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‘Twas a Good Day: Ice Cube gets the Shakespeare treatment

Is that a rap song I see before me? The words in shakespeare text? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee yes, but I want thee still. Thou art, a rap song of the mind?

Ok, I’ll admit that the people at Royal Frontier do a much better job than me at converting things into Shakespearian text. The site has recently undertaken a series of rap songs to convert into Iambic-pentameter. The selection includes “Jvicy“, a take on The Notorious B.I.G‘s Juicy, a version of Slick Rick‘s Children’s Story entitled “A Knave’s Tale”, and my personal favourite and pick of the bunch, “‘Twas a Good Day” modeled after Ice Cube‘s It Was a Good Day.

The tracks boast that 100% percent of the words used can be found in Shakespearian text, and they manage to find some pretty innovative ways to convert modern day hip hop lyrics into the bard’s style. ‘Twas a Good Day begins as such:

Awake, awake! I pray my thanks to God
For this strange day’s rare, wondrous fantasies.

Admittedly I was disappointed that Shakespeare never used language to represent messin’ around last week and gettin’ a triple double, but Royal Frontier does it’s best to accommodate even the sticklers like me.

I seek the friends playing at bowls for sport
For I kiss’d the jack, desired mistress,
And won a brave game when last we played. 

The site also offers limited prints including pictures and quotes from the converted songs available with free shipping until October 11th. For those of us inclined to purchase dumb things on the internet, this is a most welcome announcement.

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Slick-Rick-A-Knaves-Tale

The internet is a wild and wondrous place, and while I never knew that I needed Shakespearian interpretations of hip hop even if 10 Things I Hate About You tried to ignite that fire.

But now I know, this is exactly what my life has been missing. For an added bonus, check out Twas a Good Day and try to rap along with the Shakespeare lyrics (may or may not be perfecting this as we speak).