A lot of popular rap bars are just dad jokes put differently.

r/

“What does Drake look for when he’s trying to strike a chord?
A minor.”

“What happened to Joey Bada$$’s friends when they caught salmonella?
They got trapped in cells.”

“Why can’t Lil Wayne find the girl of his dreams?
He’s had trouble sleeping lately.”

“What’s Jay Z’s favorite exercise?
Running the city.”

“When did Young Boy begin his life as a bandit?
When he stole your girl.”

Title.
Many of the more memorable rap bars, especially in more recent rap, are just dad jokes puns with music in the background.

Meanwhile popular culture generally sees rap bars as cool, even when they come from rappers who are parents. Dad jokes are paradoxically almost always considered corny.

There must be an army out there of geeky parents built for the rap game who end up working for a living simply because an unfair system says their puns need beats behind them (Which are almost universally sampled from previously released music).

Comments

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  2. mk9e Avatar

    Yea. You know, you might have a point.

    gif

  3. NoahtheRed Avatar

    You’ve discovered word play.

  4. Severe-Bicycle-9469 Avatar

    Yeah rap has always been about word play and puns, same with a lot of lyrics generally, and just poetry as a concept. It’s always been about playing with language and double meanings

  5. ODaysForDays Avatar

    I lost my mind therefore I am a-maze-in

  6. tuffhawk13 Avatar

    Put a different way: dad jokes are awesome.

  7. thetf2scout1 Avatar

    What? A unpopular opinion that makes sense and gave me a good new perspective. This is impossible.

  8. kbeckerburbs4 Avatar

    98.746% chance OP is white

  9. unpopular-dave Avatar

    It’s music for the masses. It’s not supposed to be deep.

    It’s surface level lyricism so dumb people can understand

  10. loujackcity Avatar

    that’s just called a punchline

  11. Hefty_Purpose_8168 Avatar

    All i’m getting at this is that it seems that dad jokes are way cooler than i thought they were.

  12. whipsmartmcoy Avatar

    “A lot of books are just words put together differently”

  13. Dull_Bid6002 Avatar

    Dad jokes are campy and over the top. A pun or word play does not make it a dad joke.

    Rap uses word play but is not campy about it.

  14. Fun-Swimming4133 Avatar

    redditor discovers word play

  15. SHIT_WTF Avatar

    You know, rap is the equivalent of folk!

  16. Winnie_28 Avatar

    infinity (888)

  17. Ninjaraui666 Avatar

    Call us Long John Silver’s cause we selfish lives rent free in my mind forever.

    Also, you were looking for miniature golf? I thought you said men to jerk off.

  18. BriefCorrect4186 Avatar

    I put a watch in a bum-bag, that’s the only time I waist time.

    Scribe, ‘not many’

  19. Beneficial_Ad5913 Avatar

    It’s not just put differently. It’s put to a beat and a rhyme in a greater context of a song.

  20. Straight-Impress5485 Avatar

    As an Eminem fan, I can tell you that the consensus among the hiphop community basically boils down to –

    Black person says it = genius level wordplay

    White person says it = corny dad joke

  21. LegendaryHotWing Avatar

    gif

    me listening to my fav rappers and artists making dad jokes

  22. binkysnightmare Avatar

    The difference is delivering it musically and rhythmically to an instrumental, and more importantly, wording it so that the syllable count can fit onto the beat in a way that sounds good

  23. specifichero101 Avatar

    The bar for clever is definitely way lower when it’s set to a catchy beat.

  24. Background-Top-1946 Avatar

    Disagree.

    Dad jokes are actually misunderstood rap bars

  25. Head-Impress1818 Avatar

    This is why Eminem is the goat

  26. astoriahfae Avatar

    Make the beat and murder it. Casey Anthony.

  27. pieman2005 Avatar

    How did you botch the drake a minor line lol

  28. Complete_Elephant240 Avatar

    You aren’t wrong but let’s get this out on the table: You just don’t like overplayed rap that is mediocre and annoying to hear repeated ad nauseum… Me too

    That said MF DOOM was basically all corny ass word play and I love him for that

  29. also_roses Avatar

    Eminem has a ton of these. “That’s why they call it window pain.” “Passin out like when you hand someone flyers.” Etc.

  30. oldsteadyhands Avatar

    Is this an unpopular opinion or a widely acknowledged phenomenon? Agreed, but downvoted.