Member Since: 3/30/2011
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Complex: Lorde is more of a rapper than most rappers
I made a tweet the other day, about how Lorde is my favorite rapper. I was with a group of my friends at the time, and we started having this discussion about Lorde, how good she is, and what she represents in the scope of modern day pop music. We talked about how different she is than the pop music we all grew up with. I’m 21, so I grew up with NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys. The difference between that and Lorde is… Lorde is damn near a rapper. She encompasses all of the characteristics. She even said **** a real name (Ella Yelich-O’Connor), and went for the hard ass AKA.
She brings vivid lyricism to the table.
As soon as it really sunk in with me that the first lyric of “Royals” was “I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh / I cut my teeth on wedding rings, in the movies,” I knew I was about to hear some **** I’ve never heard before. Now that we know more about her, we know her affinity for literature and we can better appreciate her proficiency in putting words together. Another one of my favorite lyrics from her was “Buzzcut Season” (which is her alias for summertime), where she says “I remember when your head caught flame”—for that to be the first line of the song is so epic. When I listen to “400 Lux,” I really feel like she’s taking me through New Zealand, just like I feel with most of her songs. It’s done in such a poignant, colorful way that I can only really compare it to Nas’ painting pictures on Illmatic and It Was Written. She really takes you right to those places, just as Nas would.
Don’t even get me started on “Tennis Court.” That record is like Childish Gambino’s “Sweatpants” or something. I seriously wish I had made it myself. I would’ve kept the line about being a beauty queen and everything. It’s just a stream of consciousness depicting youth culture and all the attitude, good and bad, that comes along with it. Lorde didn’t cut through all these other pop artists and blow up for no reason—the potency in her words is incomparable. I mean, even the album’s title, Pure Heroine is a double entendre.
More at the source.
https://twitter.com/ComplexMag/statu...57461415493632
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