Homer’s Iliad is likely one of the foundational tales of European civilisation. The Iliad is a protracted poem – an epic – thought to have first been put down in writing within the eighth century BC, although the story is ready a number of hundred years earlier than, maybe as early because the twelfth or thirteenth century BC.
It explores a couple of essential violent weeks inside a for much longer struggle between an alliance of Greek city-states and town of Troy over Helen, essentially the most stunning girl on this planet. In it, we discover historical Greek gods and people sharing a typical actuality. They concurrently star because the central characters of each a mythological and an earthly dramatic encounter, on which the destiny of a folks rests.
In his work, public thinker Cornel West argues that there is a “gangster” inside all of us. The problem, West teaches, is to be taught to maintain these “gangster components” in examine in order that we are able to nonetheless stay with decency and integrity in an usually violent and unjust world. This battle, I contend, is on the coronary heart of each Homer’s Iliad and the artwork of battle rap.
This text is a part of Rethinking the Classics. The tales on this collection provide insightful new methods to consider and interpret basic books and artworks. That is the canon – with a twist.
Battle rap is an artwork kind the place two or extra MCs confront each other in a freestyle rap that features boasts, insults, wordplay and disses (associated to however to not be confused with rap beefs just like the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud).
The historical past of this sort of verbal jousting goes again no less than to flyting – poetic duels often involving rhyming insults, widespread in northern Europe within the late medieval period. (See Murderer’s Creed Valhalla for its latest reimagining.) And it additionally has African roots. However its newest iteration is believed to have emerged within the hip-hop scene in New York within the Eighties. The 1981 Busy Bee versus Kool Moe Dee battle on the Harlem World membership in New York is a crucial a part of hip-hop lore.
Learn extra:
A short historical past of the diss observe – from the Roxanne Wars to Megan Thee Stallion
It was arguably the 2002 movie 8 Mile, nevertheless, that starred actual battle rap legend, Eminem, that made the artwork kind well-known past hardcore rap aficionados. At present it’s a popular culture streaming occasion, with hundreds of thousands of followers and official leagues.
The item of a battle rap is to show move, braggadocio and fast wit. Humour is usually a plus, however lyrically dexterous, rhythmic, artistic “burns” are the secret.
So what do the Iliad and battle rap have in frequent?
Each artwork kinds encourage us, the listeners, to react, mirror and in the end choose with which speaker to facet. We’re thrust into the centre of the motion with out a lot of a narrator to clarify issues.
Each the Iliad and rap battles are a part of the oral poetic custom, since we predict the Iliad was orally recited for generations earlier than it was put down in writing. They’re subsequently each addressed to a stay viewers.
The Iliad is a narrative of struggle between Greeks and Trojans, but in addition of “beefs”. Menelaus versus Paris over the hand of Helen. Achilles versus Agamemnon, the king of the Greeks who wrongs him by expropriating certainly one of his slaves. And Achilles versus Hector, the Trojan prince who kills Patroclus, Achilles’s closest buddy.
The excessive second of the poem is arguably the encounter between Achilles and Hector. Earlier than they battle to the demise, Hector gives Achilles a deal: whoever wins received’t disrespect the opposite’s physique.
In response, Achilles belows: “Curse you, Hector, and don’t discuss of oaths to me. Lions and males make no compacts, nor are wolves and lambs in sympathy: they’re opposed, to the top. You and I are past friendship: nor will there be peace till one or the opposite dies.”
Achilles is asking out Hector’s try at exhibiting the Aristocracy of character, as a result of Hector tries to separate the obligation to wage battle from rage and disrespect of his enemy. Achilles flatly rejects the proposal. For him, the one cause to struggle is to satiate his grief-induced rage and so no respect will be given even after demise.
Finally, Achilles kills Hector and desecrates his physique, however Hector was clearly the higher man. Two worldviews collide. Which one ought to we facet with?
In a battle rap, the query of how we decide which MC to be victorious is at all times at stake. Can we facet with the MC who finest “rocks the mic” by pleasing the viewers, or the one who extra lyrically and intelligently cuts the opponent to the bone?
Listed below are 5 extra themes shared by The Iliad and battle rap.
1. The pursuit of fame
Battle rap has made gifted MCs into road rap legends. Lengthy earlier than file offers had been the prize, MCs battled for respect and road fame.
This pursuit of legendary standing additionally lies on the very coronary heart of The Iliad, as Achilles is warned by his mom, the goddess Thetis, that he’ll die if he fights within the Trojan struggle, however in return his “glory by no means dies”.
2. Communal belonging
Battle rappers and the soldiers in The Iliad act in their very own title however additionally they signify wider teams heralding from completely different locations. All of them, indirectly, carry duty for and purpose to deliver mirrored fame to their respective communities.
3. Displaying ability
Most battle raps take the type of a take down of the opponent, however the actual object is to show verbal prowess. Merely entertaining is not going to minimize it. “You now should make sense of what you say, to ensure that us to provide the energy,” summarises hip-hop legend KRS-One.
The Iliad opens with a muse telling the viewers that the epic will recount the “wrath of Achilles”, however actually we discover skilful interventions in speech that make us ponder whether the explanations for battle can ever justify the grief it causes.
4. An honour code
What is really price dwelling and dying for are central themes in The Iliad, as in battle rap. There we discover discuss of loyalty, honour, respect, braveness, friendship and fame.
The overt solutions given will be taken as embraces of a sure form of poisonous masculinity the place dominance, rage, crafty and violence are celebrated, however possibly these solutions subtly level to their final hollowness.
Lurking behind the repeated injunction to “be the most effective”, battle rap and Homer’s epic invite the query of what’s really price admiring: ability, dominance, wealth, integrity, braveness, magnificence, fact, justice, love or glory? They supply no singular reply.
5. Creativity and dwelling throughout the ‘funk’ of life
As an alternative, we’re left to sit down inside what West calls the “funk of life” – the mess of all of it. From there, we are able to see that the tales we inform ourselves have the ability to form and outline our actions and our very lives.
So the principle query turns into: at a time when simplistic tales of violence and domination are offered to us as simple solutions to complicated social realities, can we create new and richer tales of our personal?
