N.W.A.'s Express Yourself is a rap about freedom of expression and censorship. While the song more widely criticizes not speaking out and not expressing yourself it was specifically targeting an issue at the time. N.W.A. were upset that radio stations censored the music they worked hard to create or would outright refuse to play their songs because of what they sometimes rapped about. In protest they wrote the song encouraging other artists to rap and sing their true feelings. The rhyme scheme is not consistent and they often rhyme words that don't truly rhyme making it questionable. Despite this the scheme is often aa bb. Occasionally Dre makes use of in line rhyming, especially in the final verse. Aside from rhyming he uses other techniques to make the song poetic. Dre uses a lot of similes to describe both himself (such as comparing himself to a meditating Buddhist) and to describe rappers he's not a fan of (describing them as a "tortoise, full of rigor mortise"). The song is low on other poetic terms and as thus is quite straight forward having a very literal meaning that one should be honest in their creative works. The one criticism I have of this is how Dre sings out against recreational marijuana use. He said this about a year before creating The Chronic, an album almost exclusively about using marijuana for recreation and income. This makes Dre guilty of what he complains about in this song. I feel this is an important criticism but despite it I think the message N.W.A. wanted to send is still a good one. This is what makes me sad as I want to agree with Dre but it seems he may not agree with himself.
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