Story Telling Through Lyrics In Hip-Hop
Through out my life I have grown up listening to hip-hop and I have always liked it, but ever since I was introduced to albums such as, Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, Nas “Illmatic”, and some other great albums around 5 years ago, I have grown to love it and it has become a huge part of my everyday life.
Hip-hop has always been a complex culture where people express their ideas in so many different ways, which is what makes hip-hop such a popular and likable culture, and a very famous way of rappers expressing themselves through music is storytelling through their lyrics in songs, normally about their life. It takes talent to be able to form words in a song to tell a story, and only a select few rappers have mastered the art in their careers. Rappers like Nas, Logic, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Kanye West, etc. have used story telling in their songs to get across their message. Nas actually used this style in one of his famous songs from the album “Illmatic” called “N.Y. State Of Mind”
Once they caught us off-guard, the Mac-10 was in the grass and
I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin
Pick the Mac up, told brothers, “Back up,” the Mac spit
Lead was hittin’ niggas, one ran — I made him backflip
Heard a few chicks scream, my arm shook, couldn’t look
Gave another squeeze, heard it click, “Yo, my shit is stuck”
Try to cock it, it wouldn’t shoot, now I’m in danger
Finally pulled it back and saw three bullets caught up in the chamber
So now I’m jetting to the building lobby
And it was full of children probably couldn’t see as high as I be
In this song Nas speaks about how some people in his neighborhood tries to run up on him and his friends with a gun, and they started shooting so they had to run away from them. Nas explained that he tried to shoot back at them but his gun was stuck and he couldn’t shoot, so he had to flee off the scene. It would seem like this is something that was crazy and doesn’t happen often, but things like this happen to Nas and other people in his neighborhood often, which is what makes his raps so authentic and stories so detailed.
Kendrick Lamar’s album Good Kid, M.a.a.d City, that was released in 2012, was a full album about his life and was full of storytelling that was impactful, but the song “The Art of Peer Pressure” was a track that stood out from the album.
Pull in front of the house that we been camping out for like two months
The sun is going down as we take whatever we want
(Ay, ay, nigga jackpot nigga, pop the safe
Ay nigga, I think it’s somebody in this room
Wait, what?
Nigga, it’s somebody in this room!)
I hit the back window in search of any Nintendo
DVDs, plasma screen TVs in the trunk
We made a right, then made a left, then made a right
Then made a left, we was just circling life
My mama called — “Hello? What you doin’?” “Kicking it”
I should’ve told her I’m probably ‘bout to catch my first offense with the homies
Kendrick speaks about how it is to live in Compton (which is where he was born and raised), and throughout the album he tells about different situations that happened to him in his life while he has lived there and how that has shaped him into the person he is now. In this song, he explains a situation where him and his homies pull up to a house preparing to rob it, but while they were in there they heard somebody that was still in the house, so they had to take everything they could before they got caught. These situations were also common where Kendrick lived, which is why his music is authentic and is why his music is so appealing to his audience.
Story telling through lyrics shouldn’t die down anytime soon or ever in hip-hop because it is one of the many reasons why Hip-Hop is so popular and appealing today.
