The problem of authorized text in rap poetry. Speech and writing

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the auditory and graphic existence of a rap text, existing in the logic of the Derridean opposition of “speech” and “writing”. Based on three authorized texts (two published in print and one on the Internet), an analysis of the phonetic, rhyme and rhythmic levels is carried out. Particular emphasis is placed on pantorhythm (A.A. Diveyeva), elements of metareference (A.A. Ryzhkov, S.V. Tkachuk) and vowel reduction. The article questions the relevance of the concept of “authorized text”, since the text of rap poetry does not exist independently of the performance (musically or in the format of melodic recitation) and therefore the supporting structures in it are weakened. This is most clearly expressed in the rhythmic organization: it is often not possible to trace a certain meter in rap texts; there is a clear inclination towards the tonic with a different number of syllables between the accents; Also, due to the unidirectional - non-visual - chronotope of the flow of rap text, the concept of “line” seems problematic: the division of lines is not justified either by rhyme (often intraline), or by meter, but by the extra-textual aspect of breathing, what is shown by the example of Ovsyankin’s text analysis. In general, the rap text does not pretend to be self-sufficient but operates more in the logic of the production script, supported by extra-textual means (the tendency towards transgression is inherent in rap at the semantic level). Because of this, a methodological difficulty is presented by the question “which text to work with?” The article proposes to deviate from the concept of an authorized text (it demonstrates how unnecessary the author’s texts turn out to be) in favor of verified fan transcripts, which often turn out to be more relevant to the auditory appearance of a rap text and therefore more suitable for analysis. In addition, basic principles for recording rap lyrics on a line indicating the source are proposed.