Imitation 4

1980's 

Self Destruction by KRS One Stop the Violence Movement 

Took a brother's life with a knife as his wife
Cried cause he died a trifling death
When he left his very last breath
Was I slept so watch your step
Back in the sixties our brothers and sisters were hanged
How could you gang-bang?
I never ever ran from the Ku Klux Klan
and I shouldn't have to run from a black man

The song is about violence and how each rapper is addressing different situations in hopes of bringing awareness in stopping the problems. The context of the song is that it is written during a time where there is a lot of violence and it is being associated with music. A lot of gangs and street violence started occurring during the 80's. The song seems to mainly be a critique, however, some parts of it have a confessional. The rhyme scheme is there and it sometimes disappears. It has an AB format in some places like, "death" "breath" "klan" "man". It seems as though there is some alliteration being used, especially in the line "life with a knife as his wife". The tone seems like there is a questioning, it is very up in the air, wanting to know why everything has to happen. This would also be classified as lyrical poetry because the author is constantly giving off these emotions and questions over a specific subject, even relating a little bit of history in there too. Everything pretty much has a literal meaning, which gives the song a strong emphasis because when everything is literal it makes it easy to understand, but at the same time it gives a strong message.