Northstars

His weed is so strong, it makes him cough and constricts his lungs. If you take too big of a hit, you may feel some pain in your lungs. Pain is commonly associated with crying.

Claude Monet was a famous french artist who has been renowned as one of the primary figures in the French impressionist painting movement. The term impressionism stems from this painting, Impression Soleil levant which translates to Impression Sunrise. The main goal of this style was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and color.
Read more about impressionism here.

If his parents can’t even spare ten minutes to be interested in his passion and art, then clearly they’re not open minded enough to appreciate graffiti yet.

his parents, stuck in their ways of hiding from hip hop, have never heard of Outkast. Qwel makes a nice play on words here, implying that they’ve lived a rock riff, which implies both that they’ve lived their life only participating in the genre of rock and roll, as well as living under a rock because of how successful and famous OutKast is considered.

once again, Qwel is calling his parents Helen Keller to imply that they are “blind” to his reasoning and message. By telling his parents he’ll hit the bricks, and they can hit the canvas, he is reinforcing that Graffiti is an art form he will never give up and he’ll never be restrained by a canvas and what is approved of.

In this line, Qwel points out a common fear of graffiti. Since Graffiti is illegal and considered vandalism, people refuse to look at it as an art form. Qwel responds by pointing out how Christians (note Qwel songs contain many references to Christianity) were at one point thrown into a den of lions due to their beliefs clashing with what was commonly accepted and approved of.

In a similar style, graffiti writers are often ostracized simply because their chosen medium of art clashes with what is approved of by society.

Qwel points out how the only way to reach the ears of the masses is to seemingly release pop hits that appeal to broad audiences. These types of songs are typically thought of as void of any emotional or logical depth, and focus on catchy, appealing sonic aspects. These songs are about as “authentic” to the deeper purpose of music as barbie is authentic to female body images.

Qwel continues the theme of water and swimming/nautical ventures to continue his metaphor on materialism. Our anchor hands and canvas feet (the human body) represents the vessel traveling across the water.

The two banks represent materialism, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, selflessness and spirituality. Qwel believes mankind needs to choose to fully devote itself to spirituality and selflessness as opposed to sitting in the middle of the water between the two banks.

Qwel believes we should praise spirituality and morality(in this case Yahweh or God in Abrahamic religions [Christianity, Islam, Judaism]) over man (materialism and physical goods).

“late great” refers to how Qwel believes materialism is destroying planet earth, and earth is nothing more than a shell of its former self.