You Know You're the Best When
A writing fantasy blissed out on Diet Dr Pepper (that is, Caffeine)

I never thought I would know it, but I just found out:
I’m the best rapper.
Some people rhyme quick, and some people rhyme quicker, but I’ve eaten my just desserts.
Best rapper in the world.

I never thought it could happen to me. I worked so long though, and I worked so neat.
It’s me.
I did it.
Now it’s mine.

What do I do, now that I’m the best rapper?
I’m the best rapper:
I’ll be the best rapper.
It’s funny now, cause for a few seconds, I’ve been the best rapper. Try that one on for size. Swallow that one with a glass of nice, cold milk. Munching on it as if it were a cookie. Know how that cookie’s gonna taste with the milk, the cold milk.

Maybe if this rapper gets tired, he could fix himself a glass of warm milk, and that will help him go to bed more quicker. Maybe this rapper is up at 3 AM wearing some footies, some jammies, and a big old sleeping cap, pacing around, wondering how to go to sleep and what to rap about. Maybe this rapper knows that rapping after dinner makes it hard to fall asleep right then and there. Maybe this rapper rolls over at 4:30 AM, desperate for anything to help him through, and pulls out his trusty 808, trying out a few of those weird hand claps to get him in a more reflective mood, a more deliberative, sleepy mood. Maybe he dusts off the echoplex at 5:15 AM, when the cat is just waking up, and tries out a new sound for that chorus in his growly singing voice, doing it sotto voce so as not to annoy the people in the next apartment over. Maybe at 7:30 AM, having gotten a composite three hours of sleep, the best rapper is alone, in a bathrobe, listening to LPs with headphones on, going from the Original Dub Warriors to King Branwyck and finally on to Bert Slicks.

This rapper knows that he’s a masculine rapper, he’s aware of the alternatives.
This rapper knows about alliterating. In fact, he’s been called a “dude of literature” by MC Walt Whitman.

This, the best rapper, does not accept checks, because this is 2009, ya heard?

I am the best rapper when I am flipping open my telephone, scanning down the list of people I know to see if there’s any of them that I might call. At this hour. With something to say. Done with the night’s texting, on to the business (calling) of the day. Informing people that I am the best rapper, getting their feedback on it and making the critical “best-rapper” adjustments that only I can make to keep my game the freshest out of all of the everybody. Doing what it takes to stay on top. With making my phone calls. No coffee yet. Just records, PJs, rapping, being the best and baddest. Stone cold baddest rapper, like snatching things out of the air that weren’t meant for me. Like Britons intercepting German communiqués with the Mexicans in 1918. Like Ike Taylor crossed with Asante Samuel. Like Lewis Hyde. Like rapping. Big bad rapper guy. That’s me. Who to call…
No one to call.

Yup. King of raps. The roy of this rhyming stuff. The rex of rejistrah…

by Dave Ruder, 2009