According to ShakespeareOnline.com “The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original.”
if I could
I’d spit this in whateva’ mother tongue
was ripped from our mothers’ lips
but the closest I got to that is Hip Hop
is Black Talk
is improper
nonproper
unproper
uneducated
un-dash-educated
unassimilated
me talk, we talk, our talk
make y’all wish yall knawimtal’nbout talk
make y’all ask ya Black friend talk
make y’all run to urban dictionary dot com talk
that ONE thing
that SOMETHING that belongs to us
that US you try to demonize
envy, copy, despise
that US you try to categorize, stereotype
try to shame our broken English
you wish you could understand
but you can’t never get it ‘cause we stay fly
we stay fresh
we stay change
we stay every day new way to say we never believed your lies
we never spoke your tongue
we been ineducated
uneducated
un-dash-educated
un-SCRATCH-assimilated
and if your EVA
wanna know what we tal’nbout
maybe you need to unlearn a thing or two
who says our vernacular ain’t classical?
who says Rap Lyricists are any less than Shakespearean?
Shakespeare: a man who turned nouns into verbs and “invented” 1700 words
that’s funny, when we break the rules we’re called ignorant
when we invent words they’re called Slang
the way we talk is improper, nonproper, unproper
uneducated
un-dash-educated
unassimilated
WE AIN’T NEVA BEEN DUMB
We break English like chains
this is our Native Tongue
Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets 