Double Entendre…
Continuing the last line about going to sleep to gunshots.

• Leaving holes in souls = shooting someone to death, but since they are the seize of Grand Canyons (metaphor for huge), they must be using some big guns/rounds!

• And/or leaving holes in the souls of the people close to the person shot, meaning friends and family are devastated over the death.

Explaining the dramatic change in scenarios; when he was young and poor he lived in a bad neighborhood or a ghetto since people got shot when he was going to sleep. Now it’s another noise when he’s going to sleep — the sound of fans arguing over who’s best and in doing so he’s putting emphasis on what’s really important. You can also put it this way: Before people wanted to kill, now they want to adore him. For most people in ghetto there are only two options out of it, either as a ballplayer or a rapper.

After Nasir´s verse on Live at the Barbeque and his Half Time joint he had started to garner alot of hype, since he blew some very established rappers out of the water. That´s the year he met Nas so he is using the kite as a metaphor for the hype. So when Nas allowed him to rap on the album it was literally like a kite throwing him the mic. AZ career also took flight from his classic verse and hook.

AZ recounted recording for the album:

I got on Nas' album and did the “Life’s a Bitch” song, but even then I thought I was terrible on it, to be honest. But once people started hearing that and liking it, that’s what built my confidence. I thought, OK, I can probably do this. That record was everything. To be the only person featured on Illmatic when Nas is considered one of the top men in New York at that time, one of the freshest new artists, that was big.

This is the story of AZ´s transition into the music business.

The story starts before his kids where born when The Visualiza used to smoke weed and drink beer (Don´t do what you daddy did!). He also used to sell drugs out of peer pressure since he didn’t want to be an outsider/boring (square). We all know the feel bro

The middle to upper class sees gangsters as evil, but AZ has a good heart. Like Darth Vader, he’s just hanging in the wrong circle.

Then again it´s all perspective, since the poor sees the rich as evil taking all the profit leaving nothing for the poor.

Refering to Kool G. Rap (second reference in this song), himself and Jadakiss. They are all overlooked, what’s your pick? We report, you decide.

While driving home from a California recording studio after working late, he fell asleep at the wheel and was involved in a near-fatal car crash. The crash left him with a shattered jaw, which had to be wired shut in reconstructive surgery.

Tupac almost died once too when he was shot five times; twice in the head, twice in the groin and once through the arm and thigh. But it could also be referring to him dying before his last album released. Therefore when it dropped it literally felt that he was still alive. That was the feeling people get with Kanye West after his car crash (except he actually was still alive)

He could either be referring to:

• The common idiom that hunger is the best flavor/the more you work for it, the more you appreciate the money you get. Meaning you feel more worth and accomplishment when you work hard (grind).

• Or more specifically the grind, when a drug dealer is running around town buying/selling drugs. Since he as a history in crime and he didn´t get the money from an ordinary job because they don´t pay you well.

The second Nas/Illmatic reference in this song.

Life’s a bitch and then you die

Carrying the same meaning as the original so head over there to peep the annotation.