Elevation Centre: Punchline Breakdown

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    Posted: 01 May 2017 at 9:25pm
Welcome to my punchline breakdown thread. Before I get started I would like everyone to know that we all have different views on things like what punchlines fall into which category etc and that there is a lot of subjective content in this. I genuinely feel like this guide simplifies punches to the point where even the most inexperienced writer can leave with a much better sense of how to construct one and what separates the good from bad. Hope you all enjoy.


'Punch line' (noun)

Dictionary.com definition: 'The climatic phrase or sentence in a joke, speech, advertisement, or humorous story that produces the desired effect.'

To put it bluntly, a punchline is where the impact is delivered.


This is a thread dedicated to all aspects of them in a non-battling sense. There are many forms of punchlines and each one can be an effective tool in your arsenal whether you are battling or just writing. Like anything they can be used correctly or abused, and either extreme can potentially make or break a verse.


Why write a punch?

To add flavour and character to your verse. Unless being blunt is your intention then I'm sure you will agree that saying 'I'm dope' doesn't resonate as much as saying 'I'm so dope that I attract sniffer dogs'. They can fit into any kind of verse provided they are set up correctly and don't look out of place. If you look at stand up comedy, movies, or life in general there are punchlines everywhere in the form of puns, 'burns', or just general observation. The point is they have to be memorable, and a lot of the time 'less is more' (that's a paradox btw, which I will explain later), because oversaturating your punch or set up can lessen the impact.

I'll admit that not every punch needs a 'set up' specific to it, but the previous line has to allow it to make sense. The set up line has to leave it wide open so that the punch fits whether you allude to it or not. The point is to build some form of anticipation to achieve the desired climax (that is not a double entendre, in case you were thinking it was). Point is, you don't see stand up comedians just start their joke with a punchline because they wouldn't have the tension to work with. You want your audience to laugh or say 'oh shit' when you drop the line. Indifference is your enemy.


Now obviously there are different types of punchlines, so here are the ones I will be talking about:

Double Entendre
Typical Similes
Wordplay
Comedic
Paradox

Some do fit into more than one category but I will be focusing on what makes them effective in a specific category to help you define them yourself. I will be starting off with similes which can either be literal or have multiple meanings, which you will soon find out.


Double Entendre

Dictionary.com definition: 'A word or expression used in a different context so that it can be understood in two ways'

This is the most common type of punchline used in hip hop, and they are always fun to hear/read if executed correctly. By executed, I don't mean have their head cut off. Think of how some words in the English language have more than one definition (even definition means both the meaning of a word or how defined something is like the visibility of your abs or something). Think of innuendos, it's about taking advantage of the multiple meanings like the common examples listed below.

Sharp - Can mean sharp like the edge of a knife. It can also mean abrupt or sudden (like a sharp turn when you are driving). People can also use it to refer to someone's wit, if they are quick with comebacks or ... good at punchlines. If you were to use this in a punch you could say 'my mind is sharp like the edge of a knife'.

Tight - Can mean something is tight fitting, like a hoodie. In slang terms it can also mean something that is of good quality (in hip hop some synonyms for this are 'dope', 'fresh', 'raw', and 'hot' etc). If someone said 'that hoodie is tight' they could either mean that it is tight fitting or that it looks good. If used in a punchline you could say 'my rhymes are tight like Biggie's jeans' because as a rather robust gentleman you'd assume that Biggie's jeans were tight on him.


That should be enough to give you a general idea. Now I'm going to quote some punchlines written by rappers and explain what makes them work.


'My hip hop status is C-section, cause I'm a cut above you pussies' (Vakill - The Darkest Cloud)

Why it works:

He is linking the words 'status' and 'section' which have similar meanings (think of section in this case as the section of hip hop he thinks he belongs in). A C-Section is literally a cut above a woman's vagina (or pussy) to deliver a baby. A pussy can also mean a weak person, and a 'cut above' means you're on a higher level. Vakill is saying that his status in hip hop is higher than you weaklings. See how it all ties together?


