The Spelling Bee feat Petey DeAbreu
This episode is about acronyms and spelling.
Available now on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts from and here is the show’s RSS feed if that helps!
Rakim once said, rap is rhythm and poetry. And with that he's single-handedly explained exactly what rapping is by using an acronym. It's the perfect description because no matter what region it comes from, what style a rapper settles upon or how hard they claim to be. At the end of the day, rap music is just a bunch of word nerds flexing their vocabularies.
Yeah. At times the beats and personalities may make it feel menacing. But if you strip all of that away, it's just a person sharing a poem about their feelings. Spelling is an entry level skill for rap, but when done rhythmically, it's an easy way to pad out 16 bars. In technical terms, each syllable takes up the space and a cadence that a word normally would, which turns spelling itself into a poetic.
Especially when you're trying to freestyle off the top, you know, performing a verse that wasn't pre-written. Actually, one of my favorite beefs in hip hop was Overspilling. In the early days of hip hop, rappers would pop up with original styles tied to their personality to stake their claim in the game.
A few examples are Das EFX and the bum-schtickity, The Fat Boys and beatboxing (along with well being fat) and Slick Rick's storytelling. Even Jay-Z got his start doing a stylistic stick that he honors by way of his alias.
At one point, spelling out words while rhyming was fresh, new, and innovative, and two rappers got into a long standing beef about who invented the style. One was Kay Solo, and the other was DMX. The story goes that they met in prison, battled each other, and became friends. Upon his exit. K Solo released a song called Spellbound in 1990, then in 1991, DMX released a song with the same name and concept. This didn't go over well at all with K Solo and that beef would go on for years. Surfacing most prominently on X's debut Single. Get At Me Dog.
(That was seven years later and I mean, sure songs take time to write, release and record, but a standing beef for seven years that continued on after that, just relentlessly petty.) Several diss tracks were recorded. They took shots at each other during interviews, and I believe that K Solo even ended up challenging DMX to a boxing match.He also took a lie detector test to prove once and for all that he was the true creator of the style.That beef never really settled, but in the end, K Solo did find his own closure and even ended up visiting DMX's grave site.
And if spelling wasn't nerdy enough, rappers absolutely love acronyms. It's a practice that has had a grip on the hip hop community for a number of reasons. One, it encodes language, which is an essential function of slang because talking over somebody's head is an easy way to stay low key. A few examples of this are Cream by the Wu-Tang Clan, The Goat by LL Cool J and They Reminisce Over You by Pete Rock and CL Smooth. Another more basic reason that acronyms are so popular is that they're an easy way to censor song titles. A great example of this is WAP. It stands for Wet Ass Pussy, and it's not only a fun little acronym, but becomes a fantastic use of an onomatopoeia as a word in itself. Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the thing gets described. So uh.. yeah.
The term THOT is supposedly an acronym as well. Not like the thoughts that you're thinking or like Black Thought, but like T-H-O-T thought. And supposedly it stands for that hoe over there, but I'm not so inclined to believe it for some reason. Maybe it's because of the words sketchy etymology, but it's probably mostly just. I think it's a dumb ass word. Why do we even need that word? We don't even know where the word came from. I don't know. Sound like the ops to me.
Look at me. Just over here, nerd. Not over words. Such a rapper, whatever.
Tracklist
HYFR - Drake
KOD- J. Cole
LMF - Smino
It’s Supposed To Bubble - UGK
P.I.M.P. - 50 Cent
T.O.N.Y. ft Tragedy - CNN
All For The Love - The LOX
Independent - Webbie
FUTW - Jay Z
D.E.M.O.N.S. - Elzhi
For You - Guru
Keep It Moving - A Tribe Called Quest
G.O.D. Pt. 3 - Mobb Deep
My Philosophy - BDP
U.N.I.T.Y. - Queen Latifah
Pause - Jay Dee
Hostyle - Screwball
M.E.T.H.O.D. Man - Wu Tang Clan
RIP - Young Jeezy
Goin Back To Cali (King Most Edit) - Notorious BIG
F.N.G.M. - Flo Milli
Mona Lisa - Slick Rick