Calling all poetry readers, listeners, and writers…have you ever heard a poem so deep that it gave you chills? Hasn’t the spoken art cut directly into your soul? Weren’t you impacted by its portrayal of love, happiness, and desperation? Music reverberates every emotion there is – even the frustration of putting pen to paper.
We love poets so much that we’ve decided to showcase lyrical geniuses who changed the poetry circuit for good!
Check them out:
Lauryn Hill
Poetry: “Motives and Thoughts”
Video: Lauryn Hill, “Motives and Thoughts”
Deep-Verse: “Typical Hollywood follies good girl
While vice and corruption take over the world
Motives and thoughts
Check your motives and thoughts
Blind with the wickedness, deep in your heart
Modern day wickedness is all you’ve been taught
Lied to your neighbors, so you get ahead
Modern day trickery is all you’ve been fed
Motives and thoughts
Check your motives and thoughts”
Floetry
Poetry: “Fantasize”
Video: Floetry, “Fantasize”
Deep-Verse: “I wanna do dumb things.
I’m talking: strolling-in-the-park things. Stealing kisses straddled on park swings in the daylight while the ice cream van sings a little melody like…
I’m talking some midnight dedications of rare groove tunes.
And all across London we’re using real names too, ’cause we’re not fazed by who’s cool, who’s a fool.
See, I want to…everything with you, so…I fantasize about you everyday.
And I want to do just everything…”
Erykah Badu
Poetry: “Friends, Fans, Artists Must Meet”
Video: Erykah Badu, “Friends, Fans, Artists Must Meet”
Deep-Verse: “Friends, fans, artists must meet. Which one are you, which one is me? Friends, fans, and artists must meet. Which one are you, which one are me? God, please o please let her breath my way. If she sing my song today I can be OK. See I understand the message in the song she write. I was really happy for her when she won tonight…”
Jill Scott
Poetry: “Ain’t A Ceiling”
Video: Jill Scott, “Aint A Ceiling”
Deep-Verse: “You say life’s been hard on you.
Well brother I got news; it’s hard on me too.
We seem to face the same old issues.
Some are just surface, some are deep, some deep down in the tissue.
And I know slavery has played its part, word.
Being separated and subjugated and that passes to the brain of a child
So I want to step off what was, and and start with the right now
You say “the world just don’t understand”
But I ain’t the world, my love, I’m your woman.
And I know how deep it really goes…”
Alicia Keys
Poetry: “Tears of Water”
Video: Alicia Keys, “Tears of Water”
Deep-Verse: “Im a prisoner of words unsaid.
Just lonely feelings locked away in my head.
I try myself further everytime I stay quiet.
I should start to speak, but I stutter and stay quiet.
And now I’ve made my own hard bed inside this prison of words unsaid.”
India Arie
Poetry: “Brown Skin”
Video: India Arie, “Brown Skin”
Deep-Verse: “Brown skin, you know I love your brown skin. I can’t tell where yours begins, I can’t tell where mine ends. Brown skin, up against my brown skin. Need some every now and then. Where are your people from? Maybe Mississippi or an Island. Apparently your skin has been kissed by the sun. You make me want to Hershey’s kiss your licorice…”
Common
Poetry: “A Letter of the Law”
Video: Common, “A Letter of the Law”
Deep-Verse: “I sing a song for the hero unsung
Faces on the mural of the revolution
No looking back ’cause in back is what’s done
Tell the preacher God got more than one son…”
Mos Def
Poetry: “Ghetto Rock”
Video: Mos Def, “Ghetto Rock”
Deep-Verse: “Speak the language, come straight from the gutter.
Observe the terms that we trade with one another.
Like what’s good, what’s poppin’, what’s crackin’
What it is, how you livin’, what’s happenin’
Work songs that the slaves sang back then
The playground chant with little girls clapping…”
Tupac Shakur
Poetry: “The Rose That Grew From Concrete”
Video: Tupac Shakur, “The Rose That Grew From Concrete”
Deep-Verse: “Did you hear about the rose that grew from crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew fom concrete.
When no one else even cared!”
Talib Kweli
Poetry: “Hell”
Video: Talib Kweli, “Hell”
Deep-Verse: “Every Sunday dressing up catching gossip at its worst
Couldn’t see the difference in the Baptist and the Catholic Church
Caught up in the rapture of the first chapter and second verse
If we all God’s children then what’s the word of the reverend worth…
Who was King James?
And why did he think it was so vital to remove chapters and make his own
version of the Bible
They say Hell is underground and Heaven is in the sky
And they say that’s where you go when you die but how they know…”
Kanye West
Poetry: “18 Years”
Video: Kanye West, “Gold Digger”
Deep-Verse: “18 years, 18 years
She got one of yo’ kids, got you for 18 years
I know somebody payin’ child support for one of his kids
His baby momma’s car crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV, any given Sunday
Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was supposed to buy ya shorty Tyco with ya money
She went to the doctor got lipo with ya money
She walkin’ around lookin’ like Michael with ya money
Shoulda’ got that insured, GEICO for ya money
If you ain’t no punk holla’ we want pre-nup
WE WANT PRE-NUP!, yeah
It’s something that you need to have
‘Cause when she leave yo’ a** she gon’ leave with half
18 years, 18 years
And on her 18th birthday, he found out it wasn’t his?”
