given it a great amount of attention, your appraisal of it is surely amongst the most nuanced and informed of all its critics - I honestly don't see how anyone could take issue with your experience of it. Just deleted the album from my harddrive now I've been enlightened

>>5394497
what was the best? maybe a list of the top 5?

>>5395134
not him but "r.a.p." music was outstanding

>>5395134
>>5395151
meant to type *"r.a.p. music"

>>5395118
To be fair, I was never going to put a lot of effort into any criticism to a guy who says he likes Kanye West.

>>5395151
I'll have a look, I don't really listen to rap.
Cheers

>>5394408
>dilapidated

>>5394381
>shit university starts new controversial course to get some national notice

What else is new, the university I work for did a similar thing with 50 shades of Grey. Pure marketing stunt. I would know since I work for the marketing dept.

>>5394487
I assure you any lit teacher worth a shit would never ask their students to read comic books or rap lyrics because neither supports the development of nuanced analytical skills.

>discussing rap music as if it has any merit

I will gamble and post it, and I am aware that I am indeed might paradoxically do the opposite, but heed this:

Stop giving this thread attention it doubtlessly doesn't deserve.

>>5394381
All I know about him is that Oscar Pistorius was listening to 'Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe' when he argued with Reeva Steenkamp

>>5395101
My point was that there's room for both.

>>5395195
Just because it's not literature, doesn't mean that it can't be analyzed. Music criticism is just as legitimate as film's and literature's respective fields.

there is as much if not more you can say about gkmc in context of hip-hop language's history and development as you can about the average charles dickens novel. if they were teaching an album by a white dude you'd all think it was cool

Fucking plebs even Gore Vidal rapped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro7yewAnL7k#t=25m19s

I don't understand this desperate need to validate shit like video games and comic books and pop music as art.

>>5395261
well yuh if we're just talking about aave and hip-hop culture as a linguistic platform you could carry a whole course on that alone even outside of artistic merit. it's still a fairly literary record though, plenty of narrative techniques, running allusions, foils, intertextuality, all that shit english teachers cream over
>>5395285
kind of disappointing to me you lump in popular music with the other 2, think you might not listen to a lot of music. records like ys, smile sessions, twisted fantasy, mhtrtc are capital-a art

>there are people who think ANX wasn't the best hip hop album of 2012

>>5395092

It is; from what I've read, it's more like a "literature and the city" course that uses the album as a organizing point and as a way of attracting students.

>>5395092
>>5395187


The journalistic summary of this guy's aesthetics is that good art is "rich storytelling and...cultural significance" though, so it could be that he's genuine because he values works on the way they position themselves in their culture, and their use of more textually abstracted literary devices like plot, character, scene, summary, personae, etc. It'd be easy to understand how somebody who doesn't understand poetics, but understands a lot of literary theory and fiction criticism could come to that kind of conclusion. Part of what distinguishes Joyce, and Shakespeare, are their command of meter and other aural and grammatical devices.

>>5395107
i don't get it
jayceon is "the game" rapper, not just any black guy name

if u don't think the way the song is done is good and that it doesn't have a message then ok, but i think ur just trying to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, that's ok.
>>5395073
actually im the guy with most awards and critical acclaim in the my sphere of work
>>5395092
i agree.
>>5395261
>>5395249
i also agree
>>5395195
k.west threads seem to have like 300 replies before mods delete them because they go off-topic in a matter of minutes.
>>5395299
gkmc got the critical acclaim and actual people liking it just as much. kendrick is butt-buddy with dr dre that a lot of people love, and everyone loves an underdog.

if you go on shitty sites or facebook pages regarding hiphop (lol hiphopdx) you'll see black people going "KENDRICK THE KING!!!", those same people go "EMINEM THE KING!!!" too, even though eminem is way past his prime and riding on past fame. fucking asher roth has more material than eminem

i don't think eminem is that good, but he got his fame by being the white guy in a black guy business, kendrick got his by not being a gangster but rapping about the same stuff in a different way, not to mention a lot of his songs on gkmc have the 90s vibe, which is thanks to dr dre and because he uses 3+ syllable words, compared to like 2chains/rickross/whoever is really popular but raps about money cash hoes

>>5395296
With you on the others but what are you referring to with "running allusions"? Seems like a fairly arbitrary point if you just mean him drawing on hip-hop culture, every hip-hop album does that

>>5395195
GKMC has more literary merit than, say, ASOIAF.

>>5395327
nah I meant the whole Kendrick as Jesus thing. though I do think he draws on the culture quite tastefully, he's not just randomly head-nodding to artists he likes

>>5395296
you are capital p pleb m8

>>5395341
insightful post

>>5395134
I don't even know what you're asking me about.
I'm calling you a 'pleb' for implying that a 12-minute-long song is particularly noteworthy for being good compared to other 12-minute-long songs, as if song length were any indicator of quality.

