Episode 42: Grown Men Writing Poetry About Each Other

"Hello, Marshall,/my name's Colson/you should go back to Recovery/I know your ego is hurtin'/just knowin' that all of your fans discovered me."

                                     -Machine Gun Kelly, "Rap Devil"

   The rap game. I hate it.

  Well, I don't hate all of it. Just the vast majority of it. There are a handful of rappers whose music I enjoy. But in a genre where the primary writing topics are drugs, partying, and sex, it's hard for me to enjoy your music. Especially when all you're doing is talking and rhyming. 

   But, I believe actual rap requires skill. Actually going fast and rhyming is hard, and it takes a talented person to do that. There's a reason why people like Eminem and Busta Rhymes are regarded so highly. I like rappers who rap fast and rap about real topics.

Rap is poetry

  Like it or not, rap is poetry. In fact, you could probably say that all lyrical music is poetry. It has structure and rhyme. This is why English teachers love pulling corny assignments telling us things like "Edgar Allan Poe was the OG Eminem" or something to that effect.

Beef

   Rappers love to get into fights with each other. Whether it's about which one of them is better or because one of them said the other's daughter is hot (that actually happened - more on that soon), rappers just can't exist without being mad at someone else. Often times, these "beefs" evolve into what are called "diss tracks" - which is when a rapper makes a song insulting the other rapper. 

   They are literally writing a poem about someone.

 Nothing says "I hate you" like "I wrote a poem for you".

Rap Devil

  I mentioned him in the beginning - Machine Gun Kelly. A few years ago, he made Eminem mad because he called his daughter hot. That sparked a long beef between the two, with each one writing angry poems about the other.

  Eminem has a quite well-known song called "Rap God". It's honestly a really good song. Eminem is known for his ability to rap really fast, and this is definitely one of his songs he goes the fastest in. Machine Gun Kelly, being a very butthurt poet, wrote a poem about the other angry poet called "Rap Devil". He literally titled his poem as the opposite of the other's because he was so mad.

Is poetry cringe?

  As I'm typing this I'm starting to feel like I'm giving off the impression that I think poetry is bad. I don't. Poetry is good. You can quote me on that.

   "Poetry is good." -Mr. Hardy (2022)

  It's just funny that what these rappers think that they're doing is devastating the other with cruel words and snappy insults. What they don't realize is that they're just writing poems. Which, considering the personalities and attitudes of these grown (mostly) men, they wouldn't like being told that they are just writing poems for the person they're mad at.

Here's spaghetti because Eminem has a song ("Lose Yourself") where he says "there's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti". True art.

See you next week!