What Does Lyrical Even Mean?

At a semantic level, the “what’s lyrical” debate is dumb. The word has two definitions. The first is to convey something in a beautiful way. The other is quite literally, relating something to pop music lyrics. Google it if you don’t believe me. 

I mostly infer the first definition when I hear people say lyrical, since they often say things like pop music lacks lyrical qualities. I know it sounds dumb, but “A-B-C-D-E-F-U and your (insert thing)” is quite beautiful to me. At first it was a weak line, but now I see it as a base level unifier of expressing that moment where you just want to say fuck off. But kids may be around or something. 

Someone sent me one of those “Rap vs Hip Hop” means and the idea of being “The best lyricist” was presented as Hip Hop instead of Rap. I’ve never understood this argument, or who is the authority on this topic (I know some say KRS ONE). I understand there are many interpretations to what lyrical means, and maybe my upbringing and past experiences limit my PRSPCTVS, but this is how I see it. 

Complex is not inherently better 

If complicated music was the best, Tool would be GOATED by everyone and not super rock nerds. People would be out there sharing songs from the Streams of Thought series by Black Thought. That local rapper you know with the illest bars with all the depth, would be farther along in their career. 

There is a skill component to music. The people who learn to appreciate good skill in music will value complicated musical setups. I certainly do. When done correctly, a very hard to do manoeuvre can create sonic beauty. Other times that same effort comes off more like a cheap trick than actual substance.

People who can write and create complex, deep pieces are wonderful. Their art is something worth studying and analyzing. The issue is often their art requires you to study and analyze it. Once you do, the novelty is gone and the mystery is solved. The feeling of being impressed fades once you know how the magic is performed. Hence, magicians not revealing their tricks. 

Having skill and being able to do complicated things is a useful tool for the toolkit. I promise you every time I freestyle a fast and constant pace, while remaining coherent, college white kids will lose their shit. Every. Single. Time. What I say doesn't really matter. I say some real fluffy things when freestyling sometimes. I own it, and those that really listened joke about it with me after.

To be clear, I do deliver some fire messages when I freestyle and I get on my rant shit. But real talk it’s like if I were to rap a blog. Often the less tricky I get, the more substance there is.

The point of this section is to drive home that complexity isn’t inherently beautiful. It’s only beautiful when it’s understood. A lot of times, it makes a potential fan turn away, since beauty is subjective. 

There is beauty in connection

I will now copy and paste Google, citing the Oxford folk’s definition of beauty (I made the word colour Canadian though):a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.

You know what I don’t see in that definition, complexity and skill. I believe everyone that creates beautiful things, every good lyricist, has to have a degree of complexity and a high-level of skill. The question becomes, what do you do with it all?

One day as I was interviewing artists I realized women and men really do have different listening habits. I am generalizing, but stats are stats and men and women en masse are drawn to different things. Men were big mad their women liked Chad & Aubrey and as such they hate Nickelback and Drake. 

You go to any party where women are at, and you will hear Drake these days. Hating Drake publicly is almost admitting you don’t go to places where large groups of women are at. Again, I’m generalizing, no one cares about the specific situations that violate what I’m saying. The majority of people follow these trends. There isn’t some study I can cite, but I’m selfishly invested in the topic of connecting to audiences, I learned a lot and am sharing what I’ve observed

Let’s circle back to beauty. Say what you will, I find this line really lyrical, “These 5 words in my head, say are we having fun yet, yeah, yeah, no, no”. If you want to get into it, it’s extremely hard to write something that simple, that reaches so many people, and says so much at once. 

Simple is actually really hard

In my experience it’s easier to rap fast than it is to rap slow. When you go fast, you can hide a lack of rhythm and there’s not much room for complexity. At a superficial level it sounds cool, but often it’s more of a card trick than something with depth. You have to fill allllll those syllables. 

In case people question my assessment, I reviewed about 450 albums, track by track on my YouTube channel. I’m not an expert, but I did actually try to be for about 6 years. On that note, I’ll review your album or literature for money, holla.

That “How You Remind Me” lyric hit hard. At the time of its release I was discovering heartbreak. Over the years it served as a mantra of when bad love stuff happened. In the most plain English ever, Chad captures this moment when you look at you partner and realize, this sucks. Only he wrote it in the way a 12 year old could relate to it as much as a 75 year old.

You can barely speak English and know what that means. That, to me, is beautiful. I don’t believe ideas of substance need to be layered to be appreciated. That being said, when an artist like Jay-Z layers 4 meanings into a line that appears simple, it is truly masterful.

When I perform I win over most crowds with these 3 words , lose weight motherfucker. 

I don’t say anything tricky in that hook. “If you want to get laid, what you bringing to the game, motherfucker lose weight”. I am aware some people find the track fat shamey, but I wrote it to myself and about myself. If I’m not allowed to motivate myself to lose weight, healthily, so I can fuck how I want, what’s the point of making art. 

This is a great transition into the final point today

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

When it comes to art, there is no way to judge better or worse objectively outside of what will perform well and what will perform worse. Critics can describe all kinds of qualities of art, but album sales if the next album gets made far more than the reception of critics. If no one ever buys your art, is it good? What happens if after you die they buy it, does your death make it good?

The problem with beauty is it is so fickle. We went from heroin chic to BBLs in like, 25 years. People like what they like. A lot of things come off lyrical that probably aren’t. I find “Harvey’s makes a hamburger, a beautiful thing” lyrical AF. I like jingles, they are some of the finest writing you will find. Clearly communicating intent with absolute brevity. Like, “Call 1877, 267 2001, ALAARMMM FORCE” is a banger. I also watch ads for the art of it, so that may be a me thing. 

How can you tell me that’s not lyrical to me? You can’t. You can explain it, but it sounds like how it sounds to me. That means that to some people, Black Thought is the definition of beauty and other people think Iggy Azalea makes fire music, I know personally that is a fact. You can argue Iggy is trash all day, is that going to make her fans believe you?

It’s pretentious to go out there and gatekeep what people like because you don’t. I think the biggest issue I see in Montreal’s music scene is people not accepting each other's version of beauty. Especially the people who have money to buy their art. I’ve seen people be mad at audiences (in a place where English is not the primary language) for not understanding nuanced double entendres. 

Unfortunately people will only ever find beautiful what they can connect with or relate to. It’s not beautiful if people don’t understand you. That isn’t to say there aren’t people who will find what you do beautiful, but it’s never going to be beautiful to those that feel confusion or distaste over not connecting with it. 

Kind of like how a joke sucks if you have to explain it. 

Live Long and Prosper Everyone