dead poets

perhaps there is more to hip-hop than lusting after girls in apple bottom jeans and/or sipping a brand name rum as if in celebration of the day you were born. what of the 28 year old grad student studying the ancestors of modern rhymesters for the last five years of his life? is he not entitled to his own anthem to which he can put his own damn hands up?

baba brinkman has made the case that he is entitled to such an anthem and has crafted a very convincing candidate in “dead poets” from his 2006 album, swordplay. consider some of his savvy lyrics and make your own decision:

For a challenge I’m known to approach talent shows with
Poems that I stole from Edgar Allen Poe’s lips
Opium hits dope Alexander Pope’s wits
I was Samuel Coleridge in a trance when I wrote this
And I awoke with the whole song done
I felt the soul of John Donne; Andrew Marvel
Taught me to chase the sun; I can’t make it stand still
So instead I’ll make it run, with puns denser
Than Edmund Spencer’s, and modern lyrics
Modeled on Robert Herrick’s;

the two other audio posts on the ragbag can be found here.