Notoriety doesn’t amount to anything for police building a case. The infamous Al Capone was only charged with tax evasion when convicted, for example.

Even though the Police know AZ is breaking the law they have no proof.

Some people die before they’re supposed to because of the lifestyle in the hood–unsafe and violent. Life in the hood is essentially survival of the fittest given that armed robbery and gang violence is not an uncommon occurrence.

Unions make sure employees aren’t subject to unfair conditions at work. Redman will blow your speaker system! “Word is bond” is a saying used amongst Nation of Islam ‘Five Percenters’

#Double Entendre

• Above Jay perverts the moral found in Mo' Money Mo' Problems by making it vacuous. There is no redemption in the hook of ‘money, cash hoes’, which is why people won’t like it.

• Jay-Z basically is poking fun at the fact that the hook in this song makes no sense because Money and Cash are the exact same thing. But he doesn’t care because he knows the fans will let him get away with this lyrical crime.

Jay’s poor black NY background is not that different than Nas'. He’s pulling his enemy close and intimate for this last verse.

Jeta is a name popular in Albania, pronounced ‘Yeta’. Action’s lady comes from his part of the woods, but not Albania (the next line).

Albania is a small European country just above Greece in the pits of the Balkans.

1982 novel by Alice Walker. Addressed the low status of African American women.

Many of the relationships are disturbed over the course of the novel but are later restored: Sofia returns to her family and to Harpo, Shug returns from her travels with Germaine, and Nettie arrives home with Celie’s children. In these cases, people grow and change separately before coming back together. Although they each travel their own journey and learn their own lessons, when the relationships are restored they are bonded by family and friendships that transcend the pain of the past and the earlier roles that had caused tension.

Some of the earliest shots aimed at Nas. His girlfriend at the time Carmen Bryan claimed to have met Jay in 1996, and in her book explains “Is That Yo Bitch?” is explicitly about her. We’d discover even more about their relationship on “Supa Ugly”:

Gotta hurt I’m your baby mama’s favorite rapper

Jay is expressing the same sentiment that Ludacris would in 2000 with “Ho”

Can’t turn a ho into a housewife

If Nas can’t keep his girl to himself, how does he plan on winning a beef with Jay?

“Meet Jayceon Terrell Taylor. Sixteen years old. Fed up with life and the way things are going, he decides to steal two records and buy twenty dollars of drugs in a baggie. Just then, his conscience comes into play…”

See that, Game is also making the point of how good “Illmatic” and “The Chronic” were both the top albums in the world, and he needed both of them, so he might as well steal them, cuz (as if I’m Game talking) who gives a shit? I can get away with it, might as well spend my money on something i can’t steal, and get away with as easily…like drugs

Nas is calling out no-name rappers who don’t have much cash (no G’s), but spend the little bit they have trying to appear wealthy. While they are struggling to embellish their image, Nas is having a good time chilling in Rio, drinking champagne.

The wordplay/irony is that the Gucci luggage has G’s all over it, but these phony rappers got no G’s (cash).