And make it drop
To the street beneath
Your ghetto box
Slap the beat 'til the
Floor boards crack
'Neath the weight of this lic, step back Death Grips – Punk Weight
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Someone listening to the song in their apartment and playing it so loud from their stereo that it can be heard down in the street below.
Further, “Down break dead space” more broadly suggests that rap music “breaks down” the “dead space,” – reviving areas abandoned by the government, breathing new life into them. This is, of course, the origin of hip hop music in the “decaying” Bronx.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
This is the title cut from Killer Mike’s 2012 album, R.A.P. Music (or Rebellious African People). The song portrays rap in a spiritual light, likening it to both a religion and to other African-American musical art-forms (jazz, funk, soul, gospel, blues, and rock ‘n roll).
Another theme expressed in the song is that Mike is trying to do good works through hip-hop, and through those good works, he hopes that God will allow him to live a long life and let him into Heaven when he dies.
Here’s how Killer Mike sums up his own thoughts on the “R.A.P. Music,” from a track by track breakdown published in Spin:
“The natural assumption you have about a song called "R.A.P. Music” is that it will all be about hip-hop, well it’s not. I’m talking about every music that’s been born on this continent from a group of people that were brought here in chains. That music that gave them hope. It gave them a way of communicating. It gave them laughter. It gave them passion. My people have given a great amount to the culture of this country and I wanted my predecessors to know how much I appreciate them. That’s what R.A.P. Music is."
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
(As with the entire “hook,” the line is borrowed from Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.)
The distinction here is between acting tough and having an internal fortitude.
In the lines from the novel, the narrator is acknowledging her own complicity in the community’s scapegoating of the impoverished black girl, Pecola. Pecola was sacrificed so the others could feel better about themselves. While they gained power from this, they were not truly strong.
For Black Star, the commentary seems to be on inner-city “thug life” and the whole gangster rap persona that the duo counters with their own more bookish style. As in the first verse, Kweli seems to embrace a pacifist stance: “You’re firearms are too short to box with god.”
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
It’s like that and that’s the way it is,“ though the sentiment may be read as sarcastic when taken in context with the next line.
Perhaps a retort to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Everything is Fair”. In Redford’s city, things certainly don’t seem fair.
Though the film The Dark Knight was made way after this song, this quote by the Joker echoes the same sentiments:
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
To heaven while you scared of the people livin under-
-ground Reflection Eternal (Ft. Bahamadia & Xzibit) – Chaos
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
And I can no longer contain whats under my disguise
I've always had the cancer for the cure
That's what the fuck am I El-P – $4 Vic / Nothing But You + Me (FTL)
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
El-P can no longer wear a mask and feels the need to reveal his true self, which he believes is the “cancer for the cure,” a kind of saving destruction.
“Cancer 4 Cure” is of course the title of the album. It is a clever reversal of societal norms, a metaphor for El-P’s critique of capitalist society. Everyone wants a cure for cancer, but he suggests that the supposed “cure” may be a disease itself, and that a destructive force like a disease might be necessary to right the course of society.
And, after everything El-P has searched for, he realizes that the cancer for the cure isn’t some outside force he can easily identify and condemn. Rather, El-P looks around and eventually finds the problem inside of himself.
72,979