Friday, February 22, 2013

Shakespearean Hip Hop Lyrics

Ok, so, yesterday I was challenged to do a Shakespearean Hip Hop mashup game.  This is trickier than it sounds because on the one hand you've got source material that's stayed pretty constant for the last 400 years, and on the other you've got a musical genre that's pretty much entirely evolved within the last, what, 40 years or so?  So your definition of hip hop might be different from mine.

With that in mind, enjoy!

Shakespearean Hip Hop Lyrics


  • "Won't the real Cesario please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?"
  • "U Can't Touch This Dagger"  - M.C. Duncan
  • "I sang a hey, non, the nonny, the nonny,
    To the hey hey nonny, I can stop
    The singing to the down-a-down rhythm;
    In his grave rain'd many a tear.
    Fare you well my love! Hey nonny a-down."
        - Sugarhill Ophelia
  • "I like sack butts and I cannot lie." - Sir Falstaff-a-lot
  • "Don't push him 'cuz he's close to the edge, Macbeth tryin' not to lose his head."
  • "Accidentally killed your wife? I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but Emilia ain't one." - I(ago) Z
  • "Mama said knock Laertes out! I'm gonna knock him out!"  - LL Kool Hamlet
  • "So Montagues and Capulets across the land, take it from us, parents just don't understand." - DJ Lazy Lawrence and Escalus, the Fresh Prince






2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey! This is a great excercise as a line of Iambic Pentameter operates in the same way as a line of rap. So surely, S'peare is the original rapper!

I've written a rap version of Othello, and I'm trying to get funding together to make it into a music vid, to get peeps thinking of Shakespeare in a new way.

Check out my pitch: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/249197860/othello-the-music-video

Thanks!

Charlie

Phelia said...

*my dove