The song is great overall especially towards the end. The songs on the album in general didn't have the best lyrics. The mixtape however was filled with some great lines from Mike. I think overall with the album he was still in his "keep it simple" phase.
This. I remember the first time listening to Kenji and a few lines jumped out at me that made me go "eh?". It's not bad, but it could've been written a lot better.
Lol yeah, I don't see what it being personal to him has to do with the fact that there are out of place lines
I think it's a great song, although I don't think the part where he describes a dream he has was all that necessary. He could've been like "Listen to this story, now let's go back to '42." (I can't write lyrics, but you get the idea)
Maybe he liked the rawness of the song, who knows if these lyrics weren't worked into as much as the rest, maybe he decided to let them as natural as they came (in case they were) instead of thinking too much about perfecting and take some of the feeling away from the song for the sake of technique. I don't know. BTW SuperDude, I watched your avatar while listening to this and it was so hilarious.
I felt like the vast majority of FM was poorly written. It was very soft and I was hoping we'd get more High Voltage (piano version) and Dedicated type agressive-ness and lyrical punches. But things were pretty soft. There's even a Grindtime Rap Battle (world famous battle league) where some pretty big battle rappers (who's names slip me right now) call one of the dudes soft by saying his rhymes sound like they were written by Fort Minor. I think we all know Mike is a dope MC. Songs like Spray Paint and Ink Pens really bring that out in him. But I feel like he kind of got swamped by this need to sound commercial/poppy.
I loved Fort Minor as a whole and loved Kenji even more, to me it's the most powerful song on the album. It talks about struggle and trying to keep your family together and love. I think it's brilliant
Don't forget that Kenji has a very odd structure which lent itself to very awkward phrasing. It has two bars of 4/4 then a bar of 6/4. That bar of 6/4 is really what gives it that kind of awkward feel with the last lines.
Yeah, that's the thing; if it's written "awkwardly" at all, it's because it has a more awkward and unusual song structure. I like it a lot, though; the lyrics may be a bit simplistic, but you can tell Mike poured a lot of emotion into that song. I actually listened to it while I was at Pearl Harbor reading this pamphlet about the internment camps, and it was freakishly powerful. Good stuff.
I've always thought Kenji was written well. It gets me "picturing the scene" very well and it's easy to get lost in the story. I think it holds a very special meaning for Mike and his family. On the debate over what song was best written though, I've always loved Right Now. That's probably my favourite song on the album.