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Distracting myself with the absurdity & beauty of humanity and taking you with me. A thread about the ancient indigenous origins of battle rap and how it is connected to bardic and shamanistic traditions.
First, the contemporary definition:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rap
First, the contemporary definition:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rap
“The Scots have a lengthy tradition of ‘flyting’ - intense verbal jousting, often laced with vulgarity, that is similar to the dozens that one finds among contemporary inner-city African American youth.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3998862/Rap-music-originated-in-medieval-Scottish-pubs-claims-American-professor.html
“Battle rap is not a corruption of Black culture: it is the modern incarnation of long-held competitive oral traditions that can be traced throughout the African American experience and to Africa.”
“The Prevalence of Afro-based Tradition in Battle Rap”:
https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=jhhs
“The Prevalence of Afro-based Tradition in Battle Rap”:
https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=jhhs
“There’s a skeletal horse singing rhymes outside your door, and it wants to come inside. Can you beat the dead mare in a battle of poetic wits? This is the Welsh tradition of the Mari Lwyd.” https://hyperallergic.com/345156/the-welsh-undead-horse-of-christmas-you-must-beat-in-a-battle-of-rhymes/
“Russia's shaman community is flooded by tourists and locals have learned to milk money from them; a full-on war is raging among shamans – self-proclaimed intermediaries between the material and spiritual worlds – for control over mortal souls. https://www.rbth.com/travel/329944-exorcism-baikal-shamans-siberia-russia
“This research shows links of Lebanese battle rap culture to global hip hop culture. [...]Arabic hip hop cultures do not only draw on Afro-American roots but also from local poetic traditions.”
“Remixing Battle Rap and Arabic Poetic Traditions”:
http://phi.unical.it/wp34/occhiali/files/2019/01/Wiedemann-1.pdf
“Remixing Battle Rap and Arabic Poetic Traditions”:
http://phi.unical.it/wp34/occhiali/files/2019/01/Wiedemann-1.pdf
“Battle rap may be connected to other, non African-American poetic traditions (specifically ‘poetic jousts’) that have been more or less African Americanized, such as the Japanese poetic genres and European ‘flyting’.”
From the book “Hip Hop’s Amnesia” by Reiland Rabaka.
From the book “Hip Hop’s Amnesia” by Reiland Rabaka.
“Renga developed when poets tried to communicate through poetry. In ancient Japan, composing renga was a favorite pastime affairs of poets, aristocrats, even general public. The earliest record is an anthology of poems compiled in about 1125.” https://owlcation.com/humanities/Japanese-Poetry-Forms-Haiku-Senryu-Haiga-and-Tanka
“At an Ulaanbaatar music studio, the two rappers watch a music video of an epic Mongolian rap battle that features Metune rapping over folk music... It’s important to keep our traditions alive, even in modern music.” https://www.ozy.com/good-sht/theres-nothing-quite-like-mongolian-hip-hop/85470/
In summation, battle rap is a living ancient tradition of humanity across the globe. Rap battles can be satire, entertainment, marketing, self-promotion, and most importantly, have long been a way for people to express violent thought without violent action.
Songs used to be spells, the words weaving themselves into reality like the Irish “Song of Amergin” and Taliesin’s Welsh songs of power. We should write songs talking ourselves and our power up and we should equally write songs talking our villains down. It’s magical tradition.
