By Lari Williams

There is Poetry, and then there is Rapidly Applied Poetry, just known as RAP.

Rap has been on the sprint through, the United States of America through, Europe into Africa.

Rhyme Application Power, like in the Yoruba “EWI” for instance, is an unadulterated poetry, delivered with passion to get the desired effect from the message. It is sometimes a long chain of short poems with similar message; most times, it is an elegy, one long poem delivered in a Monotone, punctuated by the back up drums. The contents are obscure and it takes a fair understanding of the language to comprehend what the real matter is, apart from the chain of words thrown in with a rhythmic frenzy. Indeed, poetry is about understanding of the language broadly enough to want to play with the words beyond jigsaw puzzles and scrabbles.

It now goes even beyond meanings of words, phrases, and clauses; and into beats. `Reading poetry’ then seems like singing to yourself to some background music you (and the initiates) alone can hear. This is where the understanding and love of Poetry seems only for the initiated who alone can hear the back -up rhythm along with the poet – the author; or who appreciates it enough to create his own rhythm and tempo.

One does not need a formal training or a university degree to qualify for the initiation; the only requirement is a good basic understanding of the language and a love for words blankly placed or juxtaposed on paper to arouse an interest either in sound rhythm or in sight pattern, and make sense.

Therefore, Poetry and Rap is not an imported commodity to the African and to the Yorubas in particular. It’s not therefore strange or far fetched to find this young man ISMAILIA ADEBAYO aka GANG MASTER who hails from Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, Nigeria. With a stream of African prowess that sustained him through the rap Marathon, which makes him the first Rap Marathon Champion, the world over. Congratulations GANG MASTER!! Congratulations NIGERIA!!