🎤 Rapology: Legendary rap in 3 ingredients! (1/3)

(Part 1/3)
For those who don't know it well, rap could be reduced to machismo, gangs, drugs, misogyny... We'll stop you right there! Rapology is above all an art, so much so that writers and linguists - such as the American poet and music critic Daniel Levin Becker - sing its praises. He considers hip-hop to be "America's purest contribution to the world" and the one he's most proud of.

So, let's see how rap is an art with its own codes, history, and genius. Open your mind. Leave your biases at the door! As Booba would say: "Chez nous y’a pas de mains aux fesses ni de wesh, wesh cousine…"

#1 - The flow

A rapper is known first and foremost by their flow: it's the way they deliver their lyrics. The flow has to grab the listener's attention with its melody, and especially its rhythm. It's like a "drum score turned into lyrics", as the linguist Iskandar Rhys Davis puts it. We told you that the most educated people have a keen interest for this art!

Some syllables are deliberately stretched, some are contracted or even deafened, others are emphasized... While playing with these effects, the rapper's main goal is to follow the music's tempo - what aficionados call "staying on beat". But this is not a strict rule since some rappers have fun creating offbeat effects, such as the DMV flow that is becoming increasingly popular.

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According to the French philosopher Christian Béthune, flow is what distinguishes rap from poetry, the spoken-word, and perhaps any other form of writing. He believes that, since the flow is not improvised but conceived from the written word, rap may be "the first form of expression to deliberately maintain" the blurring of the boundaries between oral and written expression.

Although rap is essentially a text, it's not a text made to be read; but rather a text inseparable from its author, and only he can deliver it the right way.

Finally, if the flow defines a rapper's personality and their musical universe, it's also used as an excuse for speed challenges. In the Anglo-Saxon world, Eminem seems to hold the record for the fastest flow, with 229 words in 30 seconds (in the song Godzilla). In France, the record was held by Big Flo et Oli, with a speed of 7.2 words per second, then by Davodka who reached 8.5 words per second. While the flow is an art, we can also consider it a sport!

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