Lemme tell you guys something about this song…and I been dying to tell people this cuz it’s some ‘brainiac rapper’ stuff and I been waiting for someone to point it out…so I will.
The verses are mirror-images of each other. They’re the exact same flow, pretty much to the syllable. Listen to it again and you should notice it. Wherever I switch the rhythm in the first verse, there’s an damn near exact duplicate in the second verse. It’s easy to do for like four bars, but doing it for a full verse took some time and concentration.
They also parallel each other in subject matter…for example, if there’s a movie reference in the ___th bar of the first, they’ll be one in the second verse in the exact same spot and so on and so forth.
Another neat little trick: using a phrase in both verses as a pivot point to turn to an entirely different line of thinking. I don’t wanna give EVERYthing away. Half the fun of hip-hop for me is those “OHHH!” moments of discovery.
This song is just one example. The whole album is full of tricks, codes, and TRUTH.
*buffs nails on chest*
This is what happens when a rapper watches a lotta Kubrick and Tarantino movies and doesn’t even realize how much he’s being influenced. This is what happens when a rapper is trying to scream, but has no mouth.
There’s always more to it…
‘Lazarus’ (iTunes link)’
RR