Baba Brinkman - The Rhyme Renaissance lyrics
[Baba Brinkman - The Rhyme Renaissance lyrics]
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song
My goal is to redefine the
Whole history of rhyme
‘Cause the only way to free the
Soul is to free the mind
And no wisdom as old as
This should be confined to total mystery
So we’ll just read the signs
And DaVinci codes, and try to see the science
In this linguistically-composed
Pristine design
It goes deep – suppose we could just rewind
To when we first rose to our
Feet and left the trees behind
We’d see tribes of bipedal australopithecines
Trying to survive
As species divide and interbreed
Attending to basic needs
Like safe places to sleep
Raising seeds and making sure they
Had things to eat
So they started solving problems
By evolving language genes
It probably started from the need
To follow wildebeest herds
Or the need to distinguish
Between weeds and herbs
Or from mimicking the mimicking screams
Of red and green birds it’s a chicken
Egg riddle: Which came first
Plain speech or verse? ‘Cause as
Long as there’s been words
There’s been awareness of
Relationships between words
And when rhymes connect them
New meanings emerge
See the history of languages
Has been researched
By linguists and traced back
To a singular birth so the ability to speak
Rhythmically and sing works
To intrinsically link every human
Being on this earth
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song
But, I wonder what percent of what
Happens is meant to happen
‘Cause in the genesis of rap
What has to be factored in
Is that this chapter was
Invented by black men
And all human beings are
Descended from Africans
Who spread across the map
In every different direction
And adapted to every place under the sun
So their faces started changing as
The race was run
Just as every language came from
The same mother tongue
Since each one directly relates
To another one from the open plainsmen to
The rainforest dwellers
Every people needed designated storytellers
To pass on their culture
Orally from the elders
And rhythm and repetition and
Rhymes and refrains
Allow performers to organize story
Lines in their brains
And memorize more kinds of
Important signs and names
And make changes based on the
Needs of each performance
Feats of endurance are needed to
Describe deeds of enormous
Historical importance, like the Trojan
Greek war and the horse used to breach
The fortress in the aforementioned
Tradition of reciting
Writing was a natural invention
For kings to catalogue things
With practical intentions
And the offspring, of course
Was the birth of the author
From Homer to Virgil to the
Immortal words of Chaucer
The father of modern verse
And first formal border-crosser
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song
But the birth of the author was
Also the birth of the ego
Celebrity seems to bring the
Worst out of people
Especially with the invention of
The printing press
Which instantly made poetry so
Much less intimate
‘Cause suddenly poems were mostly
Written to be read
Alone, instead of written to be said
Aloud to crowds of listening heads
And in just a few centuries
Rhyme and rhythm were dead
And forty thousand years of
Lyricism were watered down
And exposed to careless prose
On mostly Modernist grounds
And poets found that the old
Supportive crowds were not around
But they hardly even noticed
‘cause they were published and important now
But then recorded sound started
With Thomas Edison
One of the most intelligent
Inventions there’s ever been and ever since
A person’s words can be
Heard across the globe
And the emergence of the
Rhyme Renaissance was possible
But it really started off in
The Bronx in the seventies
When kids with limited means
Produced monster melodies
High Fidelity beats made their
Speech more compelling
When ghetto teens resurrected
Rhymes and storytelling
And used ancient wisdom as
A system for rebelling
The rhythm was thrilling
Swelling the competition
And millions of brilliant minds fought
For the top positions
And people finally seem to be starting
To sit up and listen
I’m just tryin’ to give ‘em a bit
Of a nudge with this composition
And the epilogue? Now it’s
Been about twenty-nine years
Since hiphop first appeared and
Confirmed the worst fears
Of the powers that be
‘cause now it’s in every urban sphere
Assaulting virgin ears it’s like
A massive attack
‘Cause every language on this planet
Can be adapted to rap
It’s like a gigantic amoeba
That’s having a snack
A generation thinking vocally, acting locally
Speaking openly
And having an impact globally
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song and it's on
