‘Alphabet Aerobics’

‘Alphabet Aerobics’ by Blackalicious

Artificial amateurs aren’t at all amazing Analytically, I assault, animate things Broken barriers bounded by the bomb beat Buildings are broken, basically I’m bombarding Casually create catastrophes, casualties Cancelling cats got their canopies collapsing Detonate a dime of dank daily doing dough Demonstrations, Don Dada on the down low Eating other editors with each and every energetic Epileptic episode, elevated etiquette Furious fat fabulous fantastic Flurries of funk felt feeding the fanatics Gift got great global goods gone glorious Getting godly in his game with the goriest Hit ’em high, hella hype, historical Hey holocaust hints hear ’em holler at your homeboy Imitators idolize, I intimidate In an instant, I’ll rise in an irate state Juiced on my jams like Jheri curls jocking joints Justly, it’s just me, writing my journals Kindly I’m kindling all kinds of ink on Karate kick type Brits in my kingdom Let me live a long life, lyrically lessons is Learned lame louses just lose to my livery My mind makes marvellous moves, masses Marvel and move, many mock what I’ve mastered Nickles nap knowing I’m nice naturally Knack, never lack, make noise nationally Operation, opposition, off not optional Out of sight, out of mind, wide beaming opticals Perfected poem, powerful punchlines Pummelling petty powder puffs in my prime Quite quaint quotes keep quiet it’s Quantum Quarrellers ain’t got a quarter of what we got uh Really raw raps, rising up rapidly Riding the rushing radioactivity Super scientifical sound search sought Silencing super fire saps that are soft Tales ten times talented, too tough Take that, challengers, get a tune up Universal, unique untouched Unadulterated, the raw uncut Verb vice lord victorious valid Violate vibes that are vain make ’em vanish While I’m all well what a wise wordsmith just Weaving up words, weeded up on my work shift Xerox, my X-radiation holes extra large X-height letters, and xylophone tones Yellow-back, yak mouth, young ones’ yaws Yesterday’s lawn yard sell our yawn Zig-Zag zombies, zooming to the zenith©The Educational Company of Ireland Zero in Zen thoughts, overzealous rhyme ZEALOTS!

Identify And Imagine

To develop a deeper understanding of the sense and the rhythm of ‘Alphabet Aerobics’, go to the writing frame in your activity book (see pages 67–68). As a group, discuss and collaborate to create your own alphabet rap, carefully choosing words and phrases for each letter to create lines that fit with the general beat of the original piece. Make sure you choose a good variety of verbs, nouns and adjectives to make your rap entertaining and interesting. Use a dictionary, thesaurus and rhyme dictionary to help you explore new and challenging vocabulary. Practise And Produce Use the performance planner in your activity book (see page 69) to help your group decide how you will perform ‘Alphabet Aerobics’. This is a choral reading, which means that everyone must contribute in some way to the performance. Perhaps you will divide it up line by line, with everyone saying the last line together. Perhaps one person will say all the nouns and someone else all the verbs. Perhaps you will swap over every time it changes to another letter. It is up to you to make these choices. You do not have to perform all of the song; maybe you only want to do the first half or the last half. Remember, every choice you make will affect the overall performance in some way. Your main aim here is to stick with the rhythm of the song. Remember it gets faster and faster as the song goes on. If you like, play the karaoke version in the background of your performance to help you keep the rhythm: edco.ie/63tr Think about the visual aspect of your performance. Maybe you want to make letter signs and hold them up as you go through each letter, like in the video of Daniel Radcliffe that you watched. Maybe you want to place your group members on different sides of the room to give the impression you are playing tennis with your words. Practise, practise, practise. Rapping is hard – especially a song with such a quick rhythm. Knowing your lines really well will improve your performance. ACT IVITY ©The Educational Company of Ireland

Per formance

Take turns performing as a group. You can use the karaoke version of ‘Alphabet Aerobics’ as a backing track to keep the rhythm of the song: edco.ie/63tr Respect each other’s performance by listening quietly.

REFLECTION 1 How did your group performance go? 2 Is there anything you would change about your group performance? 3 What were you impressed by in the other performances? 4 What did other groups do particularly well? ©The Educational Company of Ireland