Nas breaks down "It Ain't Hard to Tell" with Harvard Poetry Prof. Elisa New

is important that as I grow a musical question great poetry always needs to be reread you don't have to get it the first time around and the way you rap you know one could never take it all in right I wonder if we could look closely at some lines from it ain't hard to tell and I'm wondering if you would just read it for us this rhythm attic explosion is what your frame of mind has chosen leave your brain stimulated [ __ ] is frozen speak the criminal slang begin like a biotin in like Leviathan as people let me try again wisdom be leaking out my grapefruit truth now let me explain that line with them be leaking out my grapefruit true so true is this what you called each other right true it was like yeah yeah oh my god grape food is this thing in their noodle noggin or whatever so that's just another word so wisdom is leaking out of it as I'm as I'm doing this word you know trying to I'm trying to sound cool you know and you know with just other words that's one of the ways your pen is extreme perfect what does it mean to dominate break loops that's that's the beat right let me so explain us the busy world break loops are when someone takes a piece of a record usually is the break the breakdown part is a put so teasing every record where there's drums so they made records out of those things we loop that part break loop is another way of saying because we look you look at life in this so our dominate break loops it occurs to me that to say you dominate break loops is also a way of saying there's this underlying formal given right there's the break loop there's the thing somebody else made in any poet you know all poets are inherent forms right now they're given to them and they have to kind of learn to make them their own you know English poets we use I Amba contaminator or you know there's forms we use throughout the centuries and I are you saying give me this form and I will dominate it right that's exactly what I'm saying given Mike's menstrual cycles are those cycles in any way metaphorically related to the loops now it is now it is you said it that's well but I didn't think of that well that's what poetry does right this is about things that that go in cycles mastering mastering pattern then we go on to streets disciple which is these are important words for you before there's rap music there was this this different way of using an English language you know there's certain neighborhoods spin the words around like diffident others Italians say different things that I would say different things Jamaicans forget about it they got a whole different way of spinning words around oh that's spinning words out there it's a record exactly exactly so you know everything is rhythm I think everything is always moving everything the world's always rotating nothing is still so you know I talk from that point of view that so that that language around my neighborhood that everybody uses you know and I don't even recognize an outside world especially thank you when I say speaker criminal slang that's really a nice way of describing the language around this slang is not all criminal slang all slang is not criminal slang but clearly slang is like a step further right so I feel like slang is I'm chilling I'm cool you know criminal slang is when you almost coded it's almost so that you talk in ways where people don't know what you're talking about and um there's something dark and something mysterious and some dangerous about that and I'm I'm explaining myself to the listener you know Mike it's the first time anybody's gonna hear me it's my first album I'm explaining to you who how I see myself how I want you to see me I'm a disciple of the streets like this is the streets is my world is every day and I'm from it I'm of it I love it

Channel: Poetry in America

Views: 1,055,292

Keywords: Nas, hip hop, illmatic, poetry, poetry in america, harvard, new york

Id: GdmtQDSZS5I

Length: 4min 46sec (286 seconds)

Published: Mon May 01 2017