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song
My goal is to redefine the
Whole history of rhyme
‘Cause the only way to free the
Soul is to free the mind
And no wisdom as old as
This should be confined to total mystery
So we’ll just read the signs
And DaVinci codes, and try to see the science
In this linguistically-composed
Pristine design
It goes deep – suppose we could just rewind
To when we first rose to our
Feet and left the trees behind
We’d see tribes of bipedal australopithecines
Trying to survive
As species divide and interbreed
Attending to basic needs
Like safe places to sleep
Raising seeds and making sure they
Had things to eat
So they started solving problems
By evolving language genes
It probably started from the need
To follow wildebeest herds
Or the need to distinguish
Between weeds and herbs
Or from mimicking the mimicking screams
Of red and green birds it’s a chicken
Egg riddle: Which came first
Plain speech or verse? ‘Cause as
Long as there’s been words
There’s been awareness of
Relationships between words
And when rhymes connect them
New meanings emerge
See the history of languages
Has been researched
By linguists and traced back
To a singular birth so the ability to speak
Rhythmically and sing works
To intrinsically link every human
Being on this earth
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song
But, I wonder what percent of what
Happens is meant to happen
‘Cause in the genesis of rap
What has to be factored in
Is that this chapter was
Invented by black men
And all human beings are
Descended from Africans
Who spread across the map
In every different direction
And adapted to every place under the sun
So their faces started changing as
The race was run
Just as every language came from
The same mother tongue
Since each one directly relates
To another one from the open plainsmen to
The rainforest dwellers
Every people needed designated storytellers
To pass on their culture
Orally from the elders
And rhythm and repetition and
Rhymes and refrains
Allow performers to organize story
Lines in their brains
And memorize more kinds of
Important signs and names
And make changes based on the
Needs of each performance
Feats of endurance are needed to
Describe deeds of enormous
Historical importance, like the Trojan
Greek war and the horse used to breach
The fortress in the aforementioned
Tradition of reciting
Writing was a natural invention
For kings to catalogue things
With practical intentions
And the offspring, of course
Was the birth of the author
From Homer to Virgil to the
Immortal words of Chaucer
The father of modern verse
And first formal border-crosser
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song
But the birth of the author was
Also the birth of the ego
Celebrity seems to bring the
Worst out of people
Especially with the invention of
The printing press
Which instantly made poetry so
Much less intimate
‘Cause suddenly poems were mostly
Written to be read
Alone, instead of written to be said
Aloud to crowds of listening heads
And in just a few centuries
Rhyme and rhythm were dead
And forty thousand years of
Lyricism were watered down
And exposed to careless prose
On mostly Modernist grounds
And poets found that the old
Supportive crowds were not around
But they hardly even noticed
‘cause they were published and important now
But then recorded sound started
With Thomas Edison
One of the most intelligent
Inventions there’s ever been and ever since
A person’s words can be
Heard across the globe
And the emergence of the
Rhyme Renaissance was possible
But it really started off in
The Bronx in the seventies
When kids with limited means
Produced monster melodies
High Fidelity beats made their
Speech more compelling
When ghetto teens resurrected
Rhymes and storytelling
And used ancient wisdom as
A system for rebelling
The rhythm was thrilling
Swelling the competition
And millions of brilliant minds fought
For the top positions
And people finally seem to be starting
To sit up and listen
I’m just tryin’ to give ‘em a bit
Of a nudge with this composition
And the epilogue? Now it’s
Been about twenty-nine years
Since hiphop first appeared and
Confirmed the worst fears
Of the powers that be
‘cause now it’s in every urban sphere
Assaulting virgin ears it’s like
A massive attack
‘Cause every language on this planet
Can be adapted to rap
It’s like a gigantic amoeba
That’s having a snack
A generation thinking vocally, acting locally
Speaking openly
And having an impact globally
This time we live in is a Rhyme Renaissance
And this history lesson is five minutes long
And if hiphop is bringin' it, fine
Let's get it on
And consider it official when
I finish this song and it's on