Is rap music technically poetry? What really separates the two?

[AJRooks]

A couple of people I know have been debating whether or not rap music could classify as poetry, and if so, what makes them different. So I've taken to the forums to see what people could answer :)

One I'd want to know is that, if rap is poetry, would that make rappers like Eminem be considered poets and able to enter poetry competitions? (dang that would be cool though)

What whatever the case is, I wanna hear what Newgrounds has to say :p

[GenericDungeonSlime]

I kind of see poetry as spoken word devoid of overly performative or musical elements, so rap music wouldn't be poetry by definition in my mind. Poetry that is overly performative has its own name (slam poetry) and spoken word with background music is just...music with lyrics.

[AJRooks]

Ah, I can see where you're going with this. But would this idea mean that simply reading out lyrics to a rap song could make it an entirely different genre? Like if I go to a poetry contest and read out the words, would it be considered unacceptable as soon as the soundtrack starts playing in the background?

[MetalSlayer69]

by this line of thinking wouldn't the lyrics of any song be poetry, regardless of genre?

Anyway I get what you mean but I think the fact that poetry is made to be read and song lyrics are vocally performed pretty drastically changes the way artists approach the two mediums.

It's sort of like asking if a screenplay counts as literature, like you could read a screenplay as a book if you wanted, but that wasn't the writer's intention, and it probably has a lot of conventions in it that are better suited to being adapted then being read as is.

In conclusion my opinion is no, not really.

[AJRooks]

You see thats the thing, the entire reason I ever dealt with this question in the first place was because a younger family member (in middle school) was actually taught that in school. This meant that for assignments (like for example, one where they had to talk about a poem they liked) allowed them to name rap songs (which all of them did). Of course when asking the teacher about it though, they said that theres absolutely no difference and that its all just words in the end. Now I just keep getting different answers.

[AJRooks]

Oh and just to clarify, Im asking specifically about the genre of rap because that was the exact argument some people made, that "rap has a special sense of rhythm that makes it poetry" but again, dont all types of music have some sort of rhythm?

[SkankyMojo]

Rap is the evolution of beat poetry, it's litrally poetry performed to musical backing.