According to scientists, contemporary rappers like Eminem and ancient Greek poets like Homer shared themes and focused on competitors’ “beefs.”
Ancient Greek poets have been compared to celebrities like Eminem from 8 Mile and dubbed the first gangster rappers.
Because they center on “beefs” between competitors, boffins claim that their epic compositions, like Homer’s Iliad, have all the same components as contemporary songs. According to them, the texts pressure you to choose a side, much like in battle rap, in which two or more MCs square off against each other.
The desire for fame, skill demonstration, honor codes, and a sense of community are further components.
Joshua Forstenzer, a philosophy lecturer at the University of Sheffield, said: “Both art forms encourage us, the listeners, to react, reflect and ultimately select with which speaker to side.
Without much of a narrator to explain things, we are thrown into the thick of things.
Since we believe the Iliad was told orally for centuries prior to being recorded in writing, both it and the rap fights are considered to be part of the oral poetry tradition.
“Therefore, they are both addressed to an audience in real time.”
He noted that a larger audience was introduced to the art form via the 2002 movie 8 Mile, which starred “real battle rap legend” Eminem. Philosophers, he added, contend that we all harbor a “gangster” within of us.
According to him, the difficulty lies in learning to control these “gangster elements” so that “we can still live with decency and integrity in an often violent and unjust world.”
The egghead argued that MCs have long battled for “respect and street fame”, adding that this “pursuit of legendary status also lies at the very heart of The Iliad”.