Rapping Sewhilkin Jimmy

‘Rap music was at first good to listen to, then to dance to and then — wait! The lyrics… these folks are living the same life i am’

- Susan Lagsdin

Reading the printed text of rap is about as satisfying as the recitation of a grammatically translated Elvis song (“You are not anything but a hound dog, barking all the time… You have never caught a rabbit and you are not a friend of mine…”).

It’s much better when it’s live. However, local music artist

Sewhilkin Jimmy has written down, memorized and performed thousands, maybe millions, of words since, on his first-ever headphones, he heard the hip-hop group Bone Thugs ‘N Harmony at age 11.

So, scan this excerpted passage from Broken Inside, which for him turns into just several seconds of rapid-fire, rhythmic rap.

Doing this all my life/Can it really be my biggest mistake/ Honestly/Every time I think about/it I get the worst stomach ache/I Start to convulse/My eyes roll back /My whole body begins to shake /I don’t know how much more of this I can really take /As I breathe/I slip from reality/My life’s a dream

If you’ve chanced to hear Sewhilkin perform at Radar Station spoken word events, you know that he can deliver amazing complex and intimate ideas, in rhyme or slant rhyme, with a calculated rhythm so fast that you’re compelled to listen.

Granted, especially if you’ve been raised on rap and hip-hop tunes, your comprehension score is high, but even if your ear is more attuned to the pace of Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, or Tony Bennett singing Cole Porter, there’s meaning to be gleaned.