By studying rap lyrics, the experts said that traditional and complex rhyming comes so easy to hip-hop artists, the skill is almost 'second nature' to them.

 

The research was led by Louise Middleton, a third-year linguistics⁵ student at Manchester University.

 

Lyrics were taken from Eminen's 'Rap God' and Akala's 'Shakespeare', as well as tracks by Public Enemy.

 

Ms Middleton found that while Shakespeare and poet John Keats, as examples, may have had a better style when it came to rhyming couplets and more traditional verse, modern rappers excel at rearranging sentences to make them fit.

 

This includes creating so-called half rhymes, which are typically much harder to create because traditionalists view them as incorrect.

 

For example, in Akala's Shakespeare track, he raps: 'Its William back from the dead/But I rap bout⁶ gats [guns] and I'm black instead/ It's Shakespeare, reincarnated⁷/Except I spit flows and strip hoes [prostitutes] naked.'

 

Reincarnated and naked aren't traditional rhyming couplets but sound similar enough for them to work for the purposes of the song.

 

Ms Middleton explained: 'The high vocabulary score and high prevalence of 'imperfect' half rhymes and unique sentence structure, over and above the use of more traditional and deliberate rhyming couplets, show that rap music proves the theory that [its] biggest stars find their success in their ability to rhyme subconsciously⁸.

 

'My research found that more than 70 per cent of the time, artists used half-rhyme, such as 'hop-rock', rather than traditional rhymes like 'cat-mat'.

 

Experts said imperfect rhymes do not typically come naturally when writing, but the study said the skill is 'second nature' for popular rap artists.

 

'In Eminem's track 'Rap God', he boasts of his rhyme skill saying: 'But for me to rap like a computer must be in my genes⁹' which proves the point made by my research - that rapping is outside his conscious control,' continued Ms Middleton.

 

'I think that hip-hop has the most sophisticated use of rhyme of any genre¹⁰ and when written down it reads just like poetry.

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