"Rape" is the fourth track on '' Internal Affairs'', the debut album of Queens rapper

Pharoahe Monch Troy Donald Jamerson (born October 31, 1972), better known by his stage name Pharoahe Monch, is an American rapper from South Jamaica, Queens, New York. He is known for his complex lyrics, intricate delivery, and internal and multisyllabic rhy ...

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

critic Steve Huey says in his review "Monch lives up to his reputation as one of hip-hop's most technically skilled MCs. Nowhere is this balancing act more evident than on "Rape," a rather disquieting extended metaphor for his mastery of hip-hop (other MCs just "ain't fuckin' it right")." Primarily, the song is a satirical response to rapper Common's classic "

I Used to Love H.E.R. "I Used to Love H.E.R." is a hip hop song by the Chicago-born rapper Common Sense. Released on the 1994 album ''Resurrection'', "I Used to Love H.E.R." has since become one of Common's best known songs. Produced by No I.D., its jazzy beat samples ...

," a nostalgic song that features a feminized

personification Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...

of hip-hop as a lost love that has fallen to vice. Pharoahe Monch's more graphic and violent rendition is accordingly a critique of the vapid state of contemporary mainstream hip-hop, conveyed from the perspective of a variously passionate or obsessed rapist, equally infatuated by hip-hop as a woman. As Huey points out, "Rape" equally is an

extended metaphor An extended metaphor, also known as a conceit or sustained metaphor, is the use of a single metaphor or analogy at length in a work of literature. It differs from a mere metaphor in its length, and in having more than one single point of contact bet ...

for Pharoahe's technical mastery of hip-hop. Personification and extended metaphor are techniques widely employed by hip-hop lyricists. In fact this very song is developed from a theme that is found in a Pharoahe Monch verse five years earlier. "Thirteen", a song from the 1994

Organized Konfusion Organizing or organized may refer to: * Organizing (management), a process of coordinating task goals and activities to resources * Community organizing, in which communities come together to act in their shared self-interest * Professional organi ...

album Stress: The Extinction Agenda, contains the following excerpt from Pharoahe's verse:

References

{{Pharoahe Monch 1998 songs Pharoahe Monch songs Songs written by Pharoahe Monch