WordsLiive
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

What Jay Z’s Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Truly Means

by Sage Salvo

If you know my work with WordsLiive, then you know how validating this is for us. Nearly five years ago, I spoke on a TEDx MidAtlantic stage about how songwriters, hip-hop songwriters in particular, should be aiding in the reading and writing development of our students, particularly those students in the urban school setting. I predicted that that soon enough, a hip hop artist would win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Well, we’re still about seven to ten years away from a Nobel Prize, but Jay Z being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHOF) is a sure first major step. Adding to Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature earlier this year and you have the social conditions ripe for a hip-hop artist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in the near future, albeit more likely a hip-hop artist like Nas or Common.

Arguments about “Content Over Form” has always been the Achilles’ heel in the quest for artistic respect for hip-hop artists. With the most intense literary techniques employed since Shakespeare, hip-hop song writers are often derided for their subject matter. Largely hailing from inner city ghettos and impoverished rural districts, many of hip-hop’s brightest minds are high school drop-outs with deep entanglements in America’s underworld of crime. But as purists, their art usually reflects their lived experiences. Graphic intimacies with drugs, murder, and sex are woven through their poetry, prose, syllogism, and epics. Via an array of literary concepts and devices like allegory, tragic hero, double entendre, and internal rhyme, the past forty-plus years of hip-hop compositions reveal a deep commitment to form and craft. The grand brilliance of these compositions articulates an evolution in form and craft! Because of his body of work, Jay Z may be the brightest example of such craft.

The Songwriters Hall of Fame, (SHOF), says of their main goals,

“The [SHOF]’s ongoing mission is to preserve, honor and celebrate the legacy of the great songwriters whose work has enriched the world’s culture, while developing new writing talent…”

There’s a key phrase to emphasize in the above passage, which is; ‘developing new writing talent’. The SHOF’s comments above speak to the evolution of the craft. The craft of song(writing), is my point of emphasis here. One of my primary aims with WordsLiive is to elevate the literary status of songwriters. Culturally speaking, by tearing down walls that silo music from text or historical literary periods from genres, we inhibit would-be innovative new young writers.

With WordsLiive, I treat classrooms all over the country with programs, interventions, and trainings. I can attest to the compartmentalization of ‘urban music’. Our country has a pervasive perspective that young urban authors (hip-hop songwriters) don’t have much to contribute to the literacy development of our youth. We, at WordsLiive, prove something different.

As a society, it would behoove us to liberate the minds of future writers by erasing fictional silos like music from written text. We’d be wise to remember that our most revered historical author, Shakespeare, wrote texts that were intended to be performed!