Watch Estelle Caswell’s deconstruction of the rhymes used by rappers in her short video ‘Rapping, deconstructed: the best rhymers of all time‘. Gain an appreciation of the skills involved in hip-hop and how the genre has developed over time.
Last post about rap. Word.
Keen to brush up on your poetic devices? Try to keep up with the rapper Testament as he raps poetic devices.
For a more relaxing way of revising some key devices, and perhaps expanding your knowledge, watch this video on poetic techniques.
Here is a comprehensive glossary of the terminology you might wish to use when revising poetry techniques.
Ever get the sneaky feeling that Shakespeare would be doing hip hop if he were alive today? Rapper Akala brings hip hop and Shakespeare together. Listen to his Comedy, History, Tragedy to get a flava of his work (see what I did there?).
One of the founders of the Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, Akala explores the connections between Shakespeare and hip hop, and tests his audience to see if they can recognise lines from rappers from lines from Shakespeare. The results are surprising…
He goes on to argue that hip hop’s founders and artists like the Wu-Tang Clan see themselves as ‘custodians of knowledge’ in the same way that William Shakespeare was in his day – their work sharing the same celebration of audacious intelligence.
Drop a beat.
mhsenglish10ac 