Lyrical Dissonance / Hip-Hop

"People get held back by the voice inside 'em, Yo! The voice said A voice to speak inside you! Rejoice and cordially invite you...to evil, greed, and lies too. Yeah! Confusing days, he moved in ways he soon became a kuni BOOM BOOM BOOM. And knock on his door, his soul is no more. And knock on his door, his soul is no more..."

Yes, believe it or not, there are examples of Lyrical Dissonance that can be found in Hip-Hop. As a matter of fact, it's one of the reasons why so many people can listen to it without even realizing the song is possibly about drugs, sex, violence, and other mature themes.

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Examples:

• Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five classic "The Message" has a very upbeat tune and lyrics like this:
  It was plain to see that your life was lost
  You was cold and your body swung back and forth
  But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song
  Of how you lived so fast and died so young
  • The song itself talks about how horrendous New York and the ghetto is.
• K'naan's most famous song may be "Wavin' Flag", the song you probably heard during the World Cup in 2010. The actual version still sounds cheerful, but can also be extremely sad when you realize what it's about.
  • K'naan was born in Africa. The majority of his songs, combined with his voice, sound extremely jubilant and bright, but the lyrics themselves are extremely sad at times.
  • He combines understatement and cheerfulness to emphasize the sad fact that Africa is a suffering continent and no one seems to care.
• Lupe Fiasco creates songs that are darker than most, but he does have the occasional bright beat combined with Anvilicious lyrics.
• How many Lil Wayne songs have you listened to? Go back and relisten.
• Naughty By Nature's 1991 smash hit "O.P.P." definitely deserves a mention. The song has an uplifting and innocent-sounding beat centered on a sample of The Jackson 5's "ABC". However, once you realize what O.P.P. stands for ^note Other People's Property, as in anyone else's partner, you'll be shocked to realize that the whole song is a cheater's anthem.
• Eminem has constantly had to answer to opposition who criticize him for his lyrics because many kids listen to him. His comedic voice and children's music-like beats and videos in some of his earlier raps did not exactly help his case, even though he constantly said that his music WAS NOT for kids (even during the songs).
  • "My Name Is" has an upbeat tune, and Eminem begins it in a friendly, somewhat silly voice...while talking about things like sticking nails through his eyelids, trying acid, smoking crack, assaulting famous women, and killing himself. Not to mention either stapling his teacher's nuts to a sheet of paper, or assaulting said teacher to get a better grade (depends if it's the clean version or the original).
  • As an example, "Superman" has a nice soft beat and Eminem using a sexy, playful delivery modelled after LL Cool J's delivery on "Looking For Love". It sounds like a standard romance ballad, and the lyrics lead you to believe that at first. It is the exact opposite of a romance ballad.
  You know you want me, baby
  You know I want you too
  They call me Superman
  I'm here to rescue you
  I wanna save you, girl, come be in Shady's world...
  Girl: Oh, boy, you drive me crazy...
  Eminem: Bitch, you make me hurl.
  • "My Fault" is another example. The lyrics describe Em accidentally giving too many mushrooms to a girl at a party, who later dies after drinking lysol, but they're set to a dance-y R&B-like beat you might hear in a club.
  • He also likes to invert this. "Big Weenie" has a scary, pounding goth-rap beat, but is an extremely silly song about him screaming at his hater that "You're Just Jealous" and that they're "a meanie", before making fun of their teeth. Another example like this is "FACK", which has a spooky, bleak instrumental with little Middle Eastern string lines, which Eminem uses as a canvas to rap about shoving a gerbil up his ass.
• "Fuck It All" by Childish Gambino may seem catchy and upbeat at first. However, in the song, he discusses his sadness and even brings up suicide.
  • Also by Childish Gambino is "Feels Like Summer". It’s a rather chill, almost nostalgic sounding sound, with a music video featuring several black artists interacting and doing typical summertime activities, while the lyrics themselves are rather depressingly preaching about global warming.
• Polish song "Gdzie Jest Biały Węgorz?" is one of the most infamous international examples of this trope. The singer complains about his drug addiction and how it gave him depression and destroyed his life... to the tune of "How Long" by Lipps Inc. Some time later it became associated with a dancing 16-bit cow aptly named "Polish Cow", making this song sound somewhat hilarious outside Poland. And the dissonance became up to eleven when a children's cactus toy dancing to the tune of this song started to be sold on AliExpress in 2021...
• "Song Cry" by Jay-Z has a sad, wistful tone, but the lyrics are those of a delusion cheater who is feeling sorry for himself and partially blaming his partner for leaving him over his transgressions.
• The French rap group Sniper has a song called "Nique le système" (Fuck the system) that discusses the Crapsack World of the poor neighborhoods and political atmosphere the artists grew up in, but the beat is a rather pretty violin loop and the chorus has a catchy melody that contrasts with the violence of the lyrics. Of course, if you speak French it's rather hard to ignore the title and lines like "he who sows hate will reap fire because whether you burn them or throwing in the Seine, our young people have rage in their veins."
• "Swimming Pools" by Kendrick Lamar sounds like a typical early 2010s hip-hop club anthem...until you hear the lyrics and realize that he's contemplating his family's history of alcoholism and his struggles to resist following in their footsteps against peer pressure.