>>5395112
This.
All my friends listen to hip-hop.
Almost none of my friends are black or hang out with people who aren't white.

I find it quite hard to take seriously as legitimate criticism posts to the effect of "oh my! black music? in the classroom? Oh good lord!! how positively atrocious!" considering half of you probably wank off to bob dylan

>>5395359
Stunning point. Outstanding point. Just burned my Kendrick records following this insight.

>>5395359
This post says far more about you than it does "white guilt" or anything like that

>>5395374
What's your issue?
I don't like Kendrick and I don't enjoy hip-hop and I've made observations about my friends' behavior over the long term, to the point that I've gotten to know them well enough to justify the assertion that they don't 'get' hip-hop the way hip-hop is meant to be 'gotten.'

I don't care if they listen to it. It just tells me something about a person's character when they appropriate all the affectations of a culture/subculture without actually becoming a part of that subculture.

Keep your records.

>>5395393
how is listening to music "appropriat[ing] affectations"?

>>5395393
Who are you to say how hip-hop is meant to be "gotten" when you don't enjoy a single record of it?

>>5395403
Appropriating another person's culture completely without giving it a second thought is slave morality. Just listening to music isn't bad, but pretending you came from Compton when you didn't is repugnant.
>>5395408
There's clearly something to be 'gotten,' and it's clear that my white suburban middle-class white friends don't 'get' it in the way that inner city black friends who do 'get' it clearly do.
The difference is in the attitude of the black friends that 'get' it and the white friends that don't. The white friends approach hip-hop with a sense of detached irony. They know it isn't theirs, it's subtextual if not conscious, so they put on a mask when they listen to it and don't go into too much depth when they talk about it. Watching white people try to rap would be comical if it weren't tragic.
There are standards by which you can judge a person's behavior.I'm not trying to compare black culture and white culture in terms of quality. I'm just saying: some people know more about certain kinds of music than others and have a better appreciation of that kind of music. The same is true of metal. People who get metal get metal; people who don't get metal don't get it. Metal is. It isn't bad or good. The culture around it is its own culture. It should be respected as such.

>>5395392
Definitely revealing.

God dammit all this analysing is killing rap. In the end it's just music. And this Shakespeare comparison is bullshit, rap music will never be as literate as Shakespeare, and that's a good thing

>>5395403
>>5395408
Pure ideology

>>5395392
I agree. That guy is bad for not having any black friends

>>5395461
Shyeah, why analyze anything really? I've already been told what to like. Hey you know who's cool? Einstein. Love that dude

>>5395392
Everything I do says a lot about me.

>>5394381
>academics at Georgia Regents University
>Georgia Regents University
>academics
>pick one

>>5395452
Are you really so oblivious as to think your white friends are just completely pretending to enjoy it? Good god man get a grip. You're a terrible friend btw

>>5395478
I don't think they're pretending to enjoy it. I never said I did. I also don't think less of them for enjoying it.
The standard exists, though, and it tells you about a person. I'm judging you pretty hard right now, mainly based on your outright rejection of what I said but also on your failure to read into my post at all.

>>5395485
I'm judging you pretty hard right now as well, I think you're a total wanker in fact

>>5395486
Cool, I think you don't know anything about aesthetics.

>>5395452
>pretending you came from Compton when you didn't is repugnant
if you weren't so afraid of black culture you'd realize barely anyone is doing so, and certainly no-one in this thread

>>5395495
I'm talking about particular people I've known.

I listen to hip-hop. I just don't think all music is equal.

>>5395493
Cool. Nice one. Great.

>>5395500
"I listen to hip-hop"
"I don't enjoy hip-hop"
hmmm

>listening to nig noise
>ever

>>5394381
I am not hearing anything worthy of this level of praise. Its a very serious, well-done hip hop album. Nothing ground breaking though.

>>5395505
I enjoy some hip-hop. I like some of Kanye's stuff and some Kid Cudi.
I've also listened to M.A.A.D. City multiple times. I think there were much better albums that year (not that I care to list them but it was something I got worked up about at the time), not that I 'get' hip-hop enough to really make a judgment of quality.
I didn't get it, I didn't enjoy it, my friends don't get it but enjoy it anyway and so listen to it. I don't listen to it.
You don't even understand what I'm getting at in the first place because you're mad at me. Boo fucking hoo, kiddo.

