词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Rap Freestyling

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": December 5, 2002

MUSIC: "Lose Yourself"/Eminem ("8 Mile" soundtrack)

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- the art of rap. This form of music sprang from the hip-hop culture of young, urban African Americans.

RS: But, as often happens with black music, it is a white artist who is getting lots of attention lately -- especially now that he's starring in a semi-biographical movie, called "8 Mile." We're talking about Eminem. That's E-M-I-N-E-M, a play on the initials of his real name, Marshall Mathers.

AA: A top rapper is known as an M-C, meaning "master of ceremonies" or "microphone controller." A few years ago Priest Da Nomad¹, a local M-C from Washington came into our studios to talk about rap.

PRIEST DA NOMAD: "To rap is basically just like to speak, but it's to speak rhythmically². And when you -- you notice that when you talk anyway, you kind of define a rhythm, but we don't really notice it. So it's really like consciously doing it, and it's just using your brain, which is a muscle. So it's like everything you do, it's like going to the gym with your brain."

AA: "And you have to keep working out and working out and getting stronger."

PRIEST DA NOMAD: "And there's different aspects of rapping. The one I specialize in is improvisational³ rhyming, which is called freestyling."

RS: Give him a word, he'll think up a rhyme. Here he goes off on the word "word."

PRIEST DA NOMAD: "We're going to break it down, the W, O, R to the aura and the D -- that's me, representative from DC, calm MC's like sedative⁴, and that's a word, meaning to calm down, down I don't know, maybe that's the way you go, adverb, when I come through, rhyming is absurd. Or should I say the subject and the predicate -- before I hit the predicate, you're looking at me, dang he got mike etiquette⁵. Oh goodness, smooth with this flowing eye, bust⁶ over the styles and hit you with the flow -- it's like the Nile River, delivery, like poetry, hit the high notes, like Al Green, on the scene, sort of like Valvoline, my tongue was dipped in oil to slide by rhythms ... "

AA: And he kept going. Priest Da Nomad started rapping when he was twelve. He annoyed his teachers by tapping out rhythms on his desk.

RS: He mastered the art of freestyling with practice, but also speech training and working with others.

PRIEST DA NOMAD: "We used to take speech exercises like doing debates, doing alliteration⁷, going through the alphabet, doing story telling and environment rhyming, which is just picking things out in the environment and rhyming about them and just practicing like that. I read the newspaper every day. I try to feed my brain with as much data as possible, and then you practice drawing upon that data in a split second."

AA: Priest Da Nomad says rap lyrics⁸ don't have to be violent or vulgar. But tell that to the record companies.

PRIEST DA NOMAD: "When you talk about money becoming an aspect, that means things are going to happen to sell records. Certain artists and certain types of music are pushed because it talks about a certain lifestyle, and pop America -- white America -- is fascinated by that lifestyle."

RS: "How different are you from the twelve-year-old who was pounding on his desk in junior high?"

PRIEST DA NOMAD: "Well, I've grown and matured. I still have the same passion, though. My whole thing with what I do is when I feel something and when something moves me, I can't ignore it, and everyone from, like teachers and parents -- my mother used to tell me, 'why are you doing this?' She laughed at it at first because, she was like, 'OK, it's a phase he's going through.' And then after high school -- we were dealing⁹ with some record companies but before we could do a deal, one of them folded -- I went to school for a little bit, to college, and came back and got pulled back into music. Once I got back into it, I was like, this is where my heart is and I'm not ever stopping."

MUSIC: "We Got"

AA: We talked to Priest Da Nomad back in 1999, before he got the chance to perform at a nationally televised millennium¹⁰ celebration here in Washington. But, as he later told a Washington Post reporter, the lyrics they gave him -- written by basketball star Shaquille O'Neal and the rapper Coolio -- were "horrible." Too commercial.

RS: So Priest ended up saying thanks but no thanks to the man who invited him: the legendary¹¹ black music producer Quincy Jones. Believe it or not, Priest Da Nomad still has a career.

In fact, he's featured on an album with another Washington D-C rapper, Storm the Unpredictable, coming out in January -- plus he tells us he's working on a new album of his own.

AA: And that's Wordmaster for this week. We're on the Web at voanews.com/wordmaster, and our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 nomad   

n.游牧部落的人，流浪者，游牧民

参考例句：

• He was indeed a nomad of no nationality.他的确是个无国籍的游民。
• The nomad life is rough and hazardous.游牧生活艰苦又危险。

2 rhythmically   

adv.有节奏地

参考例句：

• A pigeon strutted along the roof, cooing rhythmically. 一只鸽子沿着屋顶大摇大摆地走，有节奏地咕咕叫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Exposures of rhythmically banded protore are common in the workings. 在工作面中常见有韵律条带“原矿石”。 来自辞典例句

3 improvisational   

adj. 即兴的

参考例句：

• I have never been at games like charades or improvisational acting. 您从来都唔擅长玩“有口难言”或者“即席表演”之类既游戏。
• I'm practicing self-control, those random and improvisational acts aren't allowed. 我在练习控制自己，那些随意的、即兴的举动是不允许的。

4 sedative   

adj.使安静的，使镇静的；n. 镇静剂，能使安静的东西

参考例句：

• After taking a sedative she was able to get to sleep.服用了镇静剂后，她能够入睡了。
• Amber bath oil has a sedative effect.琥珀沐浴油有镇静安神效用。

5 etiquette   

n.礼仪，礼节；规矩

参考例句：

• The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
• According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。

6 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

7 alliteration   

n.（诗歌的）头韵

参考例句：

• We chose alliteration on the theory a little vulgarity enhances memory.在理论上我们选择有点儿粗俗的头韵来帮助记忆。
• It'seems to me that in prose alliteration should be used only for a special reason.依我看，在散文里，头韵只能在一定的场合使用。

8 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

9 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

10 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

11 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。