Diction, Poetry, and Hip-Hop
This lesson follows our work with Francine Prose’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read,” which is embedded here:
In her essay, Prose has a few things to say about Maya Angelou. We will now look at one of Angelou’s most famous poems, pairing it with a hip-hop song it inspired:
The usual assignment for this pair of texts is a tone and diction analysis — a breakdown of word choice and how it contributes to the meaning of the overall piece. You might be asked to use this list, for instance, or to search through Google for any of the dozens of other lists available.
But we’re meant to be a makerspace. You should pay attention to word choice, but only because that’s what you do naturally when you read poetry or hear a song. Your assignment needs to be more creative, so: Use your analysis of these texts to create something meaningful. Emulate the poetry, search up other songs by Atmosphere and respond to them, have a circled discussion with a small group — just make it meaningful.
The song needs to be heard, of course, so:
On a side note (sub-tangent?), the comments on that video are, as you might expect, fascinating. Many years ago, I collected some of them for the first version of this lesson, and they ran the gamut from insightful:
It seems to me that this song is a response to Maya Angelou’s poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Maya Angelou is a world-renowned African American poet, and her poem is a moving portrayal of the beauty of freedom. This song expresses the animosity and frustration of people who are NOT YET free, to whom the free bird is insulting and offensive. It might not be the author’s personal view, but it captures an important viewpoint that definitely exists in our culture.
To, well, less insightful:
no joke, i think hes talking about the reptillians/winged serpents/lizards(lizzies)/draconians which are from the planet in the Alpha Draconi star system of the Orion Constellation and created by the their parent race The Carians.
That first quoted comment mistakes the title of Angelou’s poem, “Caged Bird,” for the title of her memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” I’ve made that mistake, too. It’s such a common mistake that it lets me link to a Snopes article on the Mandela Effect, which is really about confabulation and the faulty state of our memories1.
As for the second quoted comment: I appreciate the effort to clarify that the lizards can also be called “lizzies,” although I’d like to know if that is a term of endearment or just a sign of informality.
There are many other comments posted under that Atmosphere song. YouTube remains, as always, an endless documentary on the state of American consciousness. Here is a variation on that theme from 2008, which is so far in the past now that it’s a little disconcerting: Michael Agger’s attempt to classify and divide more than 58,000 comments on a clip of a baby laughing.
Use the space below to talk to me about this work.
One of the problems we can tackle in a Humanities makerspace is the problem of memory. We might look at this nonfiction article, this Borges short story, Joan Didion’s essay on keeping a notebook, even another Atmosphere song — four perspectives on memory that open us up to exactly the kind of discussion and writing that asks and answers important questions. ↩
In my opinion, I completely agree with the first comment mentioned in this post. The lyrics of this song are reminiscent of a craving of freedom for the singer, and a sort of anger towards those who have attained such freedom. For example, in this song, Atmosphere raps
“Get the bird, bring her down to the ground from out the air
Gotta tear her apart, let me at her first
Sink her to the level of the rest of us that inherit the earth.”
This verse implies anger at the freedom of others since the bird should “sink to the level of the rest of us that inherit the earth.” This type of sentiment is not uncommon–those who crave some type of freedom or are angry at their situation tend to lash out on people who have more. However, this sentiment is not unguided either; often times, the existence of inequality in society allows some to experience a higher degree of freedom than others, resulting in revolutionist sentiments such as what I interpret this song to be. This idea is additionally supported by the verse, “My feathered friend’s end will justify the means,” which I see to be a play on the quote “The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end,” by Leon Trotsky, a communist revolutionist. This clearly shows a revolutionist sentiment, inspired by Angelou’s mentions of a free bird. Although this may simply be a coincidence, I still believe this song to be a response to the “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou tinged with revolutionist sentiments.
I agree as well, but I think it could be ineterpreted in many different ways and can teach different lessons, and I think the comment you mentioned does not look at all snetiments, but I think you did a good job explaining it.
