Read Online Book of Rhymes by Adam Bradley - Free Book Online Page A

essential changes take place on rap’s microscopic level: the syllable.
    The English language contains thirty-five sounds and twenty-six letters. Somehow, out of all of this, rhymes are born. “If, in rap, rhythm is more significant than harmony or melody, it is rhythm dependent on language, on the ways words rhyme and syllables count,” writes Simon Frith. A syllable is the basic organizational unit for a sequence of speech sounds; it is the phonological building block of language. Sometimes a single syllable can form a word—like “cat” or “bat.” More often, it is combined with other syllables to form multisyllabic words. Syllables matter to rap for several reasons. They partly dictate rap’s rhythms based upon the natural syllabic emphasis of spoken language. In literary verse, syllabic prosody relies upon the number of syllables in the poetic line without regard to stress. Haiku, for instance, follows this method. Most modern poetry in English, however, favors accentual meter—poetry that patterns itself on stressed syllables alone. Stress, as we discussed earlier, is the vocal emphasis accorded each syllable relative to the emphasis given to those around it. The English language naturally contains so many stresses that no other organizational principle for meter makes sense.
    Manipulating the numbers of syllables can function quite effectively in rap. Rakim, one of rap’s greatest rhyme innovators, emphasizes the importance of an MC’s control of language
on the smallest possible levels. “My style of writing, I love putting a lot of words in the bars, and it’s just something I started doing,” he explains. “Now it’s stuck with me. I like being read. The way you do that is by having a lot of words, a lot of syllables, different types of words.” Charting the number of syllables in the lines of a given rap verse is a useful technique. By doing so, one notices patterns of repetition and difference. In the lines that follow, Eminem creates a syllabic pattern of around ten syllables, which he then disrupts by expanding the number of syllables to nearly double by the end. “Drug Ballad,” from which these lines are drawn, is a study in breath control and lyrical artistry at the microscopic level of syllable.
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    Back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark, (9 syllables)
this is how we used to make the party start. (11)
We used to . . . mix in with Bacardi Dark (10)
and when it . . . kicks in you can hardly talk (10)
and by the . . . sixth gin you gon’ probably crawl (10)
and you’ll be . . . sick then and you’ll probably barf (10)
and my pre . . . diction is you gon’ probably fall (11)
either somewhere in the lobby or the hallway wall (13)
and every . . . thing’s spinnin’ you’re beginning to think
women (14)
are swimmin’ in pink linen again in the sink (12)
then in a couple of minutes that bottle of Guinness is
finished . . . (17)
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    To perform this last line without breaking his flow, Eminem increases the tempo of his delivery and alters his prosody (his pitch, length, timbre, etc.). The contrast between
syllabic order and syllabic overflow creates an effective and pleasing structural pattern that listeners experience primarily on the level of rhythm. After listening to this track, try tapping out the natural beat of the syllables. The rhythm you’ll hear is the skeleton of Eminem’s flow. The difference between that tapping and what you hear when Eminem rhymes is best defined in the last elements of flow that we shall discuss, pattern and performance.
    One usually does not think of nineteenth-century Jesuit poet-priests and hip hop at the same time, but English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins has something to teach us about flow. In a famous line from his journals, he describes his discovery of “sprung rhythm.” In technical terms, sprung rhythm is a variant of strong-stress meter