While reading Anjensen’s post ” Is There Meaning Behind Randomness?” I immediately thought about Freestyle rapping. My thoughts were triggered when I read ” More rules result in a more comprehensible piece, such as in the case of the Strachey Love Letter Generator, whereas fewer rules result in more abstract and seemingly nonsensical strings of words.” As rapping has developed over the years the seemingly concrete rules of a ABAB rhyme scheme has diminished. This is even more noticeable in free style rapping. While rapping a song there are many rules such as staying on beat, rhyming, relating to a certain topic, and choosing words and Rhyme schemes that sound appealing. These rules are usually but not always limited to rhyming and staying on beat. As mentioned by Anjensen the less rules the more random the words seem.
My thoughts were furthered when I read about limiting the computers vocabulary and questioning whether the words are truly random or more similar to an author asking a friend which word to use. A rapper’s ability to rhymer words and make since out of what he rhymes deeply depends on his range of vocabulary. A rappers range of vocabulary is limited to the amount of words the rapper understands, much like the love letter generator.
I’ve noticed as rapper become more famous and concrete in their career, fans sometimes stretch to make the words have a certain meaning. For example, there are many theories to the meaning of chance the rappers line in Taylor Bennett’s song Grown up fairy tails. ” Catch and Release, Playing fetch with a fish and a dog on a leash…”To many though, these words just sound appealing together and lead up to other bars in the song. When free styling rhyme schemes like these could happen to change the topic of the rap. If said in a freestyle that line might be passed over and taken to just be random. But because he is an established artist people think it must have a deeper meeting.
This all brings me to the question is freestyle rap any different from computer word generators. Both are limited to a certain amount of vocabulary, both are generated with no predetermined purpose, and both follow a certain amount of rules. More importantly it leads me to the question is there really a such thing as random. Because a rapper freestyling and a computer generating words have so much in common but not many people would consider free style rap random.