‘I’ll Teach You How To Flow’: The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Pedagogy of the Sonnet Man
Devon Glover is a Brooklyn-based rapper who produces hip-hop adaptations of Shakespeare’s sonnets for performance and workshops as ‘The Sonnet Man’. He has recently concluded a tour of the UK, delivering pedagogic sessions for schools and participating in activities with organisations such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Although based in the United States, Glover has visited the UK frequently over the last few years and completed a three-and-half hour sonnet marathon as part of the Stratford Literary Festival in 2016. You can hear more about his recent adventures on the Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast:
I first met Glover in 2014 and, since then, have interviewed the artist about his work on a number of occasions. He is a highly accomplished MC and the most obvious reference point for his smooth, drawling and highly musical flow is fellow Brooklyn native Jay-Z, whom Glover has cited in our conversations as an inspirational touchstone. There is also a lyrical precision, poeticism and pointedness to Glover’s delivery which recalls Kendrick Lamar. However, my focus here is more on his talents as an adapter of Shakespeare than his prowess as a rapper.
Glover has reflected that he considers his work to present translations of Shakespeare’s language, rather than adaptations. Through the structure of his workshops and the songs released on his eponymous debut EP in 2010, Glover has also described what he achieves in classrooms as a ‘hip-hop Cliff Notes’ [1] for students, referring to the popular American online study guide. Unlike fellow American rapper Eminem, who identifies as a ‘poet to some, a regular modern-day Shakespeare’[2] or fellow hip-hop educator Akala, who labelled himself as ‘Shakespeare reincarnated’ [3], for Glover, Shakespeare’s words, and not his image or cultural reputation and legacy, are of paramount importance.
Defining what he does as translation suggests a methodical process towards Glover’s process of adaptation. He links this to his background as a Mathematics major and believes his experience and enjoyment of puzzles and logic is an integral part of his origins as a creative artist, given how important the understanding of cadence and multi-syllable patterns are to his approach to writing verses and appreciating Shakespeare. Therefore, Glover uses both sides of his brain — literary and mathematical — to produce this work, making his approach indicative of an interdisciplinary approach.
His methodology for breaking down Shakespeare’s sonnets follows a fixed and accessible structure. Glover raps the sonnet verbatim, then offers a direct, modern translation and, in the final verse, sets Shakespeare’s words and his own next to each other, alternating between the two as found in Spark Notes, another American online educational platform. Each of these three verses is intersected by a chorus, which achieves the additional purpose of translating the entire sonnet into a single, pop hook. For instance, in his version of Sonnet 18, the opening four lines ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day / Thou art more lovely and more temperate / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May /And summer’s lease hath all too short a date’[4] become ‘You remind of the summer in the middle of June / So nice, no clouds in the sky / It always seems like summer’s ended too soon / So my limited time, I wanna spend it with you’.[5]
While it’s easy to see the links which Glover draws between Shakespeare’s imagery and his own, the transition is more visibly a contemporary appropriation than direct translation. However, in the third verse, the penultimate line of ‘So long as men can breathe and eyes can see’ is translated into a more literal modern equivalent: ‘So long as I’m living and men have vision’. By first showing students the artistic possibilities contained within recycling Shakespeare’s words and then, educating them through a line-for-line transcription, Glover believes this combination allows students to use his music as an impetus for their own creative expression. Indeed, during his workshops, Glover ends by asking participants to write and share their own adaptation of a particular sonnet, thereby centring his material around the young people he educates.
Glover’s approach is principally focused on accuracy and having his students appreciate Shakespeare’s exact words before being offered their modern context and transcription. His decision to approach the sonnets first was brought about by their malleability with a hip-hop beat, meaning that he could present Shakespeare’s words verbatim to an audience without the complication of changing words to fit a particular syntax or rhythm. Glover further breaks down his multiple roles as an adapter in the concept of the Sonnet Man. Firstly, as an MC, his goal is to make the rhyme fit precisely parallel to Shakespeare’s verse. Then, as a musician, he finds a beat that is able successfully to incorporate verse that already possesses the rhythm of iambic pentameter, as well as capturing a suitable mood to match the sonnet’s tone or focus.
In his version of Sonnet 130, which satirises traditional notions of classical beauty, he uses an upbeat, reggae-inflected funk instrumental to help his playfully comedic contextualisation of the sonnet which focuses, particularly in the accompanying music video, on the idea of a man being forced to defend his love of a new partner to disapproving friends. By contrast, in Sonnet 17, the more reflective nature of its opening line, ‘Who will believe my verse in times to come?’,[6] is soundtracked by a more restrained, ambient rock beat, complete with a call-and-response section between Glover and a group of gospel backing singers, which answers his use of Shakespeare’s question regarding his poetic legacy as a refrain with a plaintive yet hopeful ‘I believe it’.[7]
Glover’s adaptations must be considered in the context of a proliferation of creative material generated by rappers and theatre-makers who engage with Shakespeare’s language and cultural reception. These include Akala’s Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company and the Q Brothers — whose hip-hopera Othello: The Remix (2012) was performed as part of the Globe-to-Globe Festival — and the long-held line of hip-hop artists who have cited Shakespeare’s plays or cultural reputation, including Tupac, Eminem, Saul Williams and Little Simz. My playlist below contains songs by those artists and many others who have referenced Shakespeare’s name, plays, characters and lines in their work:
At this point of assimilation within the critical and creative establishment, how can hip-hop inform popular views of Shakespeare’s language and, equally, how has Shakespeare influenced the developing critical dialogue surrounding hip-hop? Glover’s definition of his work as translation based is particularly intriguing, especially when placed in the context of the decision taken by Shakespeare’s Globe implicitly to define hip-hop as a foreign language within their 2012 festival — but that is an article for another day.
[1] Devon Glover, Personal interview, Skype, August 25, 2015.
[2] Jay-Z ft Eminem, “Renegade”, The Blueprint (Roc-A-Fella Records, 2001).
[3] Akala, “Comedy Tragedy History”, Freedom Lasso (Illa State, 2007).
[4] The Sonnet Man, “Sonnet 18”, The Sonnet Man (Jones St. Productions, 2010).
[5] Ibid.
[6] The Sonnet Man, “Sonnet 17”, The Sonnet Man (Jones St. Productions, 2010).
[7] Ibid.
