BBDS

Old-school boxer, Jack Johnson, was the first black heavyweight champion and one of the first men ever to rock gold teeth; the gold grill plus bald head make the two almost twins.

Famous composer Quincy Jones moved to Seattle at age 10 and attended high school there. at age 14 [he met renowned artist Ray charles and got his first start in music there.

This speaks to how messed up and erratic the actions inside the church are. “Bottles goin' off” is a basic term meaning that everything’s going crazy. Ghost then mentions the communal wine which churches use to represent the blood of Christ; this goes in line with the bottles metaphor.

The fact that he says “We broke the wine” insinuates that what Ghost describes with the rest of this verse was caused by the slap he gave to the pastor in the next line.

Ghost compares the violence in the streets as a youngin' to wars that military soldiers have to experience. The youth are basically green beret soldiers out there in the streets.

This is a slight reference to the eye for an eye quote from Gandhi. The meaning of the quote is that those who try to get even (an eye for an eye), only make problems worse.

Pusha disregards this quote, stating that simply getting revenge is the simplest — and in his opinion, best — way to settle something.

The infamous Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and the 3 major cases of shootings occurring due to the book — John Lennon’s death, attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, and the murder of a Hollywood resident.

Pusha feels as if his word is a s influential as the book.

By “touching the sky,” Sosa is referring to getting her high, since the sky is pretty far up. There is also the chance that this is referring to Kanye’s “Touch the Sky”.

A reference to Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon in the Sky”

Here Push is playing off the keys/Ki’s homophone, which is to reference kilo’s of cocaine and the keys on a piano. The previously mentioned song is often considered a love ballad, so in this case, Push would be expressing his love for coke.

Malice references the nursery rhyme of “Little Jack Horner”

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said ‘What a good boy am I!

In this case, pie is a synonym for a kilo of coke.

Mount Kilimanjaro is the fourth most prominent mountain in the world. Liva is using a hyperbole to compare his pile of coke to the height of the mountain — which is around 19,308 ft.