Rival rappers Notorious B.I.G. (1994) and Tupac Shakur (1995) display fairly similar style characteristics: 28% of their rhymes are 2 syllables long, 6% are three syllables, and 3% are longer. However, Biggie’s lines are significantly shorter in length, with, on average, 10.8 syllables to 2Pac’s 11.6. Artists from the early 2000s like Jay-Z (2001), Eminem (2000), and especially Fabolous (2001) favour longer rhymes, with 15%, 17%, and 30% respectively of their rhymes being longer than 2 syllables. They also have the most rhyme density overall, with 2.2, 2.3, and 1.9 rhymes per line respectively. Jay-Z and Eminem tend to use more internal rhyme as well, having 0.8 internal rhymes per line–about 25% higher than the average among other MCs. Although he portrays a “thug” persona, 50 Cent (2003) uses the most syllables per line (12.1), while Lil’ Wayne (2008) has the fewest (10.2). However, he manages high rhyme density (0.3 rhymed syllables for each syllable used) with relatively few (only 1.8) rhymes per line. In general, we find that automatic rhyme detection can yield
The one caveat is that only a limited number of songs/albums/rappers were used in the paper. Obviously if we could find more computer scientists who are also hip hop heads...we could quantify entire careers. Luckily the people I know making the "all in one" software I described earlier are huge fans of all eras of hip hop. It'll be interesting to see how they adjust flow scores for pre-Rakim and post-Rakim rappers.
Tons of people will say "this will dehumanize hip hop and make it more robotic than before" but that logic fails because:
1. Dynamic quantification is different from static quantification
2. Hip hop is already suffering in your elitist eyes, why not try something that will bring interest back to the lyrics? C'mon son.
(not directed at anyone in particular, just a general statement)
