
Geoff (stage name GC-14) adjusts his lapel mike. Photo courtesy Wikicommons.
I’m pretty fussy when it comes to pop music. I like a nice hummable tune, interesting instrumentation, and lyrics that mean something. As a teen I claimed to dislike disco because its lyrics were often insipid; some big hits contained only half a dozen words. (Though truth to tell, it’s just as much because disco was such happy music that moody Turtle Teen didn’t care for it. )
I never really understood rap music, either. There’s plenty of meaning in its words, even if I don’t understand all of them; some expressions seem to be new to the English language. But tuneless lyrics? I didn’t get it.
Shame on me.
In the 14th Century, a rap artist named Geoffrey Chaucer was knocking ‘em dead onstage. He protested the excesses of the Church and the inanities of the over-indulged; he joked about sexual infidelities; he took potshots at minor government officials. Most people in his audience didn’t own any books, and many were barely literate.
Two hundred years later, a radical named William Shakespeare thumbed his nose at the Puritan authorities and penned sexy, satirical, sensitive stageplays in a funky backbeat rhythm of ten beats per line. When the words didn’t fit quite right or didn’t express what he wanted to say, he invented new ones.
If the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare were taught properly in school — with emphasis on hearing those works rather than reading them — the commonalities between them and rap would be more apparent.
Stage entertainment. Rhythm and rhyme. Reflection and social critique. Ingenuity, passion — and spoken, not sung. Rap is POETRY, you silly Turtle! If you want tune, go listen to Silver Convention’s “Fly, Robin, Fly.”
Posted by lavenderbay
Posted by lavenderbay
Posted by lavenderbay 





















