Assignment 4 - Is Music Poetry?

1) Select 2 musical selections – one you consider to be poetry and one you do not. Please include a link to the song or a print sample of the lyrics.

2) Convince your audience that your opinion is valid. Why is one song a poem and the other is not?

I have selected "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap as my poet song and "My Money Ha Ha" by Merytal and Vybz Kartel for my non-poet song.

Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4OLQB7ON9w

My Money Ha Ha by Vybz Kartel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBU14YzCsdk

The song Hide and Seek is an extremely deep song. Listening to it once, you are able to identify the tone and possible situation as well as imagery through the descriptive lyrics; however, you cannot idenitfy its entire meaning until you dissect it line by line, word by word. There are several poetic lines that make you think long after you've heard the song "what could the song writer be saying or going through?" For example, "Oily marks appear on walls - Where pleasure moments hung before" and "The dust has only just begun to fall - Crop circles in the carpet - Sinking, Feeling" .

Now "My Money Ha Ha" on the other hand, consists of the same lyrics repeated over and over. The chorus is "My Money Ha ha, Mhmmmm , my money ha ha" . A little child with no education what so ever could have probably written something with more meaning. The song only talks about how much money he has and sharing it about. It is catchy and rhymes; however, you are not left wondering what the songwriter was talking about but more asking yourself "did someone really write a song about this?".


1) Is Rap/Hip-Hop music poetic expression? Why or Why not?

I believe Rap is poetic expression as rappers usually make comparisons with how they are feeling to other things. Also the rhythm that is brought about rapping is artistic.
Hip Hop on the other hand, is not entirely poetic expression, it has poetic elements but sometimes Hip Hop is just for entertainment and does not necessarily have expression or meaning.

2) What literary characteristics or poetic terms does this music express?

Rap and Hip Hop has tones - sometimes slow, long beats to express serious moods or fast, short lines to express 'surface feelings'. Metaphors and Similes are used for comparisons. A song is not a song without rhythm, which rap and hip hop definitely has.

3) What type of critic are you? Explain why.

I believe I am a Thematic critic because after listening to a song, I like to dissect each line so capture and identify its real meaning. Once, I think I've found the meaning, the song means something totally different from when I first heard it.


What poetic elements do you find in the lyrics below?
"Throwing out the wicked like God did the devil,/ funky like your grandpa's drawers, don't test me,/we're in like that, you're dead like Presley." - Q-Tip on “Steve Biko”, Midnight Marauders - Similes and rhymes are in these lyrics

"Like Slick Rick the Ruler I'm cooler than a ice brick,/ got soul like those afro picks, with the black fist, and leave a crowd dripping like John the Baptist," - Black Thought on “Mellow My Man”, Do You Want More?!??!!!
- Slick Rick is asonance and consonance (rhymes).

“See, I drop the greats like clumsy waiters drop plates." - Mr. Man on “Fortified Live”, Fortified Live
- Similes


"RRRRROAW RRRROAW like a dungeon dragon,/ change your little drawers because your pants are saggin'." - Busta Rhymes on “Scenario”, Low End Theory
- This lyric has alliteration [Roaw Roaw]

“I treat this like my thesis/ well-written conflict broken down in to pieces. I introduce and produce words so confused.” – Lauryn Hill on “Final Hour”, Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

- Introduce and produce are consonance.