AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- the art of rap. This form of music sprang from the hip-hop culture of young, urban African Americans.
RS: But, as often happens with black music, it is a white artist who is getting lots of attention lately -- especially now that hes starring in a semi-biographical movie, called "8 Mile." Were talking about Eminem. Thats E-M-I-N-E-M, a play on the initials of his real name, Marshall Mathers. AA: A top rapper is known as an M-C, meaning "master of ceremonies" or "microphone controller." A few years ago Priest Da Nomad, a local M-C from Washington came into our studios to talk about rap. PRIEST DA NOMAD: "To rap is basically just like to speak, but its to speak rhythmically. And when you -- you notice that when you talk anyway, you kind of define a rhythm, but we dont really notice it. So its really like consciously doing it, and its just using your brain, which is a muscle. So its like everything you do, its like going to the gym with your brain." AA: "And you have to keep working out and working out and getting stronger." PRIEST DA NOMAD: "And theres different aspects of rapping. The one I specialize in is improvisational rhyming, which is called freestyling." RS: Give him a word, hell think up a rhyme. Here he goes off on the word "word." PRIEST DA NOMAD: "Were going to break it down, the W, O, R to the aura and the D -- thats me, representative from DC, calm MCs like sedative, and thats a word, meaning to calm down, down I dont know, maybe thats the way you go, adverb, when I come through, rhyming is absurd. Or should I say the subject and the predicate -- before I hit the predicate, youre looking at me, dang he got mike etiquette. Oh goodness, smooth with this flowing eye, bust over the styles and hit you with the flow -- its like the Nile River, delivery, like poetry, hit the high notes, like Al Green, on the scene, sort of like Valvoline, my tongue was dipped in oil to slide by rhythms ... " AA: And he kept going. Priest Da Nomad started rapping when he was twelve. He annoyed his teachers by tapping out rhythms on his desk. RS: He mastered the art of freestyling with practice, but also speech training and working with others. AA: Priest Da Nomad says rap lyrics dont have to be violent or vulgar. But tell that to the record companies. PRIEST DA NOMAD: "When you talk about money becoming an aspect, that means things are going to happen to sell records. Certain artists and certain types of music are pushed because it talks about a certain lifestyle, and pop America -- white America -- is fascinated by that lifestyle." RS: "How different are you from the twelve-year-old who was pounding on his desk in junior high?" PRIEST DA NOMAD: "Well, Ive grown and matured. I still have the same passion, though. My whole thing with what I do is when I feel something and when something moves me, I cant ignore it, and everyone from, like teachers and parents -- my mother used to tell me, why are you doing this? She laughed at it at first because, she was like, OK, its a phase hes going through. And then after high school -- we were dealing with some record companies but before we could do a deal, one of them folded -- I went to school for a little bit, to college, and came back and got pulled back into music. Once I got back into it, I was like, this is where my heart is and Im not ever stopping." MUSIC: "We Got" AA: We talked to Priest Da Nomad back in 1999, before he got the chance to perform at a nationally televised millennium celebration here in Washington. But, as he later told a Washington Post reporter, the lyrics they gave him -- written by basketball star Shaquille ONeal and the rapper Coolio -- were "horrible." Too commercial. RS: So Priest ended up saying thanks but no thanks to the man who invited him: the legendary black music producer Quincy Jones. Believe it or not, Priest Da Nomad still has a career. In fact, hes featured on an album with another Washington D-C rapper, Storm the Unpredictable, coming out in January -- plus he tells us hes working on a new album of his own. AA: And thats Wordmaster for this week.