Book of Rhymes

by Adam Bradley

  Split rhyme. See Broken rhyme

  Spontaneity

  Sprung rhythm

  “Stan” (Eminem)

  Starks, Tony. See Iron Man

  “Stay from Around Me” (Ab Liva)

  Steele, Timothy

  Steffans, Karrine (Superhead)

  Stereotype

  Sterne, Laurence

  Stic.man

  Storytelling

  and alternate reality

  and authenticity

  and autobiography

  and fiction

  and gangsta rap

  and human experience

  and literary poetry

  and nonlinear narrative

  and persona

  and reality

  and thematic development

  and voice

  Streets

  Stress

  Style

  and Biggie-Tupac debate (see also Notorious B.I.G.; Shakur, Tupac)

  and biting (co-opting)

  and borrowing

  and commercialism

  and content

  and cultural heritage

  definition of

  and geography

  and ghostwriting

  and imitation

  and innovation

  and jealousy

  and literary poetry

  and originality

  and ownership

  and persona

  and personal style

  and predictability

  and region

  as repetition

  and signature style

  and spontaneity

  and talent

  and technique

  and territory

  and theft

  and unconscious mind

  and vernacular process

  and voice

  Sugar Hill Gang

  Sugar Hill Records

  Superhead. See Steffans, Karrine

  “Super-rappin’” (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five)

  Swagger. See also Signifying

  “Swagger Like Us” (Kanye West)

  Swan, T. J.

  Syllables

  “Sylvester’s Dying Bed” (Langston Hughes)

  Syncopation

  Tajai

  Talent

  Technique

  Tempo

  “Ten Crack Commandments” (Notorious B.I.G.)

  Ten Rap Commandments of Poetry

  Tenor, and simile

  Territory, and style

  “Testify” (Common)

  Theft. See also Borrowing

  Thematic development

  “This Can’t Be Life” (Jay-Z)

  Thomas, Dylan

  “Threats” (Jay-Z)

  Toasts

  Too Short

  “Trade It All” (Fabolous)

  Transformative rhyme (forced rhyme)

  Trigga Tha Gambler

  Tristram Shandy (Sterne)

  “Triumph” (Wu-Tang Clan)

  Troutman, Roger

  True rhyme. See Perfect rhyme

  Tung Twista. See Twista

  Tupac. See Shakur, Tupac

  “Twinz” (Big Punisher)

  Twista (Tung Twista)

  “U.B.R. (Unauthorized Biography of Rakim)” (Nas)

  UGK

  Unconscious mind

  and rhyme

  and style

  “Undying Love” (Nas)

  universalurban.com

  A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (Donne)

  “Valse Hot” (Roach)

  Vehicle, and simile

  Verbal dexterity

  Vernacular process

  and style

  Village Voice

  Voice (as instrument)

  Voice (of storyteller)

  and battle rap

  and braggadocio

  and first-person narrative

  Walcott, Derek

  Warren, Robert Penn

  Washington Post

  Waste Land (Eliot)

  We Got the Remix (Clipse)

  Weezy. See Lil Wayne

  Weird Al Yankovic

  West Africa

  White, Barry

  “White and Nerdy” (Weird Al Yankovic)

  “White Lines” (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five)

  Whitman, Walt

  “Who Shot Ya” (Notorious B.I.G.)

  “Why I Gave Up on Hip-Hop” (Parker)

  Wiggins, Keith. See Cowboy

  Williams, Juan

  Williams, Saul

  Wonder Mike

  Wordplay

  and alliteration

  and anaphora

  and antanaclasis

  and assonance

  and conceit

  definition of

  and epanados

  and epistrophe

  and epithets

  and eponym

  and homonym

  and homophone

  and kenning

  and literary poetry

  and metaphor

  and metonymy

  and onomatopoeia

  and personification

  and prosopopoeia

  and pun

  and punning simile

  and repititio

  and simile

  Wordsworth, William

  “Wrath of Kane” (Kane)

  The Wreck of the Deutschland (Hopkins)

  Writer, JR

  Writer’s Block series (JR Writer)

  Writing, vs. Freestyling

  Wu-Tang Clan

  XXL

  “Ya Mama” (Pharcyde)

  Yeats, William Butler

  “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” (Public Enemy)

  Young Jeezy

  Yung Joc

  Zapp and Roger

  “Zealots” (Fugees)

  Zion I

  Copyright © 2009 by Adam Bradley

  Published by BasicCivitas,

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  All rights reserved. . No part of this book

  may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in

  the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bradley, Adam.

  Book of rhymes : the poetics of hip hop / by Adam Bradley.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  eISBN : 978-0-786-74416-9

  1. Rap (Music)—History and criticism. I. Title.

  ML3531.B73 2009

  782.421649—dc22

  2008040250