entertainment videos: Poetry in Hip Hop

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By: Samantha Frost .... Click author's name to view profile and articles!!!

Just how does one define hip hop poetry? It is actually a poetry fashion that uses words and phrasings analogous to the cultural movement's music. Like conventional poetry, rhyme and rhythm are significant in this genre, although the manners are very, very different. Common poetry is frequently written and then read from a leaf of paper, while hip hop poetry in this genre is also written but performed. During a performance, adlibbing is also practiced. Other people might categorize such cultural movement as already a form of poetry while others consider music as poetry. Believers in this cultural movement use this genre of poetry in inculcating interest among younger people to make the study of their cultural movement an interesting one.
Poetry is typically described as the creative use of language to increase its aesthetic quality. It isn't just making use of words to relay information but also to create or express certain emotions. The cultural movement, hip hop, has its primary origins in rapping and DJ voice-overs while playing R&B songs. Songs are edited at times in order to make different rhythms or patterns which harmonize with the lyrics. This can also be considered as poetry.
Among the several obvious resemblances of this different form of poetry to traditional ones is the use of beats or rhythms in order to deliver the language. The two art forms take advantage of rhythm by putting together words in order to create a particular meter. The cultural movement's form of art tries to use rap and music in order to emphasize this rhythm. On the other hand , the classical form of poetry is performed without music and depends on the person delivering it to look for the rhythm.
Traditional poems and the cultural movement's form of poetry also use similar rhyming techniques. For example, some syllables could be rhymed or the last word of every sentence or phrases is rhymed. Traditional poetry makes use of language in order to relay something which is further than the literal meaning of the phrases.
Symbolism is also another technique used in both traditional and the cultural movement's poetry. Simile and alliteration are commonly used by these two art forms.
In spite of their similarities, others say that hip hop poetry is totally different from conventional poetry. Some artists are very anxious about rhythm such that they place together words which do not make any sense, some critics say. The prominence now lies on how the words are placed together rather than the true meaning expressed by the words.
The tone and topics of this cultural movement's poetry also make it stand out from traditional poetry. The usual themes of the cultural movement's music comprise drug use, crimes and violence. Making use of obscenities and insults is also common in this type of art form but not really in traditional poetry.
The arguments over whether the cultural movement's art form belongs to poetry or not may last for a long time but people who believe that indeed it is poetry think so because they feel that they can use this art form to keep their youth interested in their cultural movement.