Similarities Between Rap and Poetry

Poetry and rap have been around for many years and have been used to appeal to the senses of audience members of many different ages, races, cultures. Poetry and rap are similar in many unique ways. One may look upon poetry and rap as two different genres, however, rap can actually be classified as a form of modern day poetry. Rap often talks about different ideas and subjects than most poems, however they hold similar formats to poetry and give a similar emotional response to the audience.

Poetry is a type literary work that conveys experiences, ideas or emotions through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices to evoke an emotional response. With the use of language, literary techniques such as meter, metaphor and rhyme a poet delivers his feelings and emotions. Poetry has a lot of freedom when it comes down to structure and style and every poet has their own style. The poet has the ability to use whatever structure of lines, rhyme scheme, alliteration and they may change the wording certain words to fit to their interest.

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Rap or hip hop music is a musical genre that became popular in the 1970’s that consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic speech that is chanted. Similar to poetry, rap is very unique and there are many artists with different styles. For example, Eminem’s rap style is unique, it is usually very fast, violent and precise in its delivery. In contrast, Kanye West’s style is funny, catchy, and in some cases philosophical.

In similarity, rappers have a lot of freedom when they rap a song and have the ability to change the wording, rhyme and sentence structure just like how poets have freedom in the style and use of literary techniques. In addition to freedom in style they also share similar literary techniques such as rhyme, meter, and alliteration. In rap, rappers “flow” are based on the literary techniques, creativity and delivery to the audience.

Also, in both rap and poetry there is an emotional response on the audience based on their content and meaning. By the use of certain words poets and rappers have the ability to negatively or positively effect an audience. Poetry and rap were originated in two completely different eras and cultures. However, they hold very similar aspects and should be viewed the same. Rap often talks about different ideas and subjects than most poems, however they hold similar formats to poetry and give a similar emotional response to the audience.