Analysis of Rap Game by D12

Switching from a serious political statement to angry sounding satire, in “Rap Game” the emcees of D12 utilize well placed internal rhyme, dark irony, and sweet alliteration to let the listener know that they need to sell their soul if they want to make it in the rap game.

Internal rhyme makes a line sound smoother and can make it roll from the tongue easier. In his verse, Proof says “The nastiest band with gats in each hand we never bow down to be a flash in a pan.” Band and hand rhyme, but hand is not the end of the bar. Pan is an imperfect rhyme to those words and completes the line. At the end of the verse he says “So we can battle with raps, we can battle with gats, matter of fact we can battle with plaques.” This has the same rhyme scheme as the last line.

Irony is used to produce dark humor in this song. Kuniva starts his piece off by saying “I’ll walk into a party and just start bustin’, right after I hear the last verse of Self Destruction.” Self Destruction is a song by KRS-One that is about how black people should not fight each other because it holds them back as an ethnicity. It is ironic that Kuniva fictionally listened to this song before starting such violence. Later in the track, Bizarre says “My little girl she shouldn’t listen to this lyric; that’s why I glued headphones to her ears and made sure she hears it.” He has the persona of being a horrible father and it’s ironic that he would make her listen to rap after saying she shouldn’t.

Alliteration is another device that composes a sweeter sounding line. It can make be a powerful tool in a song. Slim’s verse has the words “Switchblade with a little switch to switch blades, and switch from a six to a sixteen inch blade; s**t’s like a samurai sword, a sensei.” The alliteration makes this line much more entertaining to speak and better sounding.

The rappers of D12 use poetic devices such as internal rhyme, irony, and alliteration to perfect their flow and add shady humor to “Rap Game”. Internal rhyme and alliteration were what made the song sound better. This hooks the listener in so they pay attention to smaller details. Irony brought forth the comedy and gave the song more entertaining value. D12 combined these to form a complete and well thought out track.