Almost every rap song is filled with poetic and literary devices, and “mathematics” by Mos Def is no exception. I was surprised by the large variety of rhyme styles and I had thought this song would predominantly use perfect rhymes.

The bar “He on the hill pumping krill to keep they belly filled” uses an imperfect, perfect, and masculine rhyme. The bar starts using a perfect rhyme, hill and krill, but then uses a masculine rhyme where only the beginning of filled and krill rhyme. This also makes the rhyme an imperfect, or half, rhyme.

The song also contains a multi-syllable rhyme. There are multiple syllables that rhyme between “poverty” and “economy” in the verse “Bubbling crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty, and end up in the global jail economy”

“Mathematics” also uses the literary device of alliteration. The alliteration is featured in the “st” and “s” sounds in the line “Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence”. I have personally found that alliteration makes songs more catchy, much like rhyme, and that it can be responsible for a song getting stuck in my head.

The website http://genius.com/Yasiin-bey-mathematics-lyrics was used to reference lyrics.