This song and the meaning of the song is open to interpretation. I believe that it is connected to Maya Angelou’s poem “I know why the caged bird sings”. One of the lyrics of the song is, “Well I’ll shake her from her branch, tear apart her nest, break her skinny legs and fry her eggs up for breakfast.” And after reading the poem I made the assumption that this lyric is talking about the caged bird being tied down, torn apart, and not allowed to be free, and that the “caged bird” symbolizes people being trapped, mistreated, and being robbed of their freedoms because not only of race but other bigotries. After reading the comments on the song, a lot of people try to say that it’s just a song and theres no correlation to the work of Maya. But in the poem itself she says, “his wings are clipped and his feet are tied” talking about the caged bird. Showing how she is also talking about the freedom of this bird and these people not being able to be free and being tortured basically. And There are so many other examples that also show how they’re both connected by their messages. The poem by Maya Angelou and the song by Atmosphere do discuss the same social issues that we still have today but in different ways.
I also believe that Maya Angelou’s poem “I know why the caged bird sings” and this song are connected. They’re are way to many similarities and references to the poem that there’s no way that they aren’t correlated. For example, in the song it says, “The chirps, I turn them into screams. My feathered friends end will justify the means. Disturbed, I’ll grab her by her beak and swing her in circles until she’s too dizzy to speak.” I believe that the bird that is mentioned throughout the song is the “caged bird” which symbolizes someone who is not free “The chirps, I turn them into screams” is like a person who has no room to move and just wants to scream because of how many people are on their backs. As Jackie had mentioned “Well I’ll shake her from her branch, tear apart her nest, break her skinny legs and fry her eggs up for breakfast.” is also a reference to the “caged bird,” because its about someone who is being mistreated and disrespected.
Firstly, what comes to mind when looking at the song and from reading the post’s title is that the titles clearly relate to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sing. When it comes to the comments in the post; I agree with the first comment. After a quick search, the spoken intro”Regarde le serpent mignon. Mords-tu, le serpent ? Salut.” translates to english as “Look at the adorable snake. Do you bite, Mr. Snake? Hello!” Which as stated in genius.com can mean the narrator “describing a young bird naively a snake, which bites you in greeting.” As the song continues, it seems that the narrator who is now singing the song shows his hatred towards the bird; he continues his hatred throughout the song calling the bird a “disgusting critter” and a “Piece of garbage with wings”. In the final verse of the song he threatens to kill the bird (doesn’t say it word-for-word but you get the idea). Now to Angelou’s poem which talks about the same topic in a somewhat diverse way compared to the song. The poem in the ends relates to the bird yearning for freedom which is talked down upon in the song. Even though the two literature pieces may only share a somewhat common name; they both talk about similar ideologies in different ways.
The bird could be representing the white man, someone who is enjoying so many little luxuries and allowances without pause or thought or appreciation. The bird seems to offend the author, the mere tendencies of its existence, it’s freedom in flight, and carefree singing, the ignorance to its privilege for being able to do those things, fills the author with disdain. The author wanting to grab the bird out of the air and bring it to the ground being anger towards white people for their self appointend superiority hence, the bird flying above the author representing the white people putting themselves above African Americans.
I am very intrigued by this song as it’s lyrics are very in depth. They have different meanings, double meanings. You could see his lyrics as a personal attack. He could be talking about himself from the third person, as this bird, blaming himself for actions he’s done. This could also be an interpretation of slavery since it’s based off of the old slavery song sung back in the day. It could also be during the civil rights movement. There are many stories and different meanings and perspectives you can take from this poem and it’s very influencial. Though all have different meanings in a way, they all share one thing, a sort of oppression from something or someone. Wether it is a white man in the perspective of slavery, or himself and his actions, or even just the rich man in general who are better off than those who are in poverty. This poem is a 3D story told on a 2D paper. It’s an amazing song and poem with so much imagery and an intense message in the form of ranting.