Rahman Jamaal performs a live fusion of hip-hop and classical music, blending rap lyrics with Rachmaninoff after his grandmother challenged him to create something she'd respect. He argues that rap is a rigorous poetic form, not the commercial product mainstream culture dismisses, and that hip-hop deserves recognition as legitimate art.
Chapters
Here we are.
I want to start off and just demonstrate what I sort of started with, my splash into the entertainment industry that has started in 2003 with, like you said, a film called The Beat, and has sort of carried on its longevity for over 10 years. I'm going to do this piece that was featured in The Beat, originally written for my grandmother. Who was my first music teacher. And the story behind how I came to the idea of writing this song was because when I was real young, I heard rap for the first time, immediately fell in love with it, wanted to do it, wanted to try it, wanted to write my own. My grandmother was a classical pianist, though. And she— her ears were not ready for that. So she's like, I hate rap. And I loved rap. And I love my grandmother. And I thought, maybe there's a way I can bring these things together. If I could write a rap that my grandmother will like, well, then I know that I'm onto something. And so I took her most favorite composer, classical composer, a Russian by the name of Rachmaninoff, and I wrote a rap to one of his pieces. Not like a sample that you would repeat and put to a break, but literally to the sheet music. And later, when I was in college, I kind of wrote half the song. Later, when I was in college, a friend of mine who was the writer-director of The Beat, he writes for The Blacklist now, he cast me in his idea for a movie. And he said, you know, I think there would be a cool scene where your character raps to classical music about the artistic merits of hip-hop. And it was one of these strange coincidence serendipities that was like, oh, this is like 2 parallel universes connecting. We both had the same idea, and let's use it together. And so I'm just going to do this for you. So this was written for people who might not have an understanding— like, let's say your experience with rap music only comes through what we call the music industry or the entertainment industry, and maybe not through the culture of hip-hop.
Right.
Which is underground. It's a culture, and the Bay Area is extremely unique as far as people doing things that have never been done before and coming up with new styles. So proud to be from here, the Bay Area. This is a track called This Isn't Art. People have lost respect for the finer things. I don't mean the kind of bling, bling, bling of diamond rings.
I'm talking about creativity. To really be an ill MC while having the ability to keep polyphony. Most people will agree the main view is that rap is plain stupid, using lame excuses to say That it ain't music, I'd probably say the same you would. The truth is these rappers don't make music because they can't do it. You would think hip-hop was all about the sweet lyric, but put a loud beat near it, I doubt you'll even hear it. So in this business, a lyricist is pissed and furious, 'cause rap, it surely is becoming spurious, and this is serious. I'm sick of this simpleness making hip-hop look ridiculous, 'cause people want cheap emulation. These weak imitations defeat innovation. Even in a place when we seek integration, it takes patience to find a decent arrangement.
See, entertainment breeds the same.
It's a shame when people change to attain the 15 of fame. I'm just saying it's a shame. 'Cause it seems to be the game we playing. Because to say that rap is intellectual, that's unprofessional. 'Cause if it's not violent, it must be something sexual. Tons of censors all agree it's unexceptional, one-directional, plus it's unquestionably unrespectable. Yo, that's unacceptable. See, they'll underestimate but eventually they'll need to pay attention. See, I mentioned when I bust on instrumentals, it's intentional.
Y'all with me so far?
Yeah.
Not your normal rap, right? I love your normal rap. All right, well, listen.
I can bust Rachmaninoff, switch styles with Benoninoff while y'all trying to talk. Save it, you might want a cloth. You choking on your words like it was the common cough, you know? I'm so mad and inflammatory that the Grammys always have awarding for hip-hop in a rap category. And the story's self-explanatory. It's self-explanatory, 'cause the standard's always having sorry. Didn't expect much of what they had before me when all we used to do was battle rap for glory. Well, who's gonna reform where the path is going when us cats are after 40? Stay with me now. You see, look at rap and ask what songs are working. We're not searching for the honest person, we're looking for the worst who's fond of cursing. Pure controversy we want to purchase. Well, some will see that as a harmful purpose, others treat it just like it's on the surface. But no matter how right or wrong the verse is, people that hear rap think the song is worthless. And what's worse is all the exploitation, voice faking for the next boy sensation. Rich glamour and glitz is a choice he's taken, but nobody can tell you the point he's making. So I don't want to sit here poised and waiting for paid kids to fake it the more they make it. Before the fame, they was naked. I seen better skill coming out of California raisins. How outrageous. The page is being turned musically. Usually I'm used to singing tunes, it's using ingenuity. Well, maybe soon there'll be some unity, assuming we can regain fluency to truthfully do it genuinely. See, what I'm doing between you and me is coming fluidly sequential like 1, 2, and 3, and in this community only a few can see. Wouldn't you agree? That's why I moved to speak the truth to people till my eulogy. Or better yet, resurrect and scare those like a werewolf tearing clothes from the hair growth. Come prepared for where the air goes. Here, a Draper U flowing to your chair toes, making it unfair for those MCs dumber than that one scarecrow looking somewhere over the rainbow for brains.
So you better listen hard.
I seen the Some disregard rap like it isn't art, but they're missing all that smart lyrics, all mixing parts, understood by those from the business cards to the prison yards. So disembark, leave your assumption behind. You'll find every line keeping time is refined by the rhyme. And then try to do that off the top of the mind. And if you still don't see the skill to flow free, don't speak your own lead. This is poetry. We just added a dope beat to make it more sweet. Can't feel that? Then go to sleep and don't breathe, 'cause it's more powerful than you ever could dream. Mass communication has taken on the cleverest means Never could be destitute. People who claim that are only resolute in their ineptitude. So get it through your head, hip-hop is much more than the skill that you just saw in the lyrics I said. We only know a fraction of the whole, and that's no bull. Not even half the cup is full. Now if you want more, I wouldn't know where to start. We'd have to tear it apart and just flow from the heart. But yo, now tell me hip-hop isn't an art.
