Rapper lauded for using proper grammar

Los Angeles, Calif. – A young L.A. hip-hop artist’s crusade to rid rap music of bad grammar is beginning to garner wide industry acclaim.

Music critics nationwide are raving about rapper’s Dazz Bone’s deft instinct and deep-rooted respect for proper syntax and sentence structure, as displayed on the young artist’s first single, “Bone Logic,” from his debut CD, At Whom are You Looking?

“It’s my suggestion, African-American, that you heed my warning/I’m going to park that bitch of yours on her back by the morning,” the lyrics read. “Dazz Bone’s in the house/Dazz Bone’s in the zone/Dazz Bone keeps it real with the microphone. No need for a Rose/No need for a dope house/Dazz Bone has got a mic and an abridged Webster’s thesaurus.”

In “No Double Negative,” Bone raps: “Hear my gun go ‘bang bang’ as your dumb, weak, goofy ass drops/Followed by your blood spilling pint after pint on the Popeye’s parking lot’s blacktop/Tell the bitch on the speaker at the Taco Bell/Pardon me, but my homie ordered two burritos supreme, do I have to yell?”

 

The 23-year-old Dazz Bone, born Ernest Rawlings, said he developed his style out of the belief that the image of rap and hip-hop as being too violent and misogynistic was due mainly to the atrocious grammar found with the songs’ lyrics.

 

“If you’re careless about your grammar and, let’s say, for example, you’re trying to get people to appreciate the fact that the whores you associate with are more attractive and have larger waist lines than those who are associating with another rapper, it’s going to be hard for people to get beyond your inability to properly use prepositions and respect the core of your message,” Bone said.

Commenting on his ability to garner street cred through his straight talk, well-spoken style of rhyme, Bone said: “With me, listeners know that I am not afraid to bust out the King’s English and go all William Sapphire on their asses.”

 

R.W. Moore, who tracks hip-hop trends for the online journal Krotch.com, has chronicled Dazz Bone’s rise from the circulation of a cult-hit demo tape featuring tracks such as “Do Prepare For the Blumpkin” and “To Where Are You Going to Run?” Moore says the rapper has struck a chord with listeners hungry to put all of the whores and white devils in their place, but preferring to do so using fewer dangling participles.

“Rap has always been about communicating a message of change, and communication requires abiding by some basic, common rules of discourse,” Moore said. “When 50 Cent raps, ‘I’m on the Greyhound ‘bout to move these birds/And if these niggaz don’t let me sling/I’m out there robbin’ everything’ – exactly what message is he communicating? I don’t know.”

Dazz Bone’s approach has also gained the support of watchdog groups like Parents for Responsible Entertainment, which frequently criticizes rap lyrics.

“I know that Bone’s message is just as violent and degrading to women as many of the other rappers out there, but his appropriate use of possessive adjectives and non-defining relative clauses is really, I don’t know, inspiring,” said the group’s president, April Milligan.

The aspiring artist made headlines in July when he got into a scuffle with rappers AP-9 and Scoob Nitty at the West Coast Hip-Hop Awards. AP-9’s taunts over Bone’s proper diction were met with the stern retort, “I’m not endeavoring to receive that audiologically.”

His popularity growing along with the size of the venues in which he’s currently performing, Bone’s live shows often feature a grammatically correct departure from his hardcore style, with the budding star leading a group dance and exhorting the crowd of a recent show at Philadelphia’s Fidelity Hall to “Wave [their] hands in the air/Wave them as if [they] care not a whit about the mother fucking consequences.”