alexregalgs
10+ year member
FP CUSTOMS Head installer
Perhaps because it's easier to write about words, I do think critics tend to wax long on lyrics more than the so-called non-verbal qualities of a rapper's delivery. And all I'm trying to get at, swear to Christ, is why Wayne's rhymes are more fun, more physically pleasing than (but just as science-droppy as) your usual East Coast Rapper's. Wayne pays as much attention to the circumstances of his delivery — laughing at every other joke, garbling his best lines, running out of breath, mispronouncing words for the sake of a rhyme then apologizing for doing so, etc. — as he does to that which he delivers. He physically draws attention to the fact that he is a rapper, rapping. These are not secondary to the content. They are the content themselves. And I find his particular sort of attention to delivery, in service to his persona, to his attitude, to the ease with which he wants his words to hit our ears, very Southern — or at the very least, not exactly on the top of the priority list for the science-dropping East Coast Rapper type. I find many lyric-driven rap artists are difficult to listen to. Either I don't like the way his voice sounds, and I don't like how he articulates, or I don't like the words he uses — too many nouns, maybe, or too many abstractions. Dense metaphor is strictly for-the-mind shit. It's there with Wayne too — there in all the ways people have been pointing out so far — but there's a Macbeth side to him too: Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't. Anyone can understand Wayne, and yet no one can understand Wayne, thus we need to pick apart the methods to his madness. (I swear I'm done with the Shakespeare references.) The recreation of Wayne's thought process though, i.e. how Wayne got from "yeast infection" to "geese erection," and how his bridge from one rhyme to the other ("fly, go hard") comprises something particularly unique or praiseworthy in the game... Let's not get carried away. Lil Wayne is a rapper. Rappers rhyme. Rhymes exist only as sound. Occam would have it they start at the next couplet's rhyme, and then they figure out how to get there, all while maintaining some semblance of grammar and syntax so we can understand what they're saying. I don't think this is just Lil Wayne's M.O. It's just what rappers do. Let's be careful, because otherwise, we're just rewarding rappers for talking in sentences — we're singing their praises basically for not being Aesop Rock. It's a slippery slope. By that logic, Rick Ross might truly be the biggest boss that you seen thus far.
