- Skyzoo (Langston’s Pen)

When I fell in love with hip-hop it wasn’t just words over beats. In that respect, I’m grateful that I fell in love with the story-telling aspect of the Young M.C. albums I grew up around before I became impressed with the 808s and breakbeats.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first one to close my eyes and nod to a dope beat. But not so impressive verses over a hot beat = that’ll be hot on the radio…prolly.

So what I listen to verses?? Damn sure doesn’t mean I understand every lyric I hear or comprehend every reference in its context.  Sometimes my ears fall short and I hear noise.  Even so, the last thing I would want any artist to do is dumb it down so that it’s more relatable.  

More than once, I’ve googled  a lyric to better understand its placing in a verse and then, once I grasped the context, I appreciated it much more. 

I guess it bothers me that artists like Skyzoo get so heavily criticized for lyrical content when its evident that he composes his verses using his education and experience.  In essence, he is smart (in my opinion) and those 4 syllable words aren’t appreciated in the hip-hop community.

Fuck that.  

Teach me something!  Now, my opinion is biased because I think his intelligence is damn attractive (<—-girly stuff) but all that shade because you don’t “get” a line is wack in my opinion. 

I’m sayin’… how many of those bloggers know who Langston Hughes is??