Hello!
In the past I've never cared one way or the other for poetry (not that I ever tried that hard to understand either.) But every time I listen to a Palisade intro it's like my brain is jumping to light speed and it's amazing.
For someone that loves the Palisade intros but is unfamiliar with the medium do you have any suggested reading? Or, is there a term for the style (genre??) of the Pal intros?
Maybe thanks,
- RJDS
Despite (because of?) being raised by a poet, I'm actually not a big poetry guy. I've done my required reading, and every now and then something really hits me (and it's almost never rhyming poetry, which generally gives me hives), but generally speaking it slides right off me.
Rap music, on the other hand.... And I think you can do the classic argument ("oh, they're modern poets") but the category of "rapper" is actually useful: First, because poets aren't gone. Second, because we should recognize rappers as musicians. Third, because rap emerges from and maintains itself in a particular historical context, and that shouldn't be erased in pursuit of the supposed legitimacy given by 'poet.'
And frankly, that's where most of the influence you're hearing in these PALISADE intros comes from. Yeah there's a little spoken word in there too, but I'm never thinking about it in those ways because those aren't terms I actually know or connect to. Instead, I'm "ooh, can I briefly dip into the Migos triplet flow here?" ("itsa pri-son / ide - olo - gy"). I'm thinking "how do I get some internal rhymes going like noname does? ("bad news can be useful, truthful, crucial"). Sometimes I'm paraphrasing a specific line, like Black Screen saying "you're worth half a bar lightweight" about March, which is just a riff on the final line of The Takeover.
And here's the real trick: I don't actually think a lot of the stuff I'm pulling on this season is great! I kind of think Black Screen and Parti are corny (and I think that about their primary influences, sometimes, too), and you know, some of the other characters speaking in intros this season are outright villains! But: 1. As stated in the first episode, this is a season where we can get a little cornier than usual. and 2. What's important is using this form for characterization and worldbuilding, and I think we've done a pretty good job of that!
I will say I was very relieved with last arc's intro because I finally had a character who would be beyond (both ideologically and ontologically) the narrative conceit that was forcing everyone to get on beat and rhyme. I don't think we need a new intro or anything, but my god, finding a new flow sometimes feels like squeezing water from a rock.
