vocab

[phlymo]

right, i'm not a great writer with regards to poetry or songs etc, and have never really tried to be one. i do however read a fair bit, and when i cruise through the open mic section here i am always suprised by the way people use vocabulary and praise other peoples' uses of it. it seems the more over the top and complex the vocab, the better the response. vocab is clearly important in articulating your message well, but often in OM's the vocab detracts from the clarity of a piece. i have a respectable vocabulary, and understand most words used in these OM's, but sometimes the overuse of pretentious wording convolutes the message of the piece. also it seems that generally the most highly praised poets and songwriters (hip hop or otherwise) rarely use vocab as excessive, so i'm surprised people here revere it so much. any thoughts?

[Arsenist3rd*]

let me b one ta say tha overuse and praise of vocab irks me
its not enough ta use flashy words or b intellectual but u really have to b saying something wether it is dressed up with vocab or not it still may not be saying shit.
also some pieces rely strictly on vocab; when vocab is tha only reason that some1 reads u're piece then its garbage

[spokenoh]

It's just done to try and differ from the norm, and then it becomes the norm. That's partially why they wouldn't convert to audio well, the lines are all 20 syllables long. They just do it to sound complex.

[Arsenist3rd*]

c all my writtens are to a beat so ppl don't understand my structure but it converts to audio well bcuz its all freestyled in my head to a beat then typed up