>>5395519
You are such an unpleasant person

why didn't I hide my power levels /lit/

general power levels and lit qt3.14s thread

greentexts welcome

>>5394381
>reviewers compared good Kid, m.A.A.d city to author James Joyce’s 1922 modernist novel Ulysses for its detail on the daily life of a young urbanite.

are you fucking serious
comparing a somewhat clever rapper to James Joyce

>>5395520
Good. I don't want to be your friend.

>>5395528
I sincerely doubt you have any meaningful friendships

>>5395531
You can doubt anything you want. It has no impact on me whatsoever.

>>5395525

wow ok posting a thread is too hard

thread here >>5395538

sorry for momentary derail

>>5395534
Yeah I wouldn't expect you to make any sense of the real world to be fair

>>5395531

>meaningful
>having a friendship isn't good enough, so i'll stick in an arbitrary and vague qualifier

:^)

>>5395544
Well I know that he calls people his "friends" from this thread but a quick scan of his posts will reveal the kind of relationship they have

>>5395541
>Using the phrase "The Real World" in a non-disparaging way
>2014
Do you even Zizek? Your responses are pure ideology.

>>5395551
my god. you are not subversive

>>5395548
Will it?
Do you think you're qualified to judge the quality of my friendships, of which I've mentioned one aspect in this whole thread?
Are you naive enough to think you can judge my whole being?

>>5395558
Yeah I think I've got a fairly solid picture

>>5395561
So now you're thinking, too, on top of judging?

>>5395569
Are you?

>>5395574

>>5395574
My judgments are based on years of experience with the people I'm making them about, i.e., my friends, i.e., the people I know best and who know me best and whose company I value above most other things.

I think about those observations and arrive at conclusions about them.
Does this mean I can't have friends, if I notice that they act a certain way, if that noticing is just part of the noticing of a greater trait within humanity, i.e., to appropriate part of but not all of what isn't theirs? The incomplete appropriation shows that you don't 'get' the thing you're talking about.
What is 'friendship?' What is the Thing called 'Friendship?'
To me, a friend is someone who is supportive of me and who I support. There is respect in friendship. There is acknowledgement of the other's agency, and in acknowledgement, there is consciousness thereof, and consciousness comes to conclusions and these conclusions become part of the mind.
You judge my 'friendships' based on your arbitrary notions of what 'True Friendship' is. How your true friendship and my true friendship be different? And if I have friends, which I do, then there is by definition respect etc. in friendship.

Your judgments about me are the knee-jerk reactions of a pleb. My original claim
(All my friends listen to hip-hop.
Almost none of my friends are black or hang out with people who aren't white.)
says nothing about the quality of those friendships or what I think of those friends. I also mention that I have black and white friends. It's true. I went to school in the inner city for six years. White kids from the suburbs (my current friends) and less privileged people from the inner city (the people I know who get hip-hop) have different understandings of hip-hop. One of them is more in the spirit of hip-hop than the other.

TL;DR some people understand some kinds of music better than other people understand the same music. Your knee-jerk reactions are a sign of an undisciplined mind. Enjoy your aids.

>>5395616
>I also mention
Not in that post, but in another, I think. If I hadn't mentioned it before I'll mention it now.

>>5395616
I hope you know that I didn't read a word of this and right know I'm listening to Pusha T's Numbers on the Boards. When he says "ballers I put numbers on the boards " I do a finger snap like so: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Alt_Finger_Snap.ogv

>>5395624
>I hope you know that I didn't read a word of this
top kek

>>5395624
heavily lol'd

You're racist as hell if you oppose this.

>>5395772
You're naive to think the people going out of their way to make known their disgust about it aren't driven by some kind of bias

>>5395362
Don't worry, I think all pop music is bad.

>>5395467
Albert Einstein is one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the 20th century.

>>5395616
Thats the longest post in this thread

>>5395863
I agree! My favourite group is the Beatles!

>>5395875
OK, but I don't see what that has to do with Einstein.

>>5395321
>started listening to rap 2 years ago

>>5395374
LOL

>>5394429
Thanks for your input, doctor seuss.
Now back up dat juicy big black caboose
So wet so tight gonna make me blow my load
Even though you're uglier than a motherfuckin toad.

>>5395540
you are a huge fucking faggot

"REAL IS GOD" - Lamar

>>5395321
>i don't think eminem is that good, but he got his fame by being the white guy in a black guy business

Lol.

>>5395101
If you like GKMC everyone knows that the vast majority of The Brothers Karamazov is way above your head.

>>5397267
Cringed hard at this post

>>5395169
>>5395107
wow thats a spicy meatball

>>5394512

This

Please, no more white guilt. If you are going to praise an artist, do it for his/her achievements, not to stroke the ego of some population or ethical group just because they “deserve it” because of all the “historical oppression”.

