You're Responsible, Personally

You're Responsible, Personally

   First year of college

   And tonight is the night

   I forget all of my knowledge

   And get piss drunk and maybe fight

   This fraternity seems nice

6  They've invited me and my girlfriends in

   Offered us drink after drink

   Until our heads start to spin

   I start to think

   That we have made some new friends

   Until confrontation and cries

12 About when the party should end

   The fun we're having is lies

   Our thoughts are cloudy and blurred

   I'm sorry about what happened, what happened to her

I made a SoundClound page. You can check it out if you care to hear my voice read my own poetry. A friend of mine once asked me why I am not a rapper. I didn't have a proper response. But after thinking about it for a couple of weeks I've finally decided why I am not a rapper and why I don't want to ever be considered a rapper, too many boundaries. Despite my Punk and Alternative leanings I am first and foremost a purveyor of Rap and Hip-Hop music. Those are the artforms most prevalent in my childhood and the artforms that most of my friends and family participate and partake. And like ALL music genres, Rap and Hip-Hop owe poetry. 

Rap and Hip-Hop is too reliant upon music, upon instrumentation to provide rhythm and a narrative. Being a rapper also means that even if you feel that you're being true to yourself, you still have to be more true to somebody else, enable to be heard. I am not deaf to modern rap. I read and hear and enjoy what is popular now-a-days in the genre and culture. I also notice that even the most creditable rappers still seem to leak materialism and an unwarranted braggadocios nature into their lyrics. A rapper can't simply be vulnerable or angry or even happy. The rapper has to have a quality that admits that they are some how greater than every human being on the planet. Instead of admitting that she or he is just as equal. Maybe even less than (I haven't heard every rapper on earth, I concede). 

I love poetic structure, also, I love how poetry has no structure. I believe that every sentence that I speak is poetry. No matter how mundane or insufficient. That isn't to say that poetry isn't important and that the classical poetic structure and cadence isn't valuable. I just believe that words are poetry and if you use words you're essentially a poet. Those of us who love to order words are poets.

But I am not a rapper. I feel that being a rapper is political. A rapper is how someone defines themself when they're unable to truly express what they want to say without rhyming or without grandiose production. A rapper has to relate their feelings to another human by rhythm and words. Sometimes, the rhythm speaks more than the words. I'm a poet. Words are most important. Banging on drums or playing a sweet guitar riff are awesome. I love music and I admire musicians for speaking even if they were headless. But my instrument is words. Whether they stand alone or are backed by a 60 piece orchestra.