Check The Verse
Did you guys know that I’ve always kind of wanted to be a rapper? Like legit. I mean, my main goal has always been film making, but my brain has always cried out for more avenues of self expression than that. Actually, before I go any further than this, let me clarify a bit.
It’s not so much that I want to be a rapper in the sense of I’m super passionate about it, it’s more like that I’m a story teller by nature, and outside of the avenues of film making, writing, and my interest in stand up comedy, I’ve always had a slight interest in pursuing music as another means for applying myself creatively. But, while I’m not terrible, I’m really not much of a singer, so I always figured that if I were to pursue music as a medium of artistic communication, rap was probably the best way to go.
I’ve dabbled with writing rhymes before. I’m not... awful. Actually, some of the stuff I’ve written isn’t necessarily half bad. To be fair, a lot of the rhymes I’ve written were intended as jokes, whether it was the “Black and Yellow” parody I wrote about The Joker after Dark Knight came out (playfully titled “Green and Purple”) or the comedy braggadocio rap I wrote about being the best baker in the business that I called “Cake Boss,” they were fairly decent raps. I think the fact that I wasn’t taking the issue seriously allowed me to stop over thinking it, which is what allowed the creative juices to really flow. The point is, I’m not a half bad song writer when I’m able to step outside of my own head long enough to just get the shit done.
Where I run into problems is that, for as much as it seems like I’m bragging a little bit here, I’m my own worst critic. See, I’m one of those people who is super aware that I’m capable of being way above average, so I hold myself to a high standard. It’s easy to confuse this with cockiness, but in reality, it’s not. It’s actually really self defeating. Because I know how smart I am, because I know how good of a writer I am, it’s never good enough for me to just write a “decent” song. I need my shit layered with subtext. I need monster metaphors. I need linguistic gymnastics that will have you feeling spastic, foaming at the mouth at how far above average I spit these verses out with these verbal acrobatics that’ll send your head spinning because I’m too fast for you to grasp it. I listen to artists like Childish Gambino (who is a fucking GENIUS), Lupe Fiasco (who, regardless of your feelings on his politics, is a fucking GENIUS), Eminem (who, while many still try to deny it, is a fucking GENIUS), and the list goes on, but I listen to these rappers who are verbal geniuses, and that’s the caliber I see myself as. That’s the level I want to be at. I seriously am not trying to brag, but I honestly do see myself as someone who, if I honed my skills, could be the kind of rapper where you’d have to replay my lines 3 or 4 times before you finally grasped all the layers of subtext and metaphors I was laying into each rhyme. That’s how I perceive myself. Where I run into trouble is, just like with all of my goals and aspirations, I haven’t applied myself enough to have earned that yet.
I’m sure people are familiar with the adage “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.” While all of the rappers I mentioned above (and all of the ones I didn’t) each had a latent talent for verbal creativity, none of them started out where they are now. If you go back and listen to The Slim Shady LP, Eminem isn’t half as refined there as he is now. If you were to track down Donald Glover’s (Childish Gambino) college mixtapes, you would still notice his clever wordplay, but you wouldn’t imagine based on those songs that he would ever be at the level he is now. The point I’m making is that skills have to be honed. No one comes out the gate as a master craftsman. The latent talent may be there, there may be a natural predisposition toward genius, but that raw, natural talent still needs to be refined into skill.
So when I start trying to write rhymes, and the stuff I jot down isn’t up to the standard I’m aiming for, I get discouraged. On an intellectual, logical level, I know I need to keep practicing to train my brain to think in terms of rhymes and metaphors and layered subtext and all that, but because I know I was capable of just doing that in the past, I get discouraged when I can’t just do it now because I’ve been out of practice for so long (I really don’t write anything as often as I should). I’m from the instant gratification generation. I’m not conditioned for waiting. If I don’t get what I’m looking for instantly, I lose my patience, and I give in to the frustration. I quit before I even start.
Then there’s the issue of finding my voice. Like, what the fuck do I even talk about? Most rap and hip hop is steeped in urban culture, and while I’ve experienced that to a degree, I was always on the outskirts and fringes of it. I don’t really know what I would rap about. I mean, I guess logistically, you just rap your truth. Talk about the things you know, share your experiences. That’s the whole point of art, right, self expression? Sharing your perception of things? But are people gonna relate to that? Are enough people even gonna care about my songs that I could be successful at this? And then, if I am, what if I don’t just want to rap anymore? I mean, I know some rappers have proven that you can dabble in a bit of singing here and there, even if you don’t have the greatest voice. But what if I also want to do a bit of rock and roll? If I got to the point where I built up a following in rap, and I suddenly came on stage with a guitar and started playing some Coldplay style shit, would my fans accept that transition?
I don’t know. I think you guys are probably starting to see the problem here. I just wrote about two pages worth of blog to come to same conclusion you guys could have come up with if I wrote it out in one simple sentence: I think too fucking much.
