But of course, you are going to say that I am wrong, that I don’t accept diversity, that I am a pedant and don’t like modern culture, bla, bla, bla. Let’s just let the future decide then if rap and hip-hop lyrics really have literary value.

>>5397267
Yeah its not like they're both pretty much universally critically acclaimed

>>5397448
gkmc doesn't deserve praise because of any kind of racial bias that may be held against it, it deserves praise in spite of that bias because it's fucking great

>>5397448
historical oppression in speech marks as if its some fantastic delusion

>>5395106
this

>>5395355
the ability of a song to stay thematically and emotionally consistent without boring the listener for the length of 3 or 4 seperate songs is unique in rap music you useless contrarian

>>5395461
rap is literally just spoken poetry so whats the fucking point if ur not gonna analyze it seriously

Has anyone ever analyzed an album with more depth?

>>5398076
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace
And your basement clothes and your hollow face
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims
And your matchbook songs and your gypsy hymns
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss
And you wouldn’t know it would happen like this
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug
And your Spanish manners and your mother’s drugs
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you’d accepted the blame for the farm
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go
And your gentleness now, which you just can’t help but show
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you’re on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

>>5398083

You ain't heard a chorus like this in a long time
Don't you see that long line
And they waiting on Kendrick like the 1st and the 15th
3s in the air I can see you are - in sync
Hide your feelings, hide your feelings now what you better do
I'll take your girlfriend and put that pussy on a pedestal
Bitch don't kill my vibe
Bitch don't kill my vibe
Walk out the door and they scream it's alive
My new year's resolution is to stop all the pollution
Talk too motherfucking much, I got my drink I got my music
I say - Bitch don't kill my vibe
Bitch don't kill my vibe
Bitch don't kill my vibe
Bitch don't kill my vibe

i highly doubt more than 5% of the people posting have actually listened to the album.

Why is hip hop so adverse to experimentalism? Ordinary mediocre albums like GKMC are hailed as greats, whereas genre defying hip hop albums like Negro Necro Nekros are ignored.

Why is there an obsession to make rap lyrics out to be quality literature?
Sure, there is some good wordplay, but in comparison to actual good works of literature its nothing more than rhymester techniques.

It's mediocre at best.

>>5398163
Because black people don't have anything else.

>>5398163
>>5398203
>i have always believed music to be the most entry-level of the arts...

>>5398219
No, but Kendrick Lamar is the most entry-level of music

>>5395182
Yes?

>>5398219
Not at all, but these rap lyrics are just average.

>>5398219
>Guys hey guys, check out this rap tune LOL it's seriously like James Joyce or something, really!
>"Why do people keep trying to somehow legitimize rap? It's fucking rap music"
>Time to engage le epic reddit strawman

>while reviewers compared good Kid, m.A.A.d city to author James Joyce’s 1922 modernist novel Ulysses for its detail on the daily life of a young urbanite.

Dear god this is such a shallow fucking comparison. There are so many works in various mediums that "detail the daily life of a young urbanite." It's one of the most common things to do. At the very least they could've drawn parallels between the use of multiple styles/parodies/perspectives, but regardless GKMC is not even fucking close to Ulysses.

I like Kendrick a lot but he's not literary at all. His lyrics are honestly not very good and the fact that he's so often pointed to as a stand-out lyricist in hip hop says more about the quality of lyrics in hip hop than it does about Kendrick's lyrical abilities. Though to be fair lyrics in any music genre look very weak when compared to poetry/literature (because they are not meant to be standalone, they are one piece of the overall experience of the music).

>>5398163
I think it's part of a broader movement to make pop culture into art. Because that way people can play art critic without having to bother with the hard, boring stuff like poetry and literature.

Is Ice Cube the pynchon of rap?

I think some of Bob Dylan's lyrics can be standalone.

>>5398249
is this literary?

>MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

>The Home for Aged Persons is at Marengo, some fifty miles from Algiers. With the two o'clock bus I should get there well before nightfall. Then I can spend the night there, keeping the usual vigil beside the body, and be back here by tomorrow evening. I have fixed up with my employer for two days' leave; obviously, under the circumstances, he couldn't refuse. Still, I had an idea he looked annoyed, and I said, without thinking: "Sorry, sir, but it's not my fault, you know."

>Afterwards it struck me I needn't have said that. I had no reason to excuse myself; it was up to him to express his sympathy and so forth. Probably he will do so the day after tomorrow, when he sees me in black. For the present, it's almost as if Mother weren't really dead. The funeral will bring it home to me, put an official seal on it, so to speak. ...

What does /lit/ think of Joanna Newsom?:

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858550416/

>>5398278
Why wouldn't it be?

