How To Appreciate Rap Music #2 - Eminem
by Martin Connor
[Editor's note: Be sure to read Breakdown #1 and Breakdown #3]
The time has come for another rap analysis. (If you missed the last
analysis, when I analyzed Game's first verse from his song "How We Do",
you can see it here.)
This time, we'll be looking at Eminem's "Business", produced by (who
else?) Dr. Dre. But I'd really first like to start by trying to
emphasize the fact that even if you can't read music, I still think you
can get something out of it (like understanding how rap works better) by
reading the following. But if you would like to see the complete verse
notated, I've supplied it at the very end of this post.
Unlike the last analysis, we won't be looking at a full verse (16 bars) of Eminem's; instead, what interests me is the 8 bars before the last 4 bars in his 3rd verse (at 02:47):
(Listen from the clip at 2:47 until about 3:09, from "Just to get to
see..." until "Can't leave rap alone, the game needs me".) I am
concerned with only these 8 bars and none before or after them because
in these 8 bars Eminem bases all of his accents on the syllable "ee." We
will get to that later though. Although we will still be looking for
the accents created by rhyming (and as shall soon be explained, assonant
groups,) as we did in our analysis of the Game verse, we are less
concerned with Eminem's phrasing (which Game varied greatly) and more
with his formidable rhyming capabilities.
However, for the sake of comparison we will begin with Eminem's
phrasing. It is fairly straightforward. Eminem, unlike Game, just
repeats the same 1 bar phrase every time in each of the 8 bars. Game,
meanwhile, played with phrasing acceleration and deceleration greatly:
recall that he varied his phrases in blocks of 8, beginning with 3 2 bar
groups of ½ bar, ½ bar, 1 bar, and then ending the final 2 bars with
phrases of ½ bar, ½ bar, ½ bar, ½ bar. Eminem is less concerned with
this, as we shall see. The basic rhythmic idea he uses and repeats,
however, is much longer, being a bar long, and more complex. It is as
follows:
He will vary from this sometimes ("Jesus, how could shit be so easy?",
where the 2nd beat is different from that posted above), but it is the
main prototype for each of the 8 bars (as an example, see bar 2: "see an
Emcee who breathes so freely".) As was said before, this differs from
Game's approach, who varied his phrasing greatly. But here, Eminem
propels the music more with a very catchy, complex, and longer rhythmic
idea that is repeated over and over, rather than short ideas. He keeps
it from lapsing into boredom by his incredible demonstration of his
rhyming ability in these 8 bars. There are 80 notes in these 8 bars. Of
those 80 notes, 37 of them are on a word with an "ee" sound, which I
have indicated with accent marks. (We will get to it in a second why I
have marked every "ee" sound as accented and not just the rhymes.) That
means that almost every other syllable has an "ee" sound. And in a total
of 8 bars, that means there are over 4.5 "ee" sounds per bar (37/8).
And, in a bar of 4 beats, that means that
there is more than one "ee" sound every beat. That is pretty incredible. And remember this whole time that it is all on the same syllable.
If you do a distribution graph of where the "ee" sounds fall in the bar
by every 16th note, some further information can be gleaned. The most
important thing is to see that every one of the 4th beats of the 8 bars
has 2 eighth notes and is a multi-syllabic rhyme (pretty amazing in
itself.) A multi-syllabic rhyme is a rhyme that is made up of more than
one syllable. But what makes these multi-syllabic rhymes (of 2
syllables) so interesting is that they also rhyme within themselves. For
instance, not only does "freely" rhyme with "breezy" (bars 2 and 3,
respectively,) but they also rhyme with each other: "free-" and "-ly",
and "bree-" and "-zy" (and "Le-" and "-vy", and so on.) These are the
only two rhymes and accents that are repeated in every single bar. As
for the rest of the distribution of accents, you can see that Eminem
also propels the music with the varying of the metrical placement of the
accent, placing it on every note in the 1 bar prototype shown above
(except for the final sixteenth note of the first bar, and the 2nd
eighth note of bar 3). In their propulsion of the music through the
variation of the accent in the meter between on the beat accents and
syncopated accents, Eminem and the Game are quite similar.
Now, as for why I have marked all "ee" syllables as accents in the
notation and not just the rhymes (for instance, marking "breathes" in
bar 2, even though it doesn't rhyme with any other word there), it is
because Eminem is using something known as "assonance." From Wikipedia:
"Assonance is the refrain of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming
within phrases or sentences." Assonance creates the same accent as
rhymes do in the verse. This use of assonance is one of the most
interesting things done in this song. It expands the normal tools or
techniques of what a rapper can use to create and vary accents in his
raps. This also opens up the use of other techniques (perhaps already
used, but ones that should be used more often,) like alliteration or
consonance (the refrain of consonant sounds to make internal rhyming.)
So we've seen that Eminem and Game differ in their approach to phrasing
(in this instance at least, and if I had to guess from hearing a lot of
their other works, in other instances as well). They also differ in
their approach to rhyming. Eminem is very, very concerned with his
complex rhyming. It is one of the features of his rap that he is most
proud of. Here, Eminem tries to fit as many rhymes (here including
"assonance" under the more general term of "rhyme") as are possible into
his verse. He also puts rhymes in places other than the end of a phrase
(this can be seen even as early as bar 2, which is really the first bar
after a pick-up beat: "SEE an em-CEE who BREATHES so FREELY," after
which the 1 bar phrase ends.) By comparison, Game always ends his phrase
with an accented "uh" sound, and never makes a rhyme within the phrase.
By doing this, he delineates phrase beginnings and endings with his
accents, something Eminem does not do. Game's approach allows the
listener to follow very closely when the phrases start and stop. The
fact that Eminem does not do this and puts rhymes inside his phrases
make the structure of the verse sound much less uniform and free. This
also contributes as a reason for why although he repeats the same 1 bar
phrase 8 times, it never sounds old or tiresome to the listener (the
other major reason is that the 1 bar idea is interesting enough to be
repeated so many times without losing its power.) Their differences
aside though, Eminem and Game are quite similar in their variation of
the metrical placement of the accent created by their words (whether
through rhyming, assonance, or some other way.)
But be sure to see the next analysis when we'll be taking a look at a
verse from Nas, who is extremely different (indeed, there are very few
who can like him) from Eminem and Game in his entire approach to
phrasing and accent.
Anyone still think there aren't rappers who have talent?
