Aug 4, 2015

What is your definition of lyricism? What constitutes a lyricist? One of my friends has always told me that lyricism is storytelling and I never agreed with him. I've always thought of lyricism being the incorporation of things like wordplay, alliteration and metaphors in hip hop music. Also, is there really even a concrete definition of lyricism?

Discuss

 

Aug 4, 2015

ugh

 

Aug 4, 2015

This is one of those topics where you're more likely to run into semantics than answers.

There's multisyllabic lyricists and there's content specific lyricists. There's no concrete definiton.

 

Aug 4, 2015

This question is only asked in rap forums lol, lyricism doesn't have a special definition for a genre with less than 50 years of life.

Lyra (harp) is a musical instrument (and a constellation) that accompanied narrators or singers or actors in ancient greece, it was utilised to express deeper emotions in various works of art. Lyricism is this particular act, of expressing yourself (if we'd be more strict, your deeper emotions) in art, and nowadays it's most commonly used in poetry and songwriting. Why would you even include wordplay etc in your definition?

edit: lyrics come from that root word above, as probably the most direct way of expressing yourself (you don't even need to write anything, just speak.) But there are countless paintings that have been characterised as lyrical, there are song writers before the first rapper was born that are lyrical (expressive and / or emotional) and so on. Expression in art (usually poetry / music) = lyricism, simple as that.

 

Aug 4, 2015

Because when rappers are identified as good lyricists or bad lyricists some of the factors that make them so are if they use wordplay etc in their raps and if they execute them well

 

Aug 4, 2015

I think wordplay is more lyricism than actual content

 

Aug 4, 2015

So basically they identify as good lyricists depending on how well they express themselves in a song, right?

 

Aug 4, 2015

Essentially yea