>>5398249

>You think about it, and don't call me lyrical
>Cause really I'm just a nigga that's evil and spiritual
>I know some rappers using big words to make their similes curve
>My simplest shit be more pivotal

>>5398289
Rhyme with no meter...

>>5398290
>can't into verse libre

>>5398294
That is not verse libre. That is rhyme without meter, which is garbage.

>>5398298
it's hip hop, a musical form

so the rules of prosody don't exactly apply here and you can't scan it the same way or compare it directly when much of it is performative

>>5398287
gonna need a definition of literary here

>>5398324
Poetry is meant to be read aloud.

>>5398278
I think the literary value of Camus is pretty well established at this point. Why are you asking me to defend a random author anyways? It's irrelevant. You'd be better off putting forward an argument for why Kendrick is literary.

>>5398328
no it isn't necessarily

poetry contains musical aspects (melopoeia) but it isn't musical or performative in the same way as hip hop

>>5398334
is not.
is a try hard bitch ass nigga.

>>5398336
I suggest you go and fucking read even just the wikipedia article on poetry you fucking pleb

you dont know what youre talking about

>>5398343
>>5398343
if you're suggesting hip hop and poetry are experienced in remotely similar ways you're wrong. explain how what I've said is wrong.

especially when poetry has been transmitted primarily through solitary reading (from writer to reader no) forever, no matter how it originated or developed

>>5398156
I have not listened to it, and I probably never will.

>>5398374
read more

>>5398393
is that all you have to say?

Just because I don't see the point in holding hip hop to the strict rules of traditional prosody doesn't mean I'm not familiar with the white canon you're defending

>>5398161
Because weird, obscure experimental music doesn't appeal to young people as much as easily listenable things, e.g., Kanye West or this newer guy, and pop music is an industry about making money

>>5398249
The best songs are poems set to music

>>5398422
Dalek has a fairly big following from what I've seen. Now stuff like Clipping is also getting more attention

If you mean what gets the most attention, of course the masses are always going to praise something accessible. It's the same with every art form

>>5398430
such as?

>>5398435
Of course. One might as well ask why Harry Potter is more popular than Gravity's Rainbow.

>>5398441
Romantic era lieder

>>5398448
but it doesn't mean hip hop itself is inherently populist as a medium is what I'm saying (though I will admit there's a tendency in it to grant a voice to 'the people')

>>5398454
eh, I'm a proud syncretist. We're going to disagree on this but I'm certainly not going to privilege that era over anything you'd deem 'popular music' today

>>5395321

I respect Kendrick's achievement in GKMC, but based upon his output outside of that album I've a feeling he's going to go the way of Lupe Fiasco--a bright shining star of rapping talent who eventually self-immolates under his own ego.

As for your remarks on Eminem: you clearly don't know jack shit about him. He's top-tier in the artform for a reason, and it's not because he was white in a black man's game.

Does /lit/ fear the shaolin?

>>5398499
Whoops

>>5398473
That was just an example. It's something composers from all eras have done. I actually wouldn't be averse to seeing hip-hop interpretations of contemporary poetry. In fact, I'm sure it's been done before

>>5398502
>>5398499
>I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies
>and hypothesis can't define how I be droppin these

>>5398504
>Romantic era lieder
>something composers from all eras have done

>>5398514
Please learn how to follow a conversation
>>5398430

>>5398516
what are the best songs from our era then

Something tells me most of the people don't relate to the subject matter in Kendrick's music. While I'm not on the same page exactly, I can definitely relate to the idea of good kid living in a mad city. It resonates so clearly with every song that it's kind of hard for me to deny any of its merit. Depending on your definition of literature, the fact that it's spoken lyricism might already lead you to dismiss it. But if someone were to use slightly different words (leaving out some of the profanity and certain slang) and write it down, then I don't think anyone would doubt the literary qualities of Kendrick Lamar. You can break down each song (yes, each song) and get defined and decent social commentary. It speaks volumes for anyone who understands and empathizes with the subject matter. If you don't, then that just means the experience wasn't (and probably won't ever be) something in your ball park at this point.

>>5398527
>Not liking bad songs

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XdiWpWxCTko

>>5398539
there's a reason white people steeped in the Western tradition are trying to exclude Kendrick from literature

maybe it's the fact that his medium is primarily black and, as you said, concerned with black and often subaltern experience

it's okay though. they'll all come around in 70 years or so

>>5398556
are you serious right now?

>>5398581
yes

>>5394381

You mean if we can consider nigger music literature I won't have to go through the hard work of reading anymore? What a time to be alive.

