MetaChat - night of the living Multis

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22 June 2010

night of the living Multis there's this clueless kid in a hip hop forum who's totally obsessed with the notion of multisyllabic rhyming→[More:]

As a refresher, a multisyllabic rhyme is like:

[Nas] I'm tryin to wife a chick, light a spliff
[AZ] Write ya lips, who's nice as this? We righteousness

"wife a chick" are three syllables that (loosely) rhyme with "nice as this", "righteousness" and so on.

I think he's cognitively challenged or particular somehow because of the way he types and interacts (very obsessive about certain things and very clueless about most.) He doesn't even understand how to pick out multis in a couple lines, often just highlighting internal rhymes rather than 'sets' of rhymes.

You will not believe how difficult it is to 'get' to him in any manner that's productively applicable to explaining to him exactly how to find multis in lines. I launched a heroic effort yesterday and he segued into asking me about stressed vs. unstressed syllables because he read about that somewhere. (Needless to say analyzing syllable stresses is much more complex than analyzing rhymes--and what's more, looking for meters in hip hop will get you nowhere cause the words/syllable counts are all over the place.)

There are a zillion other aspects of MCing that you could break down but he never mentions any of those, not even simple things like flow, delivery, storytelling, imagery, metaphors, wordplay, versatility, even subject matter.

Just:
Multis
Multis
Multis

* Kool G Rap vs. AZ multis
* Does rapper A or B in X group have better multis?
* I don't like so-and-so because he has bad multis
* That rapper can't be wack, he has good multis
* How are this guy's rhyme schemes and multis?

And so it goes, week after week, month after month, he bombastically creates threads on multis quoting verses with misapplied highlights all over the place, fights anyone who disagrees with him (often by repeating the same simple insulting phrase for months on end) and continues to be fixated on a (relatively) minor technical aspect of rapping that he doesn't even understand. It's remarkable to me that someone can be so expressively fascinated by something they don't even get.

post by: Firas at: 17:30 | 7 comments

Wow. I don't know anything about hip hop and this guy is making my head hurt via your post. Some people are just insufferable.

posted by youngergirl44 22 June | 19:12

I know right? It's ironic because you'd think sophisticated listeners would appreciate multis but it just goes to show how badly appreciation for technical skills can backfire in the hands of people who don't think properly. A bit like the proverb about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing etc

How's this guy gonna appreciate a song by pulling down the lyrics and trying to highlight multis? Screw the multis, hear the song! lol

posted by Firas 22 June | 19:20

Okay, minor tangent here: I've never heard of "multis" before, but I am intrigued. All I really know about hip-hop is that I *love* Abdominal, J5, Chuck D, and much of Nas' early work. Do they do this "multi" thing you speak of? Who does the canonical multi?

Back on topic: If you substitute the word "Boobies" for "Multis" in this kid's language, would the resulting conversation really be all that different from that of your average 14 year old male?

posted by Triode 22 June | 20:45

Do they do this "multi" thing you speak of? Who does the canonical multi?

The people who made multisyllabic rhyming (and internal rhyme in general) significant in hip hop were Rakim and Kool G Rap in the late 80s. They (and some peers) also helped create a whole new way to 'flow' on a track: smoothly, instead of the Chuck D or Run-DMC style.

Early Nas? Oh yeah, here's the guest verse that brought him to hip hop's attention (with a bang!): Live at the BBQ. Notice that each line has two rhyming syllables rather than just one rhyming word to close the line. And on his debut, Illmatic:

Judges hangin niggas, uncorrect bails, for direct sales
My intellect prevails from a hangin cross with nails
I reinforce the frail, with lyrics that's real
Word to Christ, a disciple of streets, trifle on beats
I decifer prophecies through a mic and say peace.

His friend AZ took it to another level: "I asked was he dabbling he laughed and said he managing / His Carti frames was as clear as a camera lens / He hardly changed, I was near in comparison.."

This example from Notorious B.I.G. shows how even though words don't rhyme on the page they can be made to rhyme via delivery: "Heard Tec got murdered in a town I never heard of by some bitch named Alberta over Nickel-plated burners.."

And Big Pun was a master at multis: "Dead in the middle of Little Italy / Little did we know we riddled two middlemen who didn't do diddly."

(The previous two quotes are more examples of internal rhyme than of multisyllabic rhyme though)

Eminem is ferociously overboard with all sorts of technical skills on the mic and multis are no exception ("I’m ready for war, I got machetes and swords, My uzi’s heavy as yours, yeah you met me before...")

There's a bunch of very lyrical cats in hip hop these days. e.g. Elzhi, and here's a west coast dude called Crooked I. It goes to show how multis can create a rhythmic, even melodic, effect in the words.

The house gang, rap's holy alliance
Why you so scurred? I'm only a giant
I do it late night, call me Conan O'Brien
And the nose on my gun look like Pinocchio lyin...
Uh, y'all say that your pockets are big
I'd rather say that I'm 'Pac mixed with Big
You're lookin at a microphone rocker on vodka
That's why I be walkin awkward, ya DIG?

The funny thing is, I was looking at a set of Hole lyrics a while ago and realized they have polysyllabic rhymes too!

"All my friends are embryonic / All my friends are dead and gone / All my friends are microscopic / All my friends wake up alone"

Embryonic, microscopic.. dead and gone, wake up alone.. they're like sets of words that rhyme together and have an aural effect different from words that just rhyme in their last syllable.

posted by Firas 22 June | 21:43

Hey I learned something new tonight! Thanks!

posted by desjardins 22 June | 22:54

Interesting, never considered picking apart rhymes in this way. Here is a song that I like that has a couple of multis in it and some fantastic flow.

posted by asok 23 June | 06:51

good link asok. That guy Pharoahe Monche is a beast.

posted by Firas 23 June | 12:12

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