One of my major beefs with the success of Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton is how fervently revered publications and musical critics will tout its brilliance while simultaneously dismissing contemporary rap artists for being crass and uncultured. Watching throngs of affluent 60-year-olds that lambasted the music of Biggie Smalls during his prime spend thousands to hear a sterile rendition of The Ten Crack Commandments makes me unreasonably incensed. In their eyes, only after the "undignified" stench of rap's vulgar roots becomes "purified" through the "legitimacy" of a Broadway musical is it finally fit for intellectual dissection.
"Ah, I see," they say, "it's like a modern patter song."
"Hey, that's great," I'll respond, "now that you have a deeper appreciation for rap, check out this Lil Wayne song. His rhyme schemes are actually comparable to Biggie's."
To which they'll respond, "Oh, no, I listen to real music," or "I can't understand him."
Flash forward another 30 years, and some enterprising theater major will presumably graft Wayne's lyrics to a critically acclaimed JFK musical. It's a crying shame, I tell ya.
In the video linked above, you can check out the rhyme scheme to Lil Wayne's verse on Bloody Mary, which will probably play as Kennedy's motorcade wheels through Dallas.
