Rhyming, Flow, & Hip-Hop
The poetic form of hip-hop has a recognizable “sound, development, and offshoots” (Morris 223) with specific patterns of rhyme and flow. The classic rhyme scheme for hip-hop poetry is abab or abcb, with slant rhymes (words that have their final constant sounds in common) sometimes being incorporated into the a lines. In addition to slant rhymes and end rhymes, hip-hop poetry has the ability to incorporate internal rhyme (rhyming that exists within the line), assonance, and consonance.
A few lines of the song “Rappers Delight” by The Sugar Hill Gang reads:
“What you hear is not a test,
I’m rapping to the beat
and me, the groove and my friends
are gonna try to move your feet” (Morris 223).
Here, we can clearly see the abcb end rhyme scheme with the words “beat” and “feet”, as well as an internal rhyme with “groove” and “move”. The purpose of rhyming in poetry, specifically in the hip-hop form, is to create flow. The flow in hip-hop naturally creates a musical sound when being read that other forms of poetry are unable to do. Flow also allows hip-hop artists to “freestyle” as there is the sound of the song already established, the artist just creates rhymes that fits with the beat (Morris 225). Freestyling in this form is partly why hip-hop is not recognized by academics as a form of poetry. Because flow allows for the artist to talk about whatever they want, and oftentimes it may be about drugs, violence, or sex, hip-hop is rarely considered by academics as an official form of poetry. However, the utilization of rhyme and flow in hip-hop is what makes the form unique and causes the reader or listener to pick up on the components of the form. Morris writes, “The ear, sensitized to patterns, the unconventional, nuanced, and increasingly dense rhyme doesn’t lend itself, initially, to mnemonic facility, this “pushing ahead” becomes the focus and purpose of the rhyme” (Morris 227).
Morris, Tracie. “Hip-Hop Rhyme Formations: Open Your Ears” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan Press, 2002, pp. 223–227.
