Hip-Hop, Poetry, and SEO Writing.

An Article By: Cafe Del Charbs

“Is poetry Hip-hop?”

I first asked this question after submitting for probably the thousandth time to a Hip-Hop forum. I did this foolishly, and in spite of myself. I was not surprised to discover that major sources are VERY resistant to cover you, regardless of how good you are, or probably who you are.

In a time of constant attention grabbing content, reading a short story or even a poem becomes a much harder task than turning on a video, or song. Because of this, poetry has become somewhat of a dying animal, being one of the only down-trending searches I have EVER seen on Google trends. (ouch.) Usually, turning something like a video on is quickly proceeded by opening 5 other tabs, and then only tuning in for the meat of what you’ve selected anyways. Talent and beauty—

become swallowed up by the noise of injecting entertainment DIRECTLY into your veins. But if not with talent and beauty, then with simplicity as the means, I will get through to you entertainment addicts.

It was on this idea that I developed a theory: Because S.E.O writing is pretty much the future, I think poetry is going to make a surprising turn, and start trending soon.

In Elizabethan times it was thought that the best writing would rhyme, because rhyming made the work easier to remember and understood exactly as it was meant. It therefore became more difficult to forget, which they believed would be of assistance should it ever be damaged or destroyed. A work could survive much longer if it rhymed, and it could even be taught to the illiterate, allowing them to understand much more complex and sequenced instruction, bridging a certain socioeconomic gap between peasants and royalty.

My theory is that It would now become popular for another reason; If it fits the criteria of clever and short enough, it will generate a meme. It will survive the input of constant information through our memory, like a jingle we won’t be able to get it out of our heads.

It would be a new type of a Haiku. An SEO Haiku of sorts. The absolute least you can say, while still conveying a clear message particular to your post. It would be an art practiced by all people, fluidly. It would perpetuate curiosity. It would be the very idea of Japanese simplicity and practicality. I propose we call this unit of poetry Shibui, after the concept it came from.

The only complexity in a Shibui Poem, is in that it’s value changes based on It’s competitiveness in the SEO market. It’s value is not necessarily taken directly from it’s beauty, but it’s beauty none-the-less has an effect during it’s prime. This is where Hip-Hop comes in. Hip-hop is the culture of right now. The wave of relevancy that we all ride. It is the culture of wordies, and in it’s own way, it often holds wisdom in it’s simplicity, or great knowledge packed tightly into intricate rhymes. We still pass down stories that rhyme, or have essences of Shibui hundreds of years later.

Hip-hop is the future, as much as it is the past. We’ve been saying that for a while now, but the very idea of S.E.O is shifting before us. We are being given an opportunity to change part of how it is used forever. We should be digging in the crates and looking for poems to be given the throne, or at home writing our own.

But I remember the good old days. The days of MTV being mostly about entrapping viewers with videos of ape-shit corporate shills posing as fans, and spring break type pictures. I suppose it was never Shakespearean.

(Insert favorite booty picture here)

But poet’s have tried to perfectly state things amongst each other for centuries. We can do that more powerfully now than ever. The machine has started, even if we didn’t intend for it. The application of these works would have perfect synergy with the search engine optimized format of modern writing. Art meets science in serendipity. Imagine going to Reddit and one of the titles rhyming and saying something more concisely than the others. You won’t just remember it then, you will remember it for days. It will perpetuate.

All gold everything, there will be jobs in this market. Another form of advertising, an internet Renaissance of meaning… Hip-Hop will be the future culture, believe it.

(Yes, I wrote this to entertain myself.)