God Tyler, The Creator (Ft. Hodgy) – Burger
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Double entendre – Roam/Rome (fits in since he’s talking about ancient Greece – the Greek and Roman civilizations are often lumped together as the “classical civilizations,” and the Romans adopted the Greek gods)
Greek statues of gods and goddesses are known for being depicted shamelessly naked.
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Bleach removes colour/whitens fabric – he means to literally whitewash himself (since a glimmer of Black came through). Of course, bleach is also highly poisonous, and many people commit suicide by drinking bleach.
Most of Tyler the Creator’s fans are white, and OFWGKTA has white members, so perhaps he finds it difficult to have an “authentic” black identity (whatever that is) in the midst of such a white crowd.
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Coolant, vaguely speaking, is fluid which flows through a device to prevent it from overheating (it typically means radiator coolant, or antifreeze – engine coolant).
Hodgy is pushing his flow to its limits, so it’s overheating, and thus it requires coolant.
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A marginally notable Jamaican singer, following her appearance on this song King managed to secure a record deal with Sony Music
The lyrics were taken from “Gun Man Tune,” by Pan Head
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Jeezy has spent most of his life living in George, and the City of Atlanta specifically. Southern rappers sometimes refer to the “Dirty South” as the “Bottom of the Map” – acknowledgement of the geographical location in the southern part of the US, as well as Southern Hip Hop’s humble origins compared to East Coast and West Coast Hip Hop (although at the time of this album release in 2005, Southern Hip Hop was at the zenith of its popularity and influence).
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A south Bronx DJ regarded as one of the seminal founders of hip hop. An appropriate reference given the simian imagery throughout the song (since the majority of apes are native to Africa)
Appropriately this song also samples “The Message,” recorded by Afrika Bambaataa’s contemporary hip hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash. The hook of that song famously compares living in a impoverished city as being comparable to living in a jungle
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Chewbacca (a Star Wars character) is actually a Wookiee, not an ape. He does resemble a simian however.
Interestingly apes were not used in the creation of Chewbacca’s voice – the sound designer used walruses, lions, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers, and badgers.
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A 1949 film and 1998 remake about a giant gorilla
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As in Donny Hathaway – a fellow soul and R&B singer/musician
Coincidentally Hathaway also tragically died young
I don’t think it’s a “coincidence” that Hathaway died young. He was a paranoid schizophrenic who refused to take his meds and killed himself by jumping out a skyscraper window at age 33. Amy Winehouse recognized that refusing medical treatment for her problems was risky, but she was a badass rock star who liked the idea of living fast and dying young, and idolized someone else who did the same.
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Hathaway was a soul artist.
In the next line, Amy states that she hasn’t learned much from going to school and implies in this one that she’s learned more from music (specifically jazz music, which Donny Hathaway was an active contributor to) than school.
A common opinion that many audiophiles seem to share is that music can teach a lot more about life than school ever can. Addiction is a hard, life-centered issue that most school curriculums try to educate students about but ultimately fail since dealing with addiction is a mostly experience based lesson. There’s an implication in this lyric that Amy can learn how to cure her sadness (and, by extent, her addiction) from Donny Hathaway’s music rather than rehab.
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Specify whether Mr. Hathaway was trying to teach her more about singing Soul / R&B music or something else entirely.