One of the things I think makes good hip hop is double or triple meanings in a bar. This is something that's been done for decades and redone a billion times, but it's always amazing each time - definitely a staple of the genre. I would listen to artists as a kid and hear these bars that made me stop - I'd think about the initial meaning, then I'd realize what else they meant. And by that time I had missed four bars in the song.
In NY hip hop entendre's are important as hell, at least they were back in the 2000s - it seemed like that was how we judged the greats. Yeah he has a hit song but how many triple entendre's has he hit? This was one of Jay Z's biggest reasons for being considered part of the greats back then. This was definitely a huge thing on the East Coast and elsewhere in hip hop too, wasn't just strictly up north.
When I was doing the rap battle forums, there was this one dude from South Carolina that was the best and he would come up with all these different (we called them multi's then) and they'd make us think. He'd rack up all these points in the chart we had (we were nerds).
My favorite entendre that I've ever done is on 'Manic All The Time', but typically most of my bars have 2-3 meanings. It was on MSNBC where I say "you've been making big problems cause you still dead wrong i'mma let the picture solve it till i'm dying & i'm gone, then it's life after death when I take what does belong". It fits the paranormal drill vibe I wanted to go for first, references two biggie songs and an album of his, and ties in my whole ghost/morbid theme. It also ties into the storyline of See You In My Dreams, something I didn't intend to do. I always think about these bars for some reason even if this kind of music isn't my favorite anymore.
If you do this enough times, as I did focusing on the multi's, it sort of becomes second habit. Sometimes it's better to make your music vague but still have a personal meaning attached - a passing statement instead of something direct and specific. I think this is why I appeal to people from around the world - focusing on moments, ultimately means you focus on what it means to be human. You tell the story of humanity through your music through retelling these moments, that people can relate too because deep down we are all human.
I think that's something that makes something 'good' lyrically - if you can apply multiple meanings to a context. It's not always necessary, but it's something I haven't seen as much in hip hop recently. Hip Hop has become very 'what you see is what you get', at least the past few years - this isn't an insult against artists from that time period, but how content was presented was different. Music inherently is double meaning anyway - the meaning that is presented, and the meaning that is known from the artist to those who know them. Once an artist utilizes this method then growing their context is a lot easier.
I reference the past a lot, it's not because I think about it normally but more so just because that's the context I have to relate to whatever story I'm telling here. In our cyphers these double meanings would be the most popular bars in the freestyles, they were difficult to do but they were the bars that would make people yell or drive the energy up. They were the bars that'd get you the most points on the battle forum, and they sounded dope. Even people who didn't know what entendre's meant or were knew that multiple meanings in a bar was the way to go. It was important, yeah you could rap but can you say lines with double meanings?
Hip Hop I think is shifting back to a place where entendre's are appreciated and that's cool.
I'm still figuring out the structure of this blog, what's good in it - we'll get there. It won't be all about my background for sure.
