Literature is Illmatic

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Morgan von Ancken / Wednesday, August 4, 2010 View Comments

A young city bandit

I don’t know if this is a universal experience, but back when I was in the early years of high school I remember having to dismantle various fragments of literature and scrounge in their remnants for “literary elements.” This term was a loose euphemism for things like metaphors, similes, etc. – basically any concept that could be easily defined and tested on the state Regent exam. As ‘teach explained it, if the selected passage we were given employed enough of these syntactical devices, it must be considered advanced literature. I mean, come on, just look at that enjambment!

I don’t know though. I mean, what if you brought this exercise to bear on something other than fragments of Macbeth? How about, oh, Nas’s seminal rap album Illmatic (1994). Would it past the test? Is it “literature”?

Let’s see.

Simile: Illmatic is rife with similes; I would guess that maybe about thirty percent of everything Nas says is a simile of some sort (maybe more). Some good examples:

You couldn’t catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer
That’s like Malcolm X catching the Jungle Fever
King poetic, too much flava, Im major
Atlanta and braver, I pull a number like a pager

Deep like The Shinin’, sparkle like a diamond
Sneak a uzi on the island in my army jacket linin
Hit the Earth like a comet, invasion
Nas is like the Afrocentric Asian, half-man, half-amazin

Metaphor: It’s the same deal with metaphors – most of the slang Nas employs involves some type of implied comparison, often to either the police (caught by the devil’s lasso, shit is a hassle), or to his own ill rapping ability (My rhymin is a vitamin, Hell without a capsule).

Alliteration: Lots of rappers use alliteration, and Nas is no exception. He populates Illmatic with catchy, alliterative characters – Hennessey holders, ‘Sniffin Scarfaces, Petrol people, Blank brains, etc. Even his own moniker at the time, Nasty Nas, is alliterative.

Personification: Again, a fairly elementary syntactical device that Nas employs with great verbal dexterity. For example:

Nasty Nas has to rise, kid, surprise
This is exercise til the microphone dies

Hyperbole: Even thinking about this one makes me kind of laugh. It’s loosely defined as: “An exaggerated statement used to heighten effect,” which can be applied to pretty much any rap album. Some examples in Illmatic include:

Stash through the flock wools, burnin dollars to light my stove

You couldn’t catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer

When I attack, there ain’t an army that could strike back

So I don’t know, that’s five “literary elements” right there, more than enough the write a convincing three page essay in one of those little blue books they give you on the test. And I’m sure there’s more lurking in that, if any music-inclined is inclined to track them down… can anyone find an example of malapropism?

Tags: alliteration, illmatic, literature, metaphor, nas, simile

igor

I think you will run into difficulties when you try to define “literature” via the texts themselves. Rather, I am of the opinion that whether or not something is “literature” is almost entirely dependent on the readership.

If the world was populated solely by 5-year-olds , then things like Spongebob might very well be considered important literature. In our world, however, where white males have dominated for hundreds of years, our current literary canon is really no surprise. It all has to do with who the world considers to be “the literary authority.”

This is evident in the past 50 or so years, where minorities have gained more and more of a presence in academia; more and more classes on multicultural types of literature and less and less classes on things like Chaucer, etc. are being offered.
http://yingleyangle.com/ Paulo Campos

This kind of exercise is great. I used to teach English and used to use blockbuster movies and pop music to show my students that principles of literature are all over the place.

As a writer, I find it fun to play around like this with fellow writers. My brother (also a writer) and I were recently waiting on an endless line and passed the time deconstructing “California Gurls.” He knew all the lyrics; that was odd.

Great post!