Nobody and I mean NOBODY was touching Canibus lyrically when he first came out

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Is lyrics putting words together or are lyrics having meaning?

Caninus put crazy words together. But his songs weren't about anything or had a few lines with some Internet conspiracy smart guy ideas.

This, basically!

 

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now that's just not true . His first album came out and he had songs with subject matters like:

what's going on : about people wilding at the clubs
2nd round ko : obvious a diss to LL
nikkanometry : using a mathematical concept to explain things in the world
channel zero - a song based on illuminati theories decades before it became the focus of youtube videos
I honor u : relationship song that at one point he rhymed as a fetus


So when he tried to have subject matter, people said, "we want to hear the mixtape stuff". The 2nd album dropped and he' did that and has been doing that ever since.

Not his fault but his "rap" voice suited that style only, on those songs you mentioned like "I Honor U", does he not sound like he is rapping about rap? I think if he adopted the conversational tone of rapping then he would have fared better.