>>5398586
do you think kendrick will be on the level of shakespeare or joyce

>>5398596

nigga, my boy Kendrick is way beyond those lame ass crackas nomesayin

>>5398598
lol

>>5398594
thanks for proving my point. but no, I advocate that people should still read The Faerie Queene but shouldn't rule out literary value in something like Kendrick

>>5398596
no, but that doesn't mean he's not worth studying as literature

>>5398598
too drunk to be mad right now.

>>5398609

So we can now study Cormac McCarthy as music and Ernest Hemingway as architecture, right?

>>5394381
meh, I think some MF Doom would fit better

Have no idea who this person is nor do I give a shit. I find it funny that you idiots will gobble up this shit but shun Stephen King or Dan Brown.

>>5398635

>Stephen King

nigga isn't he that guy in the wheelchair

>>5398539
>You guys just don't get it.
>You never will.

Pretty shit-tier defense, m8.

>But if someone were to use slightly different words (leaving out some of the profanity and certain slang) and write it down, then I don't think anyone would doubt the literary qualities of Kendrick Lamar.
Profanity and slang can be used in literature, and have been used in some of the most celebrated works. Profanity and slang aren't why people doubt Kendrick's literary value.


I feel you're trying to make this a matter of social (and maybe racial? see this guy >>5398556) divide when it really isn't. Kendrick Lamar just isn't literature. He's a very talented rapper and I love his music but that doesn't make him literature.

>>5398642

see >>5398618

i want /mu/ to leave

>>5398632
If MF Doom is the Joyce of hip-hop, then who is MC Ride?

>>5398655
Burroughs

But MF Doom is NOT the Joyce of hip-hop

>>5398642
GKMC as a work is literary. It can be studied as literature, or, if you want to make an arbitrary and reactionary distinction to keep your filthy English departments 'purer', in cultural studies

Scanning and analyzing a single song by him on its own might not yield impressive results, but it doesn't mean that the album itself doesn't function as a literary work

This is my generation and I weep.

>>5398510
>...mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery
>Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me
>Battle scarred shogun, explosion when my pen hits
>Tremendous, ultraviolet shine blind forensics
>I inspect you through the future, see millennium
>Killer bee sold 50 gold, 60 platinum
>Shackling the masses with drastic rap tactics
>Graphic displays melt the steel like blacksmiths
>Black Wu-Jackets, queen bees ease the guns in
>Rumble with patrolmen, tear-gas lace the function
That was seriously Inspectah Deck's best verse.

>>5398659

What is it about the album that makes it literary?

Also, just returning to my question before, it's good to know that we can know study Cormac McCarthy as music and James Joyce as biomedicine.

>>5398660
>le wrong generation.jpg

>>5398658
Then who is? And if MF Doom isn't, then who is he?

>>5398662

*now

>>5398660
Le wrong generation amirite guys?

>>5398660
there's always be mediocre people doing shitty things. that never changes, only who's in focus does

>>5398664
Kendrick lyrically isn't similar to Joyce at all but conceptually I don't have a problem with comparing Ulysses and GKMC

I think Joyce might be Kool Keith, especially with his predilection for weird sex acts and linguistic exploration

>>5398666
>>5398663
epic memes :^)

>>5398655
>All my palm lines running, stretching
>Cross my palms like blind cross etching
>Palm mummified, cotton era filming
>Bronze my palm now, all brown palm now

>>5394381

>George Regents University

Ahahahahaha. Go figure. This and that other shit tier uni that does courses in Beyonce.

>>5398663
>>5398666
>>5398669

When pretentious hipsters want to live in the 80s or 50s, that's "le wrong generation". When a college course is dedicated to some rap album, that's just fucking sad and contributes to the idiocy of America.

>>5398670
>I don't have a problem with comparing Ulysses and GKMC

But of course you don't. We know.

>>5398658
What do you have against Doom, man?

>>5398680
it's easy to think a bygone era was better when you're judging from quaint photos, polished writings and other one-dimensional reminiscences. i have an obsession with the victorian era but i know it wouldn't have been all glorious. unless you were somewhat wealthy, your existence would have been meagre, cold, smelly, more diseased, loud and depressing. and not knowing the future, you would probably yearn for earlier times when you think you would have made a better go of it. the anywhere-but-here, anybody-but-me mentality

also, america is shot through with enough idiocy to keep everybody spitting feathers until the bitter end

>>5398681
>truncating my post

I don't know why this keeps turning into 'is Kendrick Lamar on the level of James Joyce?' because the answer is obviously no. I don't agree with Adam Diehl about his standing next to Shakespeare/Joyce.

But I'm all for studying him the classroom, and I certainly don't think it would be contributing to 'the idiocy of America'

>>5398698
I hope we start killing academics some day.

