What I'm listening to right now.
Public Enemy, "Bring The Noise." This song is 30 years old. The video is dated, but the sound works, still, I think. Actually I went and listened this because it was mentioned in a discussion of dactylic hexameter, the meter of classical epic poetry (Greek and Latin, notably Virgil's Aeneid). I tried to scan a few lines and find the dactyls, but to be honest my skills are limited. I have always felt that rap and hiphop are genres wherein poetry most convincingly persists as a truly popular artform in our modern era.
Lyrics.
Too black, too strong
Too black, too strong
[Intro: Flava Flav]
Yo Chuck, these honey drippers are still fronting on us
Show 'em that we can do this, cause we always knew this
Haha, yeah boy!
[Verse 1: Chuck D]
Bass! How low can you go?
Death row, what a brother know
Once again, back is the incredible rhyme animal
The uncannable D, Public Enemy Number One
Five-O said, "Freeze!" and I got numb
Can I tell 'em that I really never had a gun?
But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun
Now they got me in a cell cause my records, they sell
Cause a brother like me said, "Well
Farrakhan's a prophet and I think you ought to listen to
What he can say to you, what you wanna do is follow for now"
Power of the people, say
"Make a miracle, D, pump the lyrical"
Black is back, all in, we're gonna win
Check it out, yeah y'all, come on, here we go again
[Hook:]
Turn it up! Bring the noise!
[Bridge: Flava Flav]
Ayo Chuck, they're saying we're too black, man
Yo, I don't understand what they're saying
But little do they know they can get a smack for that, man
[Verse 2]
Never badder than bad cause the brother is madder than mad
At the fact that's corrupt like a senator
Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope
Cause the beats and the lines are so dope
Listen for lessons I'm saying inside music that the critics are blasting me for
They'll never care for the brothers and sisters now, cause the country has us up for the war
We got to demonstrate, come on now
They're gonna have to wait till we get it right
Radio stations I question their blackness
They call themselves black, but we'll see if they'll play this
[Hook:]
Turn it up! Bring the noise!
[Bridge: Flava Flav]
Ayo Chuck, they illin', we chillin'
Yo PE in the house, top billin'
Yo Chuck, show em what you can do, boy
[Verse 3:]
Get from in front of me, the crowd runs to me
My deejay is warm, he's X, I call him Norm, ya know
He can cut a record from side to side
So what, the ride, the glide should be much safer than a suicide
Soul control, beat is the father of your rock'n'roll
Music for whatcha, for whichin', you call a band, man
Making a music, abuse it, but you can't do it, ya know
You call 'em demos, (but we ride limos, too)
Whatcha gonna do? Rap is not afraid of you
Beat is for Sonny Bono, (beat is for Yoko Ono)
Run-DMC first said a deejay could be a band
Stand on its feet, get you out your seat
Beat is for Eric B. and LL as well, hell
Wax is for Anthrax, still it can rock bells
Ever forever, universal, it will sell
Time for me to exit, Terminator X-it
[Hook:]
Turn it up! Bring the noise!
[Bridge: Flava Flav]
Yo, they should know by now that they can't stop this bum rush
Word up, better keep tellin' me to turn it down
But yo, Flavor Flav ain't going out like that
[Verse 4]
From coast to coast, so you can stop being like a comatose
"Stand, my man? The beat's the same with a boast toast"
Rock with some pizzazz, it will last. Why you ask?
Roll with the rock stars, still never get accepted as
We got to plead the Fifth, we can investigate
Don't need to wait, get the record straight
Hey, posse's in effect, got the Flavor, Terminator
X to sign checks, play to get paid
We got to check it out down on the avenue
A magazine or two is dissing me and dissing you
Yeah, I'm telling you
[Outro: Flava Flav]
Hey yo, Griff, get thirty S1W, we got to handle this
We ain't goin' out like that
Yo man, straight up on the Columbo tip
We can do this, like Buddhists
Cause we always knew this
You know what I'm sayin'
There's just one thing that puzzles me, my brother
What's wrong with all these people around here, man
Is they clocking? Is they rocking? Is they shocking?…
[daily log: walking, 7km]