Rhetorical Analysis Of Hip Hop

Nyck Caution and Kirk Knight use rhetorical devices throughout their song Audiopium. This song was written to honor one of their friends and fellow rappers, Capital Steez, that took his life on December 23, 2012 at the age of 19. This young rapper was taking the classic rap scene by storm with his incredible word play, his use of irony, and his critic of the injustices in America. Capital Steez had dedicated his career to shedding light on what is wrong in our country. He wanted to bring rap back to its roots where there was meaning behind every line. He wanted to make a change to not only the genre of music itself, but also to the effects of rap on the community; he wanted to change the negative stigma that follows rap. Capital Steez and his …show more content…
They show that they are aware of this in the second line of song when they state, “Brand new pie, got the pizza coming, this dough man, I don’t need no oven, my dope-heads they need that Audiopium, audio.” This line shows that they know about the relationship between drugs and rap. Many rappers use drugs as a way of funding their career and helping them get off the ground. They used a double entendre because the word pie refers to the pizza and it is a slang term for kilos of cocaine. They use another double entendre when they refer to the dough like the pizza dough and dough being a slang term for money that they are making from the “pies”. Joey Bada$$ then refers to his fans as dope-heads that need his music. This idea of his fans being dope-heads relates to the title of the song, where the first half of the word is audio, his music, and the second half of the word being opium, so he is saying that his music is addictive like opium. They are music dealers, that take over the lives of their listeners making them fiend for more like a dope-head fiends for