The NYPD has dabbled in gun buyback programs. Alternatively, Nas is so notorious the police are scared to get the gun the other way (prying it from his cold, dead hands).

The images were from Alice in Wonderland, it was Alice in the boat, she buys an egg, and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep, and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere, and I was visualizing that.

– John Lennon (sourced here)

Two possible interpretations:

• The opposing team is allowed to swat bounced shots away once the ball hits the table. Since Asher is a veteran of beer pong there is no point in bouncing the ball because he will swat it down (and probably yell “not in my house”)

• One of Asher’s “house rules” is no bouncing.

This continues the NBA theme from the previous line, as the line is associated with blocks in that sport, and the all-time great shot blocker Dikembe Mutombo in particular.

Roth is expressing his prowess at beer pong by comparing himself to the NBA Hall-of-Famers Allen Iverson and Hakeem Olajuwon.

Beer pong and amateur basketball players alike will sometimes call the name of a skilled basketball player before shooting for good luck (e.g. “Kobe!”).

One of Kanye’s first major career breakthroughs was producing Jay-Z’s song “This Can’t Be Life” – this was the first song they worked on together.

Kanye is using the title of the track to emphasize how surreal it feels to be experiencing such career success (including producing for Jay and recording his own album), while Ye’s cousin isn’t around to experience it with him.

Jay’s mom is Gloria Carter – he constantly lavishes affection on her in his songs and gives her all of the credit for his success.

Biggie claimed to live in the Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York City (however he was actually from nearby Clinton Hill)

This is a paraphrase of Jesus' famous line in Matthew 22, said in response to several Pharisees who had asked Jesus whether it is lawful to pay taxes to the Romans (Caesar). They asked this in order to entrap him – they expected Jesus to speak in favour of resisting Roman authority, which they could then report to Caesar’s minions.

Instead, Jesus replied “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.” This is a clever answer that flirts with ambiguity, since what is Caesar’s (as opposed to God’s) can be all earthly authority, or none.

The phrase has since then been used more straightforwardly as shorthand for kingly prerogative.

This can also be interpreted as an extension of the title of the song, insofar as the “fine print” comprises the nitty gritty details of contracts. Shady record labels can use dodgy terms to easily fleece other musicians out of their hard-earned gains, but Geedorah gets his. He picks up on this theme again midway through the song.

The Columbine shooters were falsely alleged to be part of a club called the “Trenchcoat Mafia”. Eminem references the Columbine shooters later on the next track of the album.