I’m making my students in the NYU Popular Music Practicum write and perform original rap verses. To encourage them, I wrote one too, like I did last year. The samples are from Erroll Garner’s recording of “Close To You” by the Carpenters.
Here are the lyrics.
Does anybody need to hear a white dad rapping?
Can I get your foot tapping, your hands clapping?
As I’m uncapping my rhymes, am I remapping your minds?
Am I overlapping all of the lines?
This is music education
I write this for the motivation of the Pop Practicum
It’s practical and praxial
An actual factual academic requirement
Am I going to be making beats in my retirement?
You may ask, why me, why do I have to do this?
How will I get through this?
Will I sound corny and inauthentic?
I’m feeling frantic, it’s not romantic
I’m digging through Rhymezone.com
Traversing the rhizome, not calm,
Following a trail of free association
Exercising my freedom of association and freedom of speech
This is an unorthodox way to teach
I’m not an emcee, more of a producer
I hope this beat gets you looser
It’s Errol Garner playing a song by the Carpenters
Like a feral farmer sharpening the long tools of a gardener
Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be a dope emcee
Do you believe me?
I listen to too much Lin-Manuel Miranda, can you tell?
Maybe you can’t understand a word
Maybe I’m being too clever
That will be my problem forever
I feel no need to make sense whatsoever, but whatever
Whenever I write rhymes, the light shines in me
And maybe in you too
So now let me hear what you can do
I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve got bars, but I really enjoy this exercise a lot and recommend it to anyone. Rapping is very hard to do well, but it’s not hard to at least try it out. The wordplay activates a part of your mind that usually is just latent. All language has a musical aspect to it, but usually you only engage that aspect unconsciously. Putting it front and center in your attention is a pleasurable change of pace, and it’s one that I recommend every musician try at some point.