>>5398707
maybe for careerism but not for including in a curriculum something outside Harold Bloom's canon

>>5398730
As a serious question I don't know the answer to, do music colleges have classes on people like Jimi Hendrix or Trey Anastasio?

>>5395321
>i don't think eminem is that good

First ever album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRbEgoTqQs
Better than 90% of everything released since.

>>5398161
Experimental =/= Better

I always praised this album for it's pointed storytelling. After listening to it the whole way through, you sort of feel like you know Kendrick. The record was like a diary, him recanting his memories just for you. This pitfalls, his woes, the death of a friend, the support he garnered from his family and friends and the path of destruction that the city paved for him to walk down. While I wouldn't classify this album as a literary work, I would say that it's one of the best pieces of mondern music in the past five years or so.

Plus, who DIDNT like backseat freestyle?

>>5398642
I hope you actually listen to Kendrick's stuff with an open mind. Here's a sample that really hit me:

See a block away from Lueders Park, I seen the El Camino parked
In her heart she hate it there, but in her mind she made it where
Nothing really matters, so she hit the back seat
Rosa Parks never a factor when she making ends meet

If you don't feel the weight of that statement, then yes, you don't understand and you probably won't. Literature always has something to do with the society it's developed around (see any major work and note how the time affects its purpose). I know you don't have to necessarily show a non-example for why he shouldn't be considered a rapper, but I know there are a fair amount of examples that show his work equaling the power of literature.

>>5398764
Nope not serious one, they study musical theory.

I see how he's talented but I really hate his whiny voice, it sounds instantly punchable. He talks like the type of person that makes filthy smacking noises when he eats and then cowers when someone confronts him with it. I bet he used to be the kid who always had leftover food in the corner of his mouths and such.

I can't enjoy him for this reason, if he would just let another person do the rapping it would be nice.

I also don't like this whole "wow this one rapper said maybe not everything is about money and bitches and violence he's so special" media shtick.

>>5398542
>implying that song was bad

>>5401218
Limp Bizkit is both terrible and good. A couple of other bands have approached this like KoRn and the Beastie Boys but it is somewhat rare.

go to bed Yun Lean

>>5394381
Aesop Rock is the true Joyce of rap.

>>5401351
>compensating your whiteness with annoying verbosity

not even once

And every night when the sun went down in the town where we lived
The empty streets were lit up by reflected light from a distant sun
Bouncing off a ball of rock and we just laid on the roof
And watched the moon, the moon, the blue light of the moon
We didn't talk and silently we both felt powerful
And like the moon my chest was full because we both knew
We're just floating in space over molten rock
And we felt safe and we discovered that our skin is soft
There's nothing left except certain death
And that was comforting at night out under the moon

I went out last night to forget that
I went out and stared it down
But the moon just stared back at me
And in its light I saw my two feet on the ground

I like kendrick too. Just wanted to post this

>>5394381
>while reviewers compared good Kid, m.A.A.d city to author James Joyce’s 1922 modernist novel Ulysses for its detail on the daily life of a young urbanite.
>this is next to Shakespeare, it’s next to Joyce. In 100 years, people are going to be wanting their poetry or drama or short stories to be as good as Good Kid M.A.A.D City. It’s of extreme literary value.

Reminds me of that "citizen kane of gaming" bullshit that's been circulating for the last few years. GKMC is a good album, it's become a bit overrated, but comparing it to Joyce or Shakespeare is just full-blown retarded.

>>5402270
Elverum is in my top 5 songwriters but I have to agree with Scaruffi when he says that even the greatest rock lyricists are at best mediocre poets.

>>5402270
I always took Phil as being well read and into literature. Very Heideggerean. Clear Moon also had very strong Nietzschean tones in its lyrics.

Love how Phil basically keeps a coherence between all his releases. Listening to The Glow then The Glow, pt. 2. Listening to The Moon then The Moon Sequel.

Georgia Regents? If they're going to do a stupid course like this, why the fuck wouldn't it be about Outkast? It would be more regionally appropriate and, with the exception of Idlewild, every single one of their albums is better than anything Kendrick has ever done.

As someone who semi-frequently listens to rap, I don't understand the hype around Lamar. His "literary merit" is that of, probably even less than, and given shitty YA author or the supreme mediocrity of poetry or anything of the sort. His "rap merit" suffers because of this and he ends up some shitty wannabe Kanye West (who is shit in his own right).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF8aaTu2kg0

>bitch don't kill my vibe
>bitch don't kill my vibe

I've never heard such beautifully constructed sentences

>>5402480
Kanye's lyricism is awful but its his composition that is masterful. Kanye will tell you he can't rap and he can't sing but he still wants to be the best.

