IS RAP POETRY'S ILLEGITIMATE CHILD?

 

I was staying out of the ice storm at Meilori's playing poker with my friends.



The ghost of Mark Twain, ever ready to spice things up, asked Samuel McCord,

"You have every jazz great living and undead playing here.  But you won't allow Rap.  Why is that?"

He smiled under the black brim of his Stetson. 

"I don't like it.  The rhythm is like a old model T trying to come to life.  Rhythm is a natural thing.

It's in everything you say and write, even if you don't intend for it to be.  The rhythm of Rap is forced and jarring.  Not pretty to my ears."

Sam shrugged.  "Every art form has its venue. Meilori's is not the one for Rap."



Louis Armstrong drew another card.  "And if a Rapper insists?"

Alice Wentworth showed every one of her very sharp teeth.  "I explain matters to them."



Duke Ellington snorted, "Singing Rap is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing."



Oscar Wilde slapped Mark's hand as he tried dealing off the bottom of the deck.  "I find no beauty in this Rap only ugliness.  And there is entirely too much of that in the world as it is."

Duke nodded.  "What would you be without music? Music is everything. Nature is music (cicadas in the tropical night). The sea is music, the wind is music."

He smiled dreamily,  "The rain drumming on the roof and the storm raging in the sky are music.

Music is the oldest entity. The scope of music is immense and infinite. It is the ‘esperanto’ of the world."



Miles Davis tapped his cards on his chin.  "Rappers seem all attitude.  If they act too hip, you know they can’t play shit."



John Coltrane nodded in agreement. 

"Mandela taught us there is a better way than flinging hate back at hate.  My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being …

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups …

I want to speak to their souls not to their anger."

Sam sighed, "Most Rap seems mediocre and the problem there is that mediocre rap tends to repeat the same phrase over and over and restrict their themes to 'booty'."



Dizzy Gillespie frowned.  "Men have died for this Rap. You can’t get more serious than that."

Samuel shook his head.  "They died, not for their music, but because they could not control their inner demons."

He looked at his right gloved hand.  "There is a lot of that going around."

Mark Twain scowled, "But is Rap poetry?"

Louis Armstrong said, "Maybe it is like it was with me -- I don’t need words – it’s all in the phrasing."



Robert Frost sighed as he folded his hand. 

"There are no tears in Rap only anger and lust.  Poetry speaks to the soul.  This Rap seems to speak to the glands. 

There is an inner, silent current of music to poetry.  While this Rap is relentless statccato, like anger pounding on the door."

Frost stroked his chin.  "The Rapper wishes to voice the strong rhythm of rage

but the words and meanings are lost one to another in their very repetition like angry faces in a mob."

Oscar Wilde raised an eyebrow.  "I wish those words had been mine."

Mark Twain snorted, "Don't worry, Ostrich, tomorrow they will be."