'I put you up in the IV, not the Roman numeral four,
But the IV that leads to the funeral floor' (Apathy - Battle Cry)

Why it works:

Here is one with a set up specific to the punch itself. 'IV' is the Roman numeral for the number four (I, II, III, IV, V) being 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. IV also means intravenous like the intravenous drip you receive when in the hospital. This bar is pretty simple. Apathy wants you to know that when he puts you up in an IV it has nothing to do with Roman numerals and more to do with sending you to the hospital (similar to Biggie's ICU line in What's Beef which I will list later).


'Need I remind you, that I don't need the fuckin' swine flu to be a sick pig?' (Eminem - Won't Back Down)

Why it works:

This is a rare dope punch on his Recovery album but we won't get into that. The word 'sick' in this case means both unwell physically, and unwell mentally. 'Pig' is referring to both the farm animal, and the derogatory term for a male (usually one who is rude or vulgar). Swine flu was doing the rounds at the time and mostly affected pigs so they literally were sick pigs. What Eminem is saying is that he is a vulgar man, and you have probably heard a woman refer to a man as a 'sick pig' when he is being misogynist or something. So Eminem may not be a farm animal with the swine flu, but rest assured he is a rude and horrible man.


That will do for the good examples, here are a couple of bad ones.


'You lost like a person without a map' (Papoose - Born to Win)

Why it doesn't work:

'Lost' can mean both defeated, and misdirected. He is using it in both ways and while it works in a mechanical sense it is a horrible and corny line.


'Stick my dick in a circle but I'm not fuckin' around' (Eminem - Cold Wind Blows)

Why it doesn't work:

No one refers to a circle as 'a round'. If you have to fabricate terms to make a punch work then it is a forced punch.


At this point I'm sure you have an understanding of what a double entendre is. Now let me explain the difference between a double entendre and a more typical simile.


'Hotter than the Sun', 'cold as ice', and 'clear as crystal' are all similes. Basically it's adding substance to an adjective to authenticate it. They give the listener/reader a more vivid idea of your description and are a good tool for dressing up your verse. They can be a double entendre or literal and here are the differences.


'The office was hotter than Hell'

Hell has a hot temperature, and so does that office. There are no double meanings as we are using 'hot' in the same context.

'The girl was hotter than Hell'

This one is a double entendre. 'Hot' can also mean how attractive someone is (the girl) and to get the point across they have used the temperature of Hell to give you an idea of how attractive she is.

'The office was cold as ice'

Someone turned on the air-con and now the office is very cold. Again 'cold' is being used only to refer to the temperature here.

'Her heart was cold as ice'

The hot girl is also a cold hearted bitch. As you can see 'cold' is being used to describe her lack of affection and emotion, and comparing it to ice is once again just a scale to show how cold hearted she is. Another mix of literal and figurative.


I think I've went on long enough, let's get to the next category.


Wordplay

The kind of wordplay I will be talking about is the one where you break up words, or add words together to make new words. This is especially common in battles where people do it with their opponent's name. The examples will make this easier to explain.


'Ironic how my train of thought has loco motives' (Token - Still no Sucka MCs)

Why it works:

'Train of thought' is a term used to describe thought process, like the direction your mind is moving in. Obviously we all know that train also means a big choo choo train. Those kinds of trains are powered by locomotives. The locomotive is where the engine is contained and that moves the train along the tracks. 'Loco' is Spanish for crazy, and motives are intentions. Token is telling us that he has crazy intentions in his mind. Trains have locomotives and he has loco motives, one word is now two.


'My clique is raw, be prepared when you meet us,
Kill an unborn baby and you still couldn't defeat us' (Celph Titled - 616 Rewind)

Why it works:

'Defeat us' means beat us, and de-fetus is a not-so-forced term for an abortion. A fetus is an unborn child in the womb so you can see what inspired his choice of words. What he is saying is clear and it speaks for itself with no explanation which is always the sign of a good punch.


Now for a bad example.


'How the broke crooks in videos leave me stressed,
I'll turn on channel 2 if I wanna CBS' (Chino XL - What You Got)

Why it doesn't work:

This is a good albeit poorly executed idea. He's saying CBS as in 'see BS' (see bullshit), and CBS is on channel 2. The reason this is poorly executed is because no one would say 'switch it to channel 2, I wanna CBS'. It doesn't make sense. The only way it would make sense is if you said 'switch on channel 2 I wanna watch CBS' but that would ruin the punch. If it isn't grammatically correct in both senses it's a dud to me. But That's just me.


