11.7.13

The gif-ification of hip-hop lyrics

Has anyone else noticed that the summer's two biggest hip-hop releases have two ridiculous but highly quotable lines: Kanye's "Hurry up with my damn croissants"* and Jay-Z's "Somewhere in America, Miley Cyrus is still twerking"? The lyrics in hip-hop used to prize things like enjambment, extended metaphor (cf. "I Used to Love H.E.R.") and internal rhyme schemes (Raekwon's "Corolla Motorola holder" in "Daytona 500")--I particularly loved when enjambment was used to move where the rhyme was in the line--and now it's a question of what will be short enough for twitter.


*Given that the line immediately preceding this is "In this French-ass restaurant," I wonder how it is people have missed out on the intentional humor in the song.

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