• "What's Up, Fatlip?" by...Fatlip has a happy, positive-sounding beat with laugh tracks in the background. Then you get to the lyrics...
  Feelin' downtrodden, fresh kid turned rotten
  I can't believe how naive that I've gotten
  Over the years seems like I'm gettin' dumber
  Reminiscing to a time when I was younger with a hunger
  Full a dreams, determination, self-esteem
  But now it seems they hesitate to be on my team
  You know the routine when you winnin' and grinnin'
  All up in your face, like they was which you from the beginnin'
  But on the flipside, when you washed up like a riptide
  Fools clown 'bout how you slipped and let shit slide
  • The song is actually about him putting on a guise of happiness while keeping his sadness inward. As he says in the chorus:
  Who am I kiddin', who am I foolin' when they be like,
  "What's up, Fatlip?"
  And I say "coolin'"?
• "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston is a cheerful, nostalgic ballad about a dying romance.
• "When I Was a Youngster" by Rizzle Kicks is a happy, upbeat tune all about the author's disappointment at his failure to fulfill any of his childhood dreams due to his sense of ambition being eroded by his drinking.
• Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's famous song "1st of tha Month", because of its chorus and somewhat somber beat, seems as if it's about the sadness of having to be on welfare and rejoicing when you get the check that allows you to survive. The music video seems to reinforce this view. In reality, the song is about how drug dealers make the most money on the first of the month because that's when crack addicts get their welfare checks, and how dealers spend said money on partying and living it up.
• ICP's "Another Love Song" is about the wrath of a lover's scorn where the original love song is about the tenderness a man wants to share with his date.
• Kanye West's "We Don't Care" sports a playful, carefree tune while talking about selling drugs for a living and making fun of people expecting black youth to die early.
• OutKast's "Hey Ya!" sounds like a happy, upbeat hip-hop song — there's a famous YouTube video of the Peanuts characters dancing joyfully to it — but the lyrics are a moody meditation on whether it's worth staying in a failing relationship:
  If what they say is, "nothing is forever"
  Then what makes, then what makes, then what makes
  Then what makes, what makes, what makes love the exception?
  So why oh, why oh, why oh, why oh, why oh
  Are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here?
  (Y'all don't wanna hear me, you just wanna dance!)
  • Speaking of Outkast, the song "The Rooster" is also an upbeat hip-hop song in terms of instrumental, but the lyrics tell the story of a married couple on the verge of divorce.
  • Outkast even lampshades this phenomenon with "The Whole World", an upbeat song about how people love upbeat songs regardless of the message or lyrics.
• The controversial "Read A Book" video by D'Mite gained a lot of attention on BET for its cartoony and supposedly racist and stereotypical depiction of black culture, claiming it should be censored for children. Of course, while the beat, rhythm, and style of the song are modeled after dirty south (or crunk) rappers like Lil' Jon, the lyrics tell positive messages and promote healthy lifestyle choices as well as a rejection of mainstream hip-hop excess in favor of reading, cleanliness, drinking water, parental responsibility and such.
• "Fatima" by K'naan is sung very happily and has a joyful track, but it's about a childhood friend who was kidnapped. Possibly justified (and somewhat lampshaded) at the end of the song when he informs the listener to not cry because the song is meant as a celebration, not a form of mourning.
• "Up and Away" by Kid Cudi, total stoned apathy never sounded so jangly.
• Hello! Project shuffle group SALT5 released only one song, "GET UP RAPPER", which is obviously a rap song. However, the lyrics are about such things as wanting to eat banana chips, wearing beige knickers and how women "blossom beautifully".
• Wale's "90210" is a minimalistic and serene song about a desperate aspiring actress in Beverly Hills with bulimia.
• Sean Price's song "Violent", despite its title, uses a smooth, joyful instrumental and Sean Price, doing the title justice, lovingly unleashes these gems:
  All I is is all I am
  And, all you is, who gives a damn?
  It's like, wop-babalu-bop-doo-wop-bam-boom
  The glock, got a few shots, you popped, drop - oooh
  ...
  You act stupid, duke, I'm hurtin' your mother like "WHAT BITCH~!"
  Commence to smackin' her face
  Like a pimp, then put the old bitch back in her place
  ...
  Timberland boots I got, stomp out your grill
  Sean Price, the nicest nigga in Brownsville
• The song "Bullet" by the rap rock group Hollywood Undead has a very upbeat tune, but the lyrics are about a depressed man attempting suicide:
  My legs are dangling off the edge,
  The bottom of the bottle is my only friend,
  I think I'll slit my wrists again and I'm gone, gone, gone,
  My legs are dangling off the edge,
  A stomach full of pills didn't work again,
  I'll put a bullet in my head and I'm gone, gone, gone.
• Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You" takes a sample of the downbeat "Every Breath You Take" and yet spins everything into a sunny upbeat melody, when it's a Grief Song serving as a tribute to the late The Notorious B.I.G..
• "Who I Smoke" by Spinabenz, Yungeen Ace, and FastMoney Goon, a song built around a sample of Vanessa Carlton's upbeat, poppy "A Thousand Miles" about what prolific killers the singers are, with a chorus implying they were responsible for a number of open homicide cases involving slain rappers.
• The Northern Boys' "Nobody Likes Me", which is built around a fairly bright and chipper sample from Calvin Harris, is all about the singers portraying themselves as widely disliked for being weird, creepy and unpleasant. It's most obvious from Jeremy Pain, who injects a fair amount of confidence into his lines about shitting himself after being mugged near the red light district or having a grubby and semen-stained bachelor pad.