Flocabulary

Do you like hip-hop?

Are you studying for the SATs?

Then try Flocabulary, the revolutionary new way to keep your street cred and get your learn on...

Or something like that.

So what we've got are tracks littered with complex vocabulary (certainly inspired more by early-'00 backpacker style than by K-Solo, whose "vocabulary is very... loquacious") designed to help students learn words for the SAT. The lyrics are written by "escher" and "rappaport" and aren't quite as cornball or cheesy as you might expect:

The vicissitudes of life, those ups and downs
you're born naked but soon you're wearing caps and gowns.
Time flows in like waves, undulating, I bide my time
in this antechamber I'm just waitng [sic] for a variance,
and just a pittance would suffice of the spirit
of the times, you know the Zeitgeist.
Mutability is the property that allows an entity
to change just what it's going to be.
If you follow me, we could travel surreptitiously,
you don't believe me read my phsyiognomy [sic], check my face.

And even the beats aren't too awful. It's not something you'll be bumping in your jeep for years to come, but it's also not a rapping parrot on a Polly-O String Cheese commercial. The thing is: looking at those lyrics, I don't come away with any clearer of a meaning of what physiognomy is ("the art and science of discovering the predominant temper, and other characteristic qualities of the mind, by the outward appearance, especially by the features of the face.."). It's also kind of funny that they spelled it wrong.

I guess the concept is that you go into this program having studied these words and the music provides an additional context for you that will hopefully help you remember the definition come test day. You know, it may work... I've learned a lot from hip-hop, from history to spelling (if it wasn't for K-Solo [reference #2!] I wouldn't be able to spell his name!) and, yes, to vocabulary. I'm never been a fan of the crazy co-opting of hip-hop we've seen over the years, and it certainly seems gimmicky, but at least it's more engaging than a night class.

Flocabulary songs cost $2 a piece and come with the words, definitions, and lyrics. Hear two full-length tracks at sparknotes.com.

Comments

[djxplicit]

> spelling (if it wasn't for K-Solo

i mean he does spell "fly" F-Y-L on "knick knack patty wack" by empd. also, warren g: "What's next, What's N-X-E-T?"