Jay-Z: Rap Is Poetry

Rap is poetry? Rap is poetry. Yes! FreddyO and The Boombox both point to Jay-Z talking--in a previously unreleased video used to promote his book, Decoded--about the great and conscious writing in rap. The rapper and mogul says:

... You never hear rappers being compared for like the greatest writers of all time. You hear Bob Dylan. So is Biggie Smalls in a Hitchcock way. Some of the things that Biggie wrote ... Rakim, I mean listen to some of the things he wrote. I mean if you take those lyrics and you pull them away from the music and you put 'em up on the wall somewhere and someone had to look at them, they would say, 'This is genius. This is genius work.'

Watch Jay-Z give reverence to rap and poetry in the video below.