So that's that specific type of wordplay in a nutshell. I didn't analyse as many this time because you will probably have gotten the point. The key factor is to have both sides of the double meaning grammatically correct, or it just comes off as forced.


Comedy

The key is to make these funny, but that goes without saying. There aren't always puns or double meanings involved so these are the least 'technical', and the easiest to explain. They are creative and extreme ways to get your point across. A lot of live battle rappers use these as they are very effective in that setting (think tone of voice etc assisting in delivery) but can work well in text also. A lot of comedy punches are based around illogical or impossible comparisons or situations so let me tell you how below.


'Fuck punchlines and metaphors, I settle wars,
Spittin darts till puncture wounds look like an extra set of pores' (Vakill - Sickplicity)

Why it works:

So yeah, nothing too fancy. He is comparing holes in your body to... holes in your body. There are thousands of pores all over your body so he is taking the extreme approach to saying he'll leave you with a lot of bullet holes. Better than 'I'll shoot you a fuckload of times' right? That's why this line stands out.


'You ain't a leader, what? Nobody followed you,
You was never shit, your mother shoulda swallowed you' (Big L - 98 Freestyle)

Why it works:

This kinda joke is pretty played now but at the time it was more fresh. Big L is telling you that you are useless that your mother should have swallowed the sperm you originated from. It's a funnier way of saying that 'you should have never been born'. Always gotta think outside of the box with these lines.


'And when I'm down to my last breath,
I'ma climb the Empire State Building, get to the last step and still have half left' (Eminem - Scary Movies)

Why it works:

Like Vakill's line this is just taking things to extremes (think of Wil E Coyote and his methods of trying to kill the Road Runner). We all know that climbing all those stairs with half a breath is far fetched and impossible, and that's what makes it so funny.


That concludes our comedy section, but I will list more examples below that you can break down yourself (it's the best way to learn). The key words here are far fetched, impossible and illogical. The more wacky and exaggerated your line is, the bigger impact it will have.


Paradox

Dictionary.com definition: 'A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth'

A paradox is something that makes sense but seems contradictory. Sometimes they are tongue-in-cheek and sometimes they are serious, and I'll start by listing non-rap examples to help you get a fundamental understanding.


'I can resist anything but temptation' (Oscar Wilde)

Can you see the contradiction in this statement? He's saying he can resist anything but the challenge of resisting something.

'I always tell the truth, even when I lie' (Tony Montana)

The truth and a lie are opposites, and that's what you need to take advantage of in a paradox. You have to link opposites together in a way that is ironic.

'I must be cruel to be kind' (Hamlet)

See what I mean about opposites? Now being cruel and being kind are two conflicting things but in some cases you have to be cruel to someone to ultimately be kind. It's like giving someone some brutally honest negative feedback on a verse. You may be being 'cruel' by giving the feedback but it's a means to an end as you are only doing it to help them improve.


Now for some hip hop examples:

'I'm really tryna make it more than what it is,
Cause everybody dies but not everybody lives' (Drake - Moment 4 Life)

Why it works:

As much as I dislike Drake this is a good example. In a literal sense you have to be alive to die, but what Drake means by 'lives' is that not everybody takes advantage of their life and seizes the day etc. Whether you live a full and exciting life is irrelevant when death comes because the one certainty in life is death. So yeah, Drake is trying to say that he is making the most of his time in this world.


'Seek for closure but stayed open minded' (Sage Francis - Personal Journalist)

Why it works:

'Close' and 'open' are opposites, but Sage has linked them together naturally. What he is saying in this line is that he needs to put an issue to rest but keep his mind free.


Now I hate to hype myself up but this one that I wrote is a good example.

'Simultaneously moving forward, standing my ground'

Why I think it works:

'Moving' and 'standing' are opposites, but I am not using them in a literal way. If you are moving forward, you are progressing. If you are standing your ground, it means you are defiant. The point I'm trying to make in that line is that I'm progressing defiantly.


Enough defiant progress for now, this was a challenge to write.


