The Odd Couplets

Adam Bradley specializes in strange bedfellows.

Related Content

• Thump Day
  September 29, 2011
• STRFKR and Painted Palms at Crescent Ballroom, 1/10/12
  January 11, 2012
• Yelawolf
  October 13, 2011
• Most Outrageously Offensive Outfits of 2011
  December 30, 2011
• What's Selling: Zia Record Exchange Top 10 Selling Albums of the Week
  September 19, 2011

More About

• Adam Bradley
• Notorious B.I.G.
• Lil' Wayne
• Emily Dickinson

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

In his new analysis of hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, the author asserts that “rap has helped bring about a renaissance of the word, returning rhythm, rhyme and wordplay to our daily lives.”

In the book, the Harvard Ph.D. draws parallels between b-boy culture and the so-called “literary” world. One of his odd couplets is Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hope You Niggas Sleep” (“Niggas just can’t understand it/I bust a cap for the brothers in Nap Nap, Comstock, and Clinton/You know my shit is hitting”) and Emily Dickinson’s “I Cannot Live With You” (“I could not die with you/For one must wait/To shut the other’s gaze down/You could not”). Then there’s Lil Wayne’s “I’m a Beast” (“Make a list of yo boys/And go and murder them all/Life is short, yeah a midget told me that”) and Shakespeare’s Macbeth (“Those he commands move only in command/Nothing in love/Now does he feel his title/Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/Upon a dwarfish thief.”

Shit, who knew history repeated itself?