This week on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, take a dive into what makes for an unshakable rap verse -- the kind that shifts your worldview and sticks around years after the first time you encountered it.
LISTEN NOW: Pop Culture Happy Hour | The Hip-Hop Verse That Changed My Life
Pop Culture Happy Hour
As the music world celebrates 50 years of Hip-Hop, hearing all of the songs and styles, hustles & flows of our favorite artists past and present has been leading to more than a few sing-alongs. It's not just the music that has moved fans globally; it's also the message -- the verses -- that strike a deeply personal chord among listeners. But what truly makes a song's lyrics stick?
Sidney Madden, host of the Louder Than A Riot podcast, goes back to her college years, counting Kendrick Lamar's 2011 Section.80 debut "HiiiPOWER" as the song that "turned me on and activated me to what it means to struggle with all these complicated emotions as a Black person living in America." The song, she says, "felt hymnal, it felt personal, and it felt like it was really speaking directly to me in a way that other conscious rap songs hadn't quite felt before."
"Tank" Ball of Tank and the Bangas also joins the podcast sharing her own lyrical favorite -- perfectly reciting Left Eye's praying-hands verse in TLC's Rap version of "No Scrubs." Tank says she remembers "pressing stop and pause, trying to memorize the rap and write it down from the radio. It was so hard, because she was so dope at it, but once you learned those lyrics and you was able to recite them in front of your friends at the next party --- worth every stop, record, and play."
Rapper Common drops in as well among others, offering up Nas' Illmatic track "N.Y. State of Mind" as the track that changed his life because it "changed me as a writer," he admits. "It changed me as an artist. When I heard that verse I realized how beautiful Rap could be, how deep it could be, how much imagery you could use with your words. How just getting to the essence of where you are in life and who you are, and what you've seen is just powerful. That's always been, for me, what I loved about Rap, was the expression to be and say who I am."
Listen to the full episode above, now streaming on Audacy. Get obsessed five days a week as Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, video games, and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer.
Listen to more of your favorite music on Audacy's Hip Hop Made suite of stations, as well as Conscious Hip Hop, Hip Hop Uncut, Women of Hip Hop, and more -- plus check out our talent-hosted Ed Lover's Timeless Throwbacks and Greg Street's Dirty South Hip Hop!
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