I'm making my students rap, and to encourage them, I'm doing it to. Samples are from Erroll Garner's recording of "Close To You" by the Carpenters.
rap
Does anybody need to hear a white dad rapping?
Can I get your foot tapping, your hands clapping?
As I'm uncapping my rhymes, am I remapping your minds?
Am I overlapping all of the lines?
This is music education
I write this for the motivation
of the Pop Practicum
It's practical and praxial
An actual factual academic requirement
Am I going to be making beats in my retirement?
You may ask, why me, why do I have to do this?
How will I get through this?
Will I sound corny and inauthentic?
I'm feeling frantic, it's not romantic
I'm digging through Rhymezone.com
traversing the rhizome, not calm,
following a trail of free association
exersizing my freedom of association and freedom of speech
This is an unorthodox way to teach
I'm not an emcee, more of a producer
I hope this beat gets you looser
It's Errol Garner playing a song by the Carpenters
like a feral farmer sharpening the long tools of a gardener
Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be a dope emcee
Do you believe me?
I listen to too much Lin-Manuel Miranda, can you tell?
maybe you can't understand a word
maybe I'm being too clever
that will be my problem forever
I feel no need to make sense whatsoever
but whatever
Whenever I write rhymes
the light shines in me
and maybe in you too
So now let me hear what you can do
