Table of Contents

What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language

By Daniel Levin Becker

Preface

Rhetorical questions

I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love

Rewinding

To be the man on the mic, to be the man on your mind

On cool

What's normal to us is an illusion to them

On me

I heard the beat and I ain't know what to write

Serious rap

What you hear is not a test

Word machines

I make butter fly

Slang evolution

Speakin' my language if you talkin' 'bout tilapia

Slang and slipperiness

You'll never find a rhyme like this in any dictionary

On rhyme

Try me, try me

On register

Bitch I'm morose and lugubrious

Haunted roots

Hangin' on for dear life

Code and contraband

I got twenty-five lighters on the dresser

Intelligences

They don't call me Big for nuttin'

Power play

I'm on point like a elbow

Word as bond

Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape

Anti-simile

I'm the motherfucking king like Oedipus

=, ≠

Flip the script just like Marlon Brando

#

I got bars sentencing

Economy and time

Four Seasons, three words: do not disturb

Signifying chains

I take seven MCs, put 'em in a line

Recycling

Flow retarded, I'm on some Special Ed shit

Elective chronology

Once upon a time in the projects

Ancestor worship

We're holdin' on to what's golden

Writing/biting

I got ninety-nine problems and a bitch ain't one

Aggravated quotation

Beat biter, dope style taker

Hyperlinks

Wikipedia that, if you didn't know

On cliché

Kickin' the fly clichés

Who wore it better?

Now I'm butt naked in a Lamborghini

Deniable plausibility

Might look light but we heavy though

On first person

I live it, I see it, and I write it because I know it

Truth and consequence

Calling her a crab is just a figure of speech

Criminal slang

I'm the biggest Dope Dealer and I serve all over town

Selling work

The dope I'm selling you don't smoke you feel

On values

I'm out here making sense 'cause I'm out here making dollars

On the b-word

Who you callin' a bitch?

On the n-word

She could be my broad and I could be her -

On white people

Please listen to my album

On second person

If that's your chick then why she textin' me?

Is rap poetry?

I take this more serious than just a poem

Writing/not writing

I wasn't born last night

What you hear is not a text

I can't help the poor if I'm one of them

On possession

Hi haters, I'm back off hiatus

On possession with intent to sell

Cash rules everything around me

Signifying ornaments

I spell it how the fucks I want

Outsider art

And all the people always know me for my comedy

On irony

This is fucking awesome

Dumb love

Microphone check 1-2 what is this

Criticism and categories

Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good

A larger English

Lampin' in the Hamptons like "What the fuck is a hammock?"

Witness

Party and bullshit