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Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

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Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#131

Post by Fishkins »

msutherl wrote: post #59

I would love to see this analysis without filters. Who is the rapper with the largest vocabulary? What does the distribution look like at the top? Surely Antipop Consortium or MF DOOM have larger vocabularies than Aesop for instance.

MF DOOM is on the list. He's above average, but well below Aes or most of Wu-Tang. I've listened to a fair number of rappers, and I was pretty confident Aes would be at the top of this list.

I agree it would be cool to see a list of all rappers, though. I was surprised not to see Del, and maybe there is some more obscure rapper I'm not thinking of with a broader vocabulary than Aes.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#133

Post by kenshiro_o »

danielsf wrote: post #39

author here: hit me up with questions you've got.

Before making this study, what were your predictions? Would have have expected Wu-Tang and GZA to be near the top? What did you expect the average to be?

It would be very interesting to do something similar for rockers too.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#134

Post by carlob »

Goopplesoft wrote: post #110
randomdrake wrote: post #61

For those who aren't familiar with Aesop Rock, I'd invite you to give him a listen sometime. His earlier albums, in particular, have been very influential to me in many ways. Both in my artistic and professional careers. From comments on the conditions of the working man and the condition of feeling trapped in a "j-o-b"[1]: "Now we the American working population Hate the fact that eight hours a day Is wasted on chas…

Interesting comment about the L, S, and D usage and rhyming. I was particularly surprised by the effort that goes into Eminem's rap that I just contributed to "good flow". Some of that effort explained in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooOL4T-BAg0

A friend of mine's theory is that Eminem has a great flow because all the vowels sound alike in his Detroit accent.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#135

Post by benihana »

coherentpony wrote: post #66
benihana wrote: post #12

I'd really like to see this broken down by established vocabulary and made up vocabulary. I think that would really start to show who were the best lyricists on both ends. Rappers with a lot of made up words might be on the far left, and rappers with a lot of unique words that aren't made up would be on the far right. Both sides of the scale would show rapping talent on different dimensions. Influential rappers like…

>Rappers with a lot of made up words might be on the far left It's interesting that you think that. I'd recommend you look at this: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.ht... At what point do 'made up' words become 'established'. After they've been published? If so, every made up word in a song should be considered 'established'.

I didn't mean to imply that being on the far left or being made up meant 'worse' in any way. Quite the opposite in fact - I think that if someone can create a word or phrase that becomes normal in everyday usages, it's a sign of... something. Maybe influence, maybe genius. Like you said, Shakespeare first used words that we consider common.

I have no idea at what point a word becomes 'established' though.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#136

Post by andreasvc »

simonster wrote: post #102
logicallee wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you looking at a different link than us? The intro reads "I decided to compare this data point against the most famous artists in hip hop. I used each artist’s first 35,000 lyrics. That way, prolific artists, such as Jay-Z, could be compared to newer artists, such as Drake." and the title of the infographic (if that's all you looked at) reads "# of Unique words used within artist’s first 35,000 lyrics" This seems…

Yes, I missed that, even though it is very clearly spelled out (oops!). It makes the ordinal comparison valid (modulo noise), but it does not completely address the concern. If you have two artists, and artist 1 uses 5,000 unique words in 35,000 lyrics while artist 2 uses 10,000 unique words in 35,000 lyrics, artist 2's vocabulary may be substantially more than twice as large as artist 1's. It is unlikely that a lyri…

The problem you cite only exists if you explicitly want to estimate the underlying vocabulary of the writer. However, as a description of this particular corpus the vocabulary sizes are perfectly valid and exact rather than an estimate.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#137

Post by benihana »

Xcelerate wrote: post #30
thinkpad20 wrote: post #18

Is Del tha Funkee Homosapien on this list? I'd be curious, since he has pretty non-standard lyrics.

I'd never heard of Aesop Rock before and decided to check out some of his music. He sounds a lot like Del.

I think I remember reading Aesop say Del influenced him a great deal. If you like Aesop, check out El-P, Cannibal Ox, Illogic, and basically anyone who was associated with Def-Jux.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#138

Post by LukeShu »

qwerty_asdf wrote: post #84
randomdrake wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at best obvious topics with all the insight of a million college freshman Art is weird like that. We have to remember that it isn't all about needing to learn something new from the experience. Sometimes it's just about getting something out of it. Looking over the lists of the best songs of all time[1], we can see that there aren't a lot of incredibly insightful songs. Quite frankly, most speak of your "obvious to…

I think the term you're grasping for is "Lowest Common Denominator."

I don't disagree that there is a lot of catering to the lowest common denominator in the music industry, both in pop music and the "best songs of all time" lists.

However, I think the parent post has a point. (Now, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to effectively articulate it) The point of music isn't necessarily an insight. Listening to music is an experience, which is about how it makes you feel. Sometimes part of that is giving an insight, sometimes it isn't. Often, it is about combining an idea or concept with a performance or presentation; the idea/concept doesn't need to be insightful to be effective.

Re: Rappers, Sorted by Size of Vocabulary

#140

Post by airfoil »

Ryanmf wrote: post #113

OP: Did your analysis of MF DOOM include his work alongside Madlib as Madvillian or his various other pseudonyms (King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn, etc.)? I find it a little hard to believe he's not at least in the Wu Tang/Canibus/KK cluster, if not #1 overall.

Agree. I was surprised not to see DOOM as well. Another MC I think would score pretty highly is Chino XL.
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