"Bombs over Volgograd"

[Certain]

There was a lot to like about this. The writing was intellectual, and the traces of history were strong. The metaphorical conjuring of Sadako Sasaki, one of the most powerful stories of the past hundred years, was brilliant and really brought home Aisha's fears.

In general, the parts about Aisha were strong. I wish the story had been more tightly focused, though. There was an awful lot of Cold War exposition, which I suppose may be necessary for many rap website readers. That's one of the quandaries of trying to write intelligently on these boards, particularly when approaching historical topics. A good example was your final couplet, which was an on-the-nose approach to finishing this. I would have preferred the verse without that couplet, ending on the very strong "just in case" line.

From the lyrical perspective, there were moments of brilliance. Rhyming "killers of the young" with "Silmarillion" was very nice. Some of the multiple-syllable rhymes were strong. There were a few lines that simply were too long, five or six syllables longer than they needed to be for proper rhyme. That's part of the trouble of writing an intellectual story in rap form, though, and cutting words might have cost the content more than was worth it to save the flow.

It's great to see historical storytelling still alive these days, and I thought this was a very strong example of what can be done with it.