Who is The Notorious B.I.G The Notorious B.I.G is one of the legends in hip-hop. Even though, this kind of recognition came about after his death, he was still considered to be one of the most skilled MC’s in America while he was alive. Incredibly enough, only two studio albums managed to earn him the respect of both the rap community and the public. Biggie was a rapper, who climbed the ladder of success, thanks to his rap talent and nothing else. He was rapping all day when he was young, Puffy saw him and signed him, because of his talent. He wasn’t involved in any controversy(excluding the beef with Pac), so his fans adored him for his music. He has numerous nominations, dozens of hit singles and his legacy still lives on. He’s one of the greatest rappers to ever come about and we’re proud to analyze his rapping style. Song Material Let’s get one of his songs, extract a verse and analyze the rhyme structure present. I’ll pick one of his most successful songs ever-“Big Poppa”. Verse Extraction I’ll be analyzing the first verse from the song. Here it goes. To all the ladies in the place with style and grace Allow me to lace these lyrical duches, in your bushes Who rock grooves and make moves with all the mommies The back of the club sippin Moet is where you’ll find me The back of the club mackin hoes my crew’s behind me Mad question askin blunt passin music blastin, But I just can’t quit Because one of these honeys Biggie gots to creep with Sleep with, keep the ep a secret why not Why blow up my spot cause we both got hot Now check it, I got more Mack than Craig and in the bed Believe me sweety I got enough to feed the needy No need to be greedy I got mad friends with Benz’s C-notes by the layers, true to life players Jump in the Rover and come over tell your friends jump in the GS3, I got the chronic by the tree Features Analysis-First Quatrain To all the ladies in the place with style and grace Allow me to lace these lyrical duches, in your bushes Who rock grooves and make moves with all the mommies The back of the club sippin Moet is where you’ll find me First couplet, you can see the transitional technique, which we talked about when we analyzed Jay-Z. It’s probably Jay-Z, who got it from Biggie. He starts off with one rhyme word(place/grace/lace) and then finishes off with another word type. This transition is quite cool and smooth. The second couplet is made with the internal rhymes technique. We covered that when we were analyzing 2pac. So this quatrain is a transition and the internal rhyme scheme. * 1-place/grace/lace 2-duches/bushes 3-grooves/moves 4-mommies/find me 5-sippin -1-1– 1-2,-2, -3-3-4, –5—4 Second Quatrain The back of the club mackin hoes my crew’s behind me Mad question askin blunt passin music blastin, But I just can’t quit Because one of these honeys Biggie gots to creep with As you can see, the first bar is not related to the second one. It doesn’t even have a rhyme word. You know why it works? Because, the second bar is constructed, as a single liner, composed of rhymes, which correlate to rhymes only within that bar. The second couplet is rather simple, having only one rhyme word. 4-behind me 5-macking 6-askin/passin/blastin 7-quit/creep * –5—-4, -6–6- 6,–7- —–7 Third Quatrain Sleep with, keep the ep a secret why not Why blow up my spot cause we both got hot Now check it, I got more Mack than Craig and in the bed Believe me sweety I got enough to feed the needy The first bar starts off with the rhyme from the last quatrain-sleep with/creep with and finishes with another rhyme word. The second bar is quite interesting. Notice the way he raps it. It’s like he puts stress on every syllable in that line and it sounds incredible. It sounds so good, because the two rhyme words are actually composite rhymes, sharing the vowel “o”. The third and the fourth bars are both one liners. No correlation between them. One rhymes “craig/bed”, the other rhymes” sweety/needy”. So, what you can get out of this quatrain is biggies use of one liners. Pretty slick, don’t you think? * 7-sleep with 8-not/blow up my spot/both got hot 9-crag/bed 10-sweety/needy 7,—8, –8–8, —9-9, –10–10, Fourth Quatrain No need to be greedy I got mad friends with Benz’s C-notes by the layers, true to life players Jump in the Rover and come over tell your friends jump in the GS3, I got the chronic by the tree Once again, he starts off with a rhyme from the previous couplet, use that internal rhyme on “friends/benz” and then uses the transitional technique. “Layers/playerz”. See how it sounds when you use that slick transition man? Next one, guess what? It’s transitions between two single liners. “Rover/come over” and then “Gs3, tree”. * 10-greedy 11-friends/benz 12-layerz/playerz 13-rover/come over 14-GS3/tree -10–11 11 –12,–12, –13-13– 14,—14 What I have learned from this, is Biggies transitional technique, his internal rhyming and one liners. I would advise you to concentrate on mastering those techniques, if you want to use this article for as an education resource. If not, just enjoy The Notorious B.I.G’s music and never forget him.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 03:41:19 +0000
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