Conclusion

I think I've covered everything as best as I can. If you are unsure about anything then you can ask in this thread and either I or someone else will point you in the right direction. Punchlines are a very complex thing and no one will ever master them, but like anything else you develop a sense for them that comes with practice and knowing the mechanics. I'm aware that not every punch out there falls into one box (some wordplays are double entendres, and some paradoxes are also comedic etc) but these are the elements that make them what they are. The more you know, the easier they are to identify. Now I'm gonna list some of my personal favourites that fall into either one or multiple categories and I would like you to figure out why they work. Let them get the creative ball rolling and even try to write something in the same vein. It's all about that elevation.

Thanks for reading, now here are some punches.



'You couldn't make the crowd throw up their hands if they swallowed their fingers' (Eminem - 313)

'I know the watch bothering your vision,
But reach and I put a dot on your head like it's part of your religion' (Lloyd Banks - Victory Freestyle)

'You wind up in a room full of my dogs,
I'll leave you feelin' like a fire hydrant in a room full of dogs' (Royce da 5'9" - Boom)

'Leave you in the middle of nowhere like the letter H' (Copywrite - Hear Me Though)

'I'm past real, you know the kid blast steel,
Your heat only go off cause you don't pay your gas bill' (40 Cal - Freestyle)

'So many Makaveli mini me's in the game it's like a fucking outbreak of smallpox' (Vakill - Monstaz Ink)

'My slick acapella sounds clever with the beats,
Boy I'm the deepest thing since potholes to ever hit the streets' (Eye-Kyu - 313)

'I get too blunted off the funny home grown,
Cause when I smoke out I hit the trees harder than Sonny Bono' (Eminem - Role Model)

'Step to this and get shanked up,
I knocked out so many teeth the toothfairy went bankrupt' (Big L - Let em Have it L)

'Catch an L in the circle like a fucking Lexus logo' (Chino XL - Let em Live)

'I spit trife when I rip mics, nigga I been nice,
Fill you up with bullet holes and play the flute witcha windpipe' (Celph Titled - Demigodz)

















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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Neek Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2017 at 9:56pm
this was an excellent contribution to the site and something Sammy needs to take up asap.

I did however disagree with you on the sick pig line.. that shit was horrendous.

thanks tho Goryo.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Rutter knows best Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2017 at 10:11pm
This was impressive. Interesting to see how people subjectively look at all this. I don't personally agree with all of it. Like you said it's subjective.

Wordplay is always the most controversial. I think some people could pick some stuff up from this. Good shit.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Crimson Juice Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2017 at 10:59pm
Yeah solid inclusion here,could be useful for new arrivals I believe,maybe even stick it.
Anyways good work here Goryo...peace.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Sammy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2017 at 11:01pm
wow, very nice bud!!

@neek i see that shade, muhfucka!


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Neek Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2017 at 11:03pm
Originally posted by Sammy Sammy wrote:

wow, very nice bud!!
@neek i see that shade, muhfucka!



shade? sammy.. I just wanna see you...


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Sammy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 1:34am
lol!



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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Nigma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 1:49am
Cool collective here Goryo, thanks for the contribution
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Lord Puente Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 2:21am
dope write up, always good to see some of these to help newer members. props.
 
now you just gotta develop a gif game.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Sammy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 2:49am
vakill once wrote:

curiosity killed the catechism entrust in the pope

mind blown (at the time!)



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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Goryo. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 10:00am
Thanks everyone. Neek I dunno man it seemed pretty smooth and natural to me but maybe I was just surprised at something so dope being on Recovery. I could have written a thread this size picking apart all the bad punches in that album. Differing opinions are good though. I don't think everyone (advanced or new) that reads this will agree with 100% of it but that's good because everyone is gonna have/develop their own unique style.

Vakill has some dope lyrics and a good voice for rap but his flow lets him down at times. He sounds almost like an off beat Royce at times.

Just read this over with fresh eyes and feel like wordplay could be expanded on a bit cause I didn't go into the kind where Jay-Z would say 'sense/cents' for example. Maybe some traditional metaphors too but dunno cause I wanna avoid clutter at the same time.


Edited by Goryo. - 02 May 2017 at 10:06am
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