The Rhyme Renaissance-Baba Brinkman

[ti:The Rhyme Renaissance] [ar:Baba Brinkman] [al:The Rap Canterbury Tales] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]The Rhyme Renaissance - Baba Brinkman [00:09.01]This time we live in is a rhyme renaissance [00:11.09] [00:11.98]And this history lesson is five minutes long [00:14.25] [00:14.81]And if hiphop is bringin' it fine let's get it on [00:17.77]And consider it official when I finish this song [00:20.17] [00:20.91]My goal is to redefine the whole history of rhyme [00:24.22]Cause the only way to free the soul is to free the mind [00:27.06]And no wisdom as old as this should be confined [00:29.70]To total mystery so we'll just read the signs [00:32.95]And davinci codes and try to see the science [00:36.00]In this linguistically composed pristine design [00:38.48] [00:39.46]It goes deep suppose we could just rewind [00:41.50] [00:42.12]To when we first rose to our feet and left the trees behind [00:45.33]We d see tribes of bipedal australopithecines [00:47.28] [00:47.87]Trying to survive as species divide and interbreed [00:50.92] [00:51.62]Attending to basic needs like safe places to sleep [00:54.58]Raising seeds and making sure they had things to eat [00:57.50]So they started solving problems by evolving language genes [01:01.20]It probably started from the need to follow wildebeest herds [01:03.70] [01:04.51]Or the need to distinguish between weeds and herbs [01:07.38]Or from mimicking the mimicking screams of red and green birds [01:10.25] [01:10.76]It's a chicken egg riddle which came first [01:13.34]Plain speech or verse cause as long as there's been words [01:16.80]There's been awareness of relationships between words [01:18.94] [01:19.60]And when rhymes connect them new meanings emerge [01:21.82] [01:22.33]See the history of languages has been researched [01:25.16]By linguists and traced back to a singular birth [01:27.74] [01:28.37]So the ability to speak rhythmically and sing works [01:31.20]To intrinsically link every human being on this earth [01:34.31] [01:35.02]This time we live in is a rhyme renaissance [01:37.21] [01:37.94]And this history lesson is five minutes long [01:40.78]And if hiphop is bringin' it fine let's get it on [01:43.94]And consider it official when I finish this song [01:46.22] [01:46.99]But I wonder what percent of what happens is meant to happen [01:49.98]Cause in the genesis of rap what has to be factored in [01:52.93]Is that this chapter was invented by black men [01:55.77] [01:56.34]And all human beings are descended from africans [01:58.66] [01:59.22]Who spread across the map in every different direction [02:01.90]And adapted to every place under the sun [02:05.18]So their faces started changing as the race was run [02:08.35]Just as every language came from the same mother tongue [02:11.01] [02:11.55]Since each one directly relates to another one [02:13.94] [02:14.59]From the open plainsmen to the rainforest dwellers [02:16.80] [02:17.78]Every people needed designated storytellers [02:19.75] [02:20.45]To pass on their culture orally from the elders [02:23.29] [02:23.82]And rhythm and repetition and rhymes and refrains [02:26.68]Allow performers to organize story lines in their brains [02:30.01]And memorize more kinds of important signs and names [02:33.29]And make changes based on the needs of each performance [02:36.11]Feats of endurance are needed to describe deeds of enormous [02:39.23]Historical importance like the trojan greek war [02:42.18]And the horse used to breach the fortress in the aforementioned [02:45.75]Tradition of reciting writing was a natural invention [02:48.27]For kings to catalogue things with practical intentions [02:51.60]And the off spring of course was the birth of the author [02:54.58]From homer to virgil to the immortal words of chaucer [02:57.51]The father of modern verse and first formal border crosser [03:00.16] [03:01.15]This time we live in is a rhyme renaissance [03:03.18] [03:04.04]And this history lesson is five minutes long [03:06.92]And if hiphop is bringin' it fine let's get it on [03:10.03]And consider it official when I finish this song [03:12.35] [03:13.16]But the birth of the author was also the birth of the ego [03:15.90] [03:16.55]Celebrity seems to bring the worst out of people [03:18.80] [03:19.33]Especially with the invention of the printing press [03:21.71] [03:22.28]Which instantly made poetry so much less intimate [03:24.74] [03:25.46]Cause suddenly poems were mostly written to be read [03:28.55]Alone instead of written to be said aloud to crowds of listening heads [03:31.52]And in just a few centuries rhyme and rhythm were dead [03:34.41] [03:35.30]And forty thousand years of lyricism were watered down [03:38.04] [03:38.96]And exposed to careless prose on mostly modernist grounds [03:42.12] [03:42.63]And poets found that the old supportive crowds were not around [03:46.36]But they hardly even noticed cause they were published and important now [03:50.03]But then recorded sound started with thomas edison [03:52.52] [03:53.26]One of the most intelligent inventions there's ever been [03:56.10]And ever since a person's words can be heard across the globe [03:59.49]And the emergence of the rhyme renaissance was possible [04:01.70] [04:02.45]But it really started off in the bronx in the seventies [04:05.58]When kids with limited means produced monster melodies [04:08.09]High fidelity beats made their speech more compelling [04:11.13] [04:11.70]When ghetto teens resurrected rhymes and storytelling [04:13.91] [04:14.81]And used ancient wisdom as a system for rebelling [04:17.76]The rhythm was thrilling swelling the competition [04:20.43]And millions of brilliant minds fought for the top positions [04:23.93]And people finally seem to be starting to sit up and listen [04:26.81]I'm just tryin to give em a bit of a nudge with this composition [04:29.60] [04:30.11]And the epilogue now it's been about twenty nine years [04:34.00] [04:34.54]Since hiphop first appeared and confirmed the worst fears [04:37.75]Of the powers that be cause now it's in every urban sphere [04:41.40] [04:42.00]Assaulting virgin ears it's like a massive attack [04:45.48]Cause every language on this planet can be adapted to rap [04:48.59]It's like a gigantic amoeba that's having a snack [04:51.56]A generation thinking vocally acting locally [04:54.24] [04:54.76]Speaking openly and having an impact globally [04:56.92] [04:58.17]This time we live in is a rhyme renaissance [05:00.27] [05:01.08]And this history lesson is five minutes long [05:03.38] [05:03.97]And if hiphop is bringin' it fine let's get it on [05:06.95]And consider it official when I finish this song [05:09.39] [05:12.50]And it's on