>>5402522
>Kanye will tell you he can't rap and he can't sing

No he won't, he has plenty of songs where his rapping is really good.

>>5395192
It's being introduced into American schools, or at least California, as part of curriculum.

>>5394381
>race, drug culture, gender and hip-hop culture
why can't they write about something else?

OH BOY I SURE DO LOVE POVERTY RAP

>>5404246

you tell 'em, tiger

>>5397474

The suffering of your ancestors (not only in the ships and in the Americas, but also in Africa – remember: blacks were the slaves of blacks) can’t be used as an advantage for your work, like: “Well, his work is worth a 4, or a 5, but let’s give him 8 as a grade, for, you know, his ancestors were all oppressed: poor him”. or “Well, you know, is incredible that he, as a black person, could write some verses and use rhyme: he deserves praise for being able to use those tools”. That is just white guilt.

And I find strange that blacks in America complain about violence when the death mortality is enormously perpetrated on them by themselves. Its black gangs killing other members of black gangs: simple as that. The state offers them free education, free study material, lots of opportunities, and yet here they are, killing each other and writing bad verses about it.

I don’t like that sort of “poetry” that can hardly make an interesting metaphor, or simile; that poetry that doesn’t have great imagery (and that’s not only a problem in rap lyrics – many celebrated poets have the same emptiness and lack of creativity).

In short: you people can like the songs of the guy for its sound, but not for the lyrics: the lyrics are mediocre as poetry.

>>5398093
Wow! Reads like Faust!

>>5402480
you sound like a backpacker who listens purely to eyedea and aesop rock

>>5402480
>>5404894
I don't think Kendrick should be compared to joyce or shakespeare, but you can't tell me that this is bad:

Sometimes I look in a mirror and ask myself
Am I really scared of passing away
If it's today I hope I hear a
Cry out from heaven so loud it can water down a demon
With the holy ghost till it drown in the blood of Jesus
I wrote some raps that make sure that my lifeline
Rake in the cent of a reaper, ensuring that my allegiance
With the other side may come soon
And if I'm doomed, may the wound
Help me mother be blessed for many moons
I suffer a lot
And every day the glass mirror get tougher to watch
I tie my stomach in knots
And I'm sure not why I'm infatuated with death
My imagination is surely an aggravation of threats
That can come about
Cause the tongue is mighty powerful
And I can name a list of your favorites that probably vouch
Maybe cause I'm dreamer and sleep is the cousin of death
Really stuck in the scheme of, wondering when I'm a rest

>>5398662
those are totally spurious comparisons. clearly there is more in common between two lyric centered media.

Who is the Joyce of music?

>>5406619

if i was 14 maybe

>>5406619
thats very entry level
wheres the iambic pentameter or stream of consciousness?

>>5398764
Berklee teaches rock guitar.

>>5404222
What else is there ever to write about?

I never got why people thought this was such a masterpiece. It's hardly even much of a story at all.

It's stupid that rap is treated as the pinnacle of lyricism in music. It's actually the worst, because the emphasis on rhyming severely limits the creativity. Someone like Joanna Newsom is a far more accomplished lyricist

>>5406887
GHOST OF ELECTRICITY HOOOWWWLLSS IN THE BONES OF HER FAAAAAACE

Dylan is the GOAT lyricist though

Beefheart is the GOAT lyricist

Trout Mask Replica is one of art's peaks in general. It's basically an insane man's still somewhat coherent thoughts captured through months of torturous practice, and it's still very listenable and interesting. The lyrics are also the best in rock

>>5406912
>Listening to rock music, or for that matter, any music, for the lyrics

I follow the Steely Dan school of thought, where the lyrics should fit the song, and not mean anything.

A song with dumb lyrics and a great solo is much better than a song with mediocre lyrics and no solo.

Every piece of popular music should have a guitar/keyboard/drum/ what ever lead instrument solo.

>>5406902
YOUR MAGNETIC MOVEMENTS STILL CAPTURE THE MINUTES I'M IN

Too fucking right he is.

>>5394381

The lengths people will go to avoid taking responsibility for their own lives and problems.

I bet some faggots in this thread will tell me white people and the government are responsible for black violence and poverty.

>>5406940
>I follow the Steely Dan school of thought, where the lyrics should fit the song, and not mean anything.

I like that way of thinking. For me, a lot of the time, I like to see the vocals as just another instrument, something to add, not just the main feature.

Listening to later Talk Talk albums, are like this for me. Unless you read the lyrics, it's difficult to understand what Mark Hollis is saying, but it's still pretty beautiful

>>5395195
Nah.

>memerap

>>5409291
>>>/mu/