Musical Cheaters

I like to listen to, among other things, rap.  I can't exactly tell you why I like it (why do you like your favorite color, for example?), but there is an art to it that I find appealing.  Sometimes, someone tells a compelling story, a la Mike Shinoda:


My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine
On the back he hand wrote a quote inside
"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die"

Or sometimes, there's a clever phrase or set of words that can be funny (this one comes from Roscoe):


I got five fingers, it ain't no riddle
Why the only one showin is the one in the middle

Either way, there's skill involved in putting together verses that end up rhyming.  The artists/rapper/lyricist person puts together sentences that happen to rhyme, and those sentences actually meaning something. Put it this way: it is possible to put punctuation marks that actually make sense in a verse that's well crafted.

Well, that's the way it should be, according to me.  You could go another way with it.  You could just throw random words together that happen to rhyme, and call it a "song."  And heck, maybe it could even get some air time, like all of the following examples  (Note: no way I'm linking to any of this stuff, I'm not trying to improve hit counts)

• "Rocketeer" by Far East Movement
  
  We're on to the next level, Super Mario
  I hope this works out, cardio
  Till then let's fly, Geronimo
  
  That's nice, everything rhymes.  You know what, though?  Those aren't complete sentences!  Heck, that's like someone picked out three random phrases that rhymed (Super Mario, cardio, Geronimo) and then attached quasi-definitions to the beginning.  Also, there is no place I could stick a period anywhere in that and still have it make sense.  Far East Movement, you fail.
  
• "Forever" by Drake
  
  She insists she got mo' class, we know
  Swimmin' in the money, come and find me, Nemo
  
  That first part is still somewhat acceptable, since it flows like a conversation would.  And I even think that there's a little bit of cleverness to correlating "find me" and "Nemo" (like the movie).  But you couldn't spend like an extra 30 seconds thinking about how to write an actual sentence?  No, instead, let's just throw the word in at the end, since it rhymes.
  
• "Bedrock" by Young Money
  
  He say Nicki don't stop, you the bestest
  And I'd just be coming off the top, asbestos
  
  See that second sentence?  See how the last five words all sort of correlate (asbestos often falls off of ceilings) but they don't actually resemble an ending to a sensible sentence?  My first grade teacher would have been appalled.
  
• "Bedrock" by Young Money (yup, it was THAT good of a song)
  
  cause she knows she bad
  and I got her, ni---
  grocery bag
  
  One, that barely rhymes.  Two, can anyone tell me what that means?  Why are those last two words there?  In fact, there were so many people that were confused by this, that the top four Urban Dictionary entries for this all make fun of the guy.  Mind you, this is a website that has a legitimate, serious definition for "hahaha."  And even this paragon of language deemed this verse ridiculous enough to mock.
  
• Snoop Dogg
  
  There's a reason I didn't put an actual song; at one point, the guy just decided that it was too much trouble to rhyme words in his music.  So, he added "izzle" to the end of everything.  My friend Urban Dictionary also makes fun of him for this, and I think I tend to agree.
  
• "Into You" by Fabolous & Tamia (this one is an honorable mention)
  
  The entire first verse
  
  There are 18 lines in that first verse, and 11 of them end with the word "now."  That just feels like cheating, doesn't it?  However, upon further inspection, a lot of the second-to-last syllables rhyme, too.  So, despite the fact that it looks like he just got bored & gave up one afternoon, there's some actual substance here.  Ergo, Fabolous makes this list as an honorable mention.

  The best part about all of this is that I tend to hear a lot of these during my commute to and from work.  Inexplicably, many of these songs are popular, so I hear a lot of these during my commute.  I may have to start listening to classical music.