Replying to a question with a song lyric is a practice as old as songs or questions, whichever came first. Our brains are associative, and if a particular line of conversation brings to mind an appropriate couplet, it’s hard to resist using it in place of something more prosaic. And why even try to resist?
This reference-happy attitude is what makes RapKey so satisfying. Designed by Babson student Jonah Kaner, it turns your drab, functional SMS responses into something a little hip-hoppier.
Kaner has form in the rap world. A former digital strategist for some big-name artists (who remain nameless), the developer was familiar enough with the hip-hop lexicon that he would often send rap lyrics to friends as a way of making his texts more interesting. Realizing how easy it would be to automate the process, he teamed up with Ativ Patel and developed the first incarnation of RapKey in a matter of days.
The turnaround was so fast because the app is devastatingly simple. All you need do is install the RapKey keyboard as an optional interface (after the QWERTY and Emoji keyboards that come as standard), scroll through a list of pre-loaded lyrics and select the most apt response to whatever you’ve just been asked. The message field will automatically populate and you can simply hit ‘send’.
All messages are divided into categories. One category contains a collection of words that are entertaining and - vaguely - sensible responses to the question ‘where are you?’; another contains suggested ripostes to ‘what are you doing?’. Other categories include talking to your bae and money-related lyrics. Users can even submit their own suggestions for future iterations of the app.
Text messages and rap already had a burgeoning relationship before RapKey came along. Artists are finding it to be the best way of staying in touch with fans, another way of bypassing the traditional business hierarchy and a logical continuation of hip-hop's tendency to transcend norms. The two dialects - rap and textspeak - even share many commonalities, each favoring speed, slang and phonetics over standard English. They are a match made in heaven - a fact clearly not lost on the developers of RapKey.
And yet, by their own admission, the designers of RapKey have bigga fish to fry, yo. Not content with hip-hop lyrics, Kaner sees the potential for other musical genres, and even TV shows and movies that have their own standalone keyboard.
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