Rappers and MC's

[Todd]

In some ways yes, more like a spoken word poet. Here's the trick with rap in my mind to say if it's poetry, if I can get someone, anyone really with a good speaking voice to get up in front of a crowd and read the rap in a bar or a coffee shop as a poem. If it can succeed without the rapper's charisma driving it than it would probably be a poem. I worked with a woman who liked rap, and she brought me lyrics from Nas, Tupac, and Common as examples of the best poets. If I remember correctly Nas and Tupac had a few raps that worked pretty well as poems. I remember thinking Common was probably the best of the three (but it's been a few years and I could be remembering wrong). There were always some things you'd need to cut out of the lyrics to make it more of a poem, but that's true of almost any song even (different media). The one rap that I remember going over that I thought had some nice poetic elements was Tupac's Me and My Girlfriend. It wasn't earthshaking, but I liked it.