As I was planning today's medley, I realized that while I've done several themed editions, I've never done an all-hip-hop edition. Time now to remedy that oversight!

While as always you're encouraged to listen to the entire songs, today all I really want to highlight are five of my favorite verses from hip-hop songs. You may notice that a few of these are actually guest verses, and I don't think that's any accident. One of the wonderful things about hiphop as a genre is how it encourages collaboration and friendly (and also not so friendly) competition between artists, and it follows that some of the finest work will come in guest appearances when rappers (sometimes young, upcoming rappers) are looking to make a big splash.

You'll see I've bolded some sections in the lyrics: bold means bits I'm particularly fond of.

The first verse in my list comes from one of my favorite Aesop Rock songs, although the verse itself is not performed by Aes himself. As awesome as Aes is, the true MVP of this track, "One Brick," is actually guest rapper Illogic. Illogic's verse begins at marker 2:09 and is truly an impressive achievement in lyrical craftmanship. The lyrics are so good I feel compelled to paste them below:

Wingless angels
Stroll a top shapeless cotton balls
With halos in your syringe
Celestial ground is found, broken
Exposing a bottomless depth where heartless spines awake to devour the small piece of your soul that's left
You're immersed in sound, floating
Aimless destination
Drop anchor to gain stability
Stare out potions, restrain fertility
Pedestal talk is a token soaked in pockets where lives' topics lack conceptual, ridicule
The night breathes, but light's choking
Darkness occupies the throne where poems are persecuted
The purity at time diluted
Rhymes are executed for genre, I'm told
When has beens attempt to cause heat to rise and wonder why they're trapped in cold
Life's an origami box and I'm hidden within the fold
So when the yarn unravels I won't be caught by surprise
And as society's fabric of orthodoxies dismantle I'll see you embracing the pentagram within this crucifix disguise
See, when the canvas stands before me I'm compelled to spill a vision
For the sinners that listen: I got three spikes and a thorn crown
It seems I need a new soul because mine is worn down
But from the pregnancy of my hardship was born style
Still my pen bleeds and stains the paper with thought
Finding me lost among statues of mainstream idols
Drowning in melted ice, to reinforce that breath is vital
If your father and his father were fish out of water you must break the cycle
How many times must a plant be uprooted, for it to die?
When it's smothered with lies that abolish the potency of the sky
So when the stars burn out and God replaces the bulbs with a million watts
And throws the switch, sparks filament
Herding blue giants and flocks
I stand on my own two, aura illuminated in red
Showcasing the agony held within this welded spirit
Sacrificing itself for the health of a masochistic culture
Yearning for the truth that we speak, but refuse to hear it

Next is a verse from the very same album, Labor Days, which I will always contend is possibly the most lyrically rich and dense rap album ever penned and recorded. This time the spotlight's on my man Aesop Rock. The first verse from "Battery" always blows my mind with lines like "There's smoke in my iris / But I painted a sunny day on the inside of my eyelids."

Below, the lyrics:

Yo change the fucking channel
I burn a Coma candle
When the flame fades, consider my flatline a soldier's sample
We them cats talking noise behind that New York trash heap
Where the stench of commuter briefcase replaces a bad sleep
And it's, worker zig-zagers versus piggy badge flashers
Training Generation Fallout
Waterfall bricklayer pincushion crawl out
There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I'm a dinosaur with Jones Beach in my hourglass
Passing the time with serial killer coloringbooks and bags of marbles
Don't tell me you ain't the droid that held the match to the charcoals
Don't tell me Lucifer and God don't carpool
(This is our school)
I'm not trying to graduate to life at the personalized barstool
Head in a jar on the desk, feet dangling in a shark pool
(Man please) Man please
My name stands for my being
And my being stands for the woman who stood
And braved the storm to raise the seedling
(Brother, sun, sister, moon, mother beautiful)
Yeah middle sibling suitable but far from son of excellence
Back in a long time ago, I was to way the wishes wish
But missers miss, I slept through my appointment
Saw the liquid dreams of a thousand babies solidify
And picked the rose that wilted
The second I introduced myself as Nervous
Well it appears the scars of learning have spoken
Some are burning, some have frozen
Some deserve tall tales, some wrote them
Some are just a brutal repercussion of devotion
Mine are all of the above cuz everything leads to erosion
Now where I live there's a homeless man, he sits upon a crate
He makes a rusty trumpet sound like the music that angels make
Now if you ever come and visit me, I suggest you watch the show
Tell him Aesop Rock sent ya just to hear his horn blow like this

Next one was a really hard one to pick, because I knew I had to limit myself to a single Killer Mike verse, but he has so many great ones both as a solo artist and with Run the Jewels. After much deliberation, I settled on his final verse from the track "Close Your Eyes and Count to Fuck" (which also features a ridiculous verse from Rage Against the Machine's Zach de la Rocha). What I love about this verse is the fluidity and fluency of Mike's flow, and the heavy use of alliteration, consonance, assonance, and internal rhyme to supplement the end rhyme scheme. Verse begins at 2:11. 

Lyrics below:

My solitary condition's preventin' conjugal visits
Though mainly missin' my missus, they keepin' me from my children
Conditions create a villain, the villain is given vision
The vision becomes a vow to seek vengeance on all the vicious
Liars and politicians, profiteers of the prisons
The forehead engravers enslavers of men and women
Including members of clergy that rule on you through religion
(So strip your kids to the nude and then tell 'em God'll forgive 'em)

Next is a guest appearance from Chance the Rapper on Action Bronson's Baby Blue, a song significant for two reasons: first, I believe it was one of the songs featured on the inaugural edition of this series, and second because it was the song that first introduced me to Chance the Rapper. What's wonderful about Chano's verse, which begins at 2:44, is that apart from the impressive and clever imagery Chance uses in his attack against an ex, he also introduces a powerful tonal shift toward the end of the verse. "I hope your tears don't hurt" is such a heavy, impactful line that the beat is interrupted, the music itself pausing for half a second as if to consider the meaning of the line, and what it means to progress from a place of anger to a place of acceptance and good-will.

And last is another verse, also a guest verse, from Chance the Rapper's second mixtape, Acid Rap. This verse from "Cocoa Butter Kisses" is a reminder of the potency of OG rapper Twista, and is an excellent display of his rapid fire "choppa" rapping style. Verse begins at 3:31.

Lyrics below:

I could make a flow, pitter patter with a patter pitter - juicy
Used to be in a jalabiya and a kufi
Trying hard not to be addicted to a groupie
I ended up on an album cover in a Coogi
You see, I be still a God but a goofy
You be flowing about drugs and a Uzi
That's the new principle, sometimes I'mma be about some hoes
Sometimes I'mma wanna make a movie
And when it come to rapping fast, I'm the Higgs Boson
And though my style freakish
I could still break your body down to five pieces like I did Voltron
'Cause I'm addicted to the craft and I be off a OG
Know me, I'm the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the dope see
Never scared of mean spirits, methamphetamine lyrics
Cooler like I'm offa codeine, low key
Don't be so judgmental, even though I'm reminiscing
If I don't know what I miss is
I'ma end up figuring out that it's home
And my mother and my grandmother cocoa butter kisses
This is just a testament to the ones that raised me
The ones that I praise and I'm thanking
I need 'em but the chronic all up in my clothes
And I wanna get a hug, and I can't 'cause I'm stanking
Never too old for a spanking, IGH!