Hip Hop: Flow is the Vocal Presentation of Your Lyrics--Not the Written Text

I largely disagree with the manner in which debates are structured and organized on this site; my arguments will thusly be presented in a concise and socially practical manner. In other, simpler terms, I won't structure this argument as anything more than a direct dialogue between me (Pro) and you (Con). Your argument, as I understand it, vests its prime contention in the idea that the written word does not dictate the way in which a verse is recited in a rap song; in other words, the written word is secondary and not intrusive to the "flow" (or spoken word, verbal presentation, etc.) of a given rap song. To begin, I present a counter-example: an excerpt from Eminem's "Business". "You 'bout to witness hip-hop in it's most purest/more rawest form/flow almost flawless/most hardest, most honest known artist/chip off the old block, but ol' Doc is, {back}/looks like Batman brought his own Robin/oh God, Sadam's got his own Laden/with his own private plane, his own pilot/set to blow college dorm rooms doors off the hinges/oranges, peach, pears, plums, syringes/{vnn vnn}, yeah here I come/i'm inches/away from you/dear fear none/hip-hop is in a state of 911/ so..." Firstly, your perspective erroneously neglects the complexity of literary devices; particularly the nuances of syntax and rhythmic formation. Adopting your thesis would mean that the Shakespearean Iambic Pentameter would not work, as it fundamentally contradicts the nature of your argument. In truth, much has been said about the written word, but mainly in media theory. As Neil Postman put it, the spoken word is temporary while the written word lasts. Rappers write with this idea in mind: what they write, (ie, the lyrical content of their music), will likely outlive the music itself. In knowing this, they typically attempt to infuse their unique flow on a functional level. In my example, I'd like to draw attention to a particular line: "set to blow college dorm rooms doors off the hinges/oranges, peach, pears, plums, syringes" In this case, the written word came first, and Eminem and his producers were forced to engineer a rhyme scheme and chord progression that would fit the diction in such a way that it wouldn't prove intrusive to the song's flow. Effectively, Eminem built the song's flow around the written word. In the line above, "oranges" would break a flow that did not establish the prerequisite ("doors off the hinges") in such a way that "orange" could be modified. As orange does not have any rhyming words in the English language, a modification was made; it is here that the written word most clearly intrudes and modifies a flow. This is how music works. The written word comes first, and the music is built around its foundations. Indeed, though there are exceptions as to how a musician writes his music, flow is dictated by the written word. This is not true when it comes to poems, as the phonetic arts predate the written word. That is not to say, however, that rap can transcend the written word. Though we cannot neglect that there does exist a few parallels between them, rap songs and poems are fundamentally different in one important way: Rap, as we know it, is, as I see it, a modern take on poems, influenced by popular culture and cultivated by a fundamentally commercial and selfish desire to sell. By such a definition, Rap is a creation of popular culture; a creation that resulted from the influence of the written word. Media theory plays an important role here. Marshall McLuhan, a media theorist most known for "The Medium is The Message", said that " All media are extensions of some human faculty -- psychic or physical". The written word is an exception to this assertion, as it exists psychologically as an abstract concept but simultaneously manifests in the real word, through some form of media. Ultimately, it's what the author of a given piece intends to write that dictates the flow and direction of that piece. Rap is no exception. The written word, or intended abstraction, entirely determines the presentation of any given piece.