Here's a new kind of post for PUYL. This time, I'm not simply sharing a download for a song I like, but I'm actually gonna show you WHY it's so special.
I'm a fan of hip-hop. I know a lot of people have trouble getting into it because the subject matter can be offensive or unrelatable. First off, there IS hip-hop that you would consider appropriate and enjoy. It exists. Just as every other genre covers wide ranges of topics, so too does rap music. That's not what I'm discussing in this post, though. Yes, this song has plenty of swearing and violence, but I'm less focused on WHAT is being said and more on HOW these two artists are saying their words. And while lyrics and instrumentals are fundamentally similar in all types of music, only hip-hop makes a concerted effort to deliver the lines with such density while maintaining aesthetic rhyme structures.
What I've done here is take the lyrics to "Forgot About Dre" and then color code all the rhymes. In each of the three verses and the hook, I highlighted each new rhyme with a different color. I nearly ran out of colors in Em's verse. In addition, there a few instances of alliteration and nearby sounds which can be seen in
bold.
The result is a visual representation of all of the rhyme patterns in the song. It not only reveals that almost every line is rhymed with something, but also how extensive some of the rhymes are, the many multisyllabic rhyme schemes, and the overlapping of patterns.
Dr. Dre carries the assonance of "o_ee" throughout his entire first verse. There are also various other rhymes interspersed among the main rhyme. For the third verse, he begins with an identity rhyme ("up to me") three times before expanding to other approximate rhymes. However, he uses that phrase in three different contexts. Here are the lines rewritten with the different meanings made more explicit:
If it was (my choice)/You motherfuckers would stop coming (toward me)/With your hands out looking (in my direction)
The repetition of lines isn't lazy or uncreative, it's deliberate. Dr. Dre ends his verse with ten lines which match the "having that" scheme. Replace any of these three-syllable rhymes with one of the others and it still fits.
Eminem may be the most masterful wordsmith of all. He carries several rhyme patterns on for many bars while including other internal rhymes along the way. "Walking by" does not rhyme with "barking dogs" when placed side by side, but Eminem's pronunciations allow the right sounds to be heard in order for the rhyme to work.
What I find most remarkable about these verses is that almost every rhyme is at least two syllables long. In fact, we get two examples of FOUR syllable rhymes. "Can full of gas"/"hand full of matches" and "Been in the lab"/"pen and a pad" are simply amazing and fun to say.
Stream: Forgot About Dre
I hope this analysis sheds some light on the complexities of hip-hop songs. I don't know why rhymes are pleasing to hear, but when they're constructed in this way, it really is impressive. It seems that the more rhymes they pack in, and the more tangled and interwoven they are, the better it sounds.
"Forgot About Dre" is one of the most well constructed rap records I know of, but there are plenty of other great songs and rappers out there. I might make this piece a semi regular feature whenever I come across particularly interesting rhyme schemes, so stay tuned.
