Murs has had a long and decorated career as an independent rap artist, while picking up lucrative game and clothing sponsorships along the way, and starting his own festival. After 16 years in hip-hop, he’s a model for longevity and steady, deliberate growth.

As Murs once put it:

This is to the commercial rapper: your fans are stupid, so the jobs they get, they aren’t able to afford to go out and buy shirts and records, because they’re idiots, and they do stupid work, and they do dumb work, and they get dumb money. My fans are intelligent, so they do smart jobs, and make more money, so they can come out and spend and have a good time and not go broke, because they’re not spending their money on chains and rims and drugs.

…maybe drugs.

while it doesn’t offer the fictionalised glory that the drug game does, swallowing your pride and taking a job in fast food is probably a better prospect for many wannabe drug dealers.

TV depicts drug dealing as a glamorous occupation, leading to abundant wealth and nice threads. The reality is never as pretty, though.

“catastrophe damn near ended her life”. The 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed in 2007 and BK-One’s wife survived it

A shoutout to the Californian, pioneering indie rap crew that MURS got started with, Living Legends.

(top left!)

The first of a series of sly references to Atmosphere in this verse. This one refers to the cryptic The Woman With The Tattooed Hands off of Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EPs.

Ali leads the listener to believe he’s referring to a past as a cold blooded, remorseless hustler, whose customers' noses were running from all the coke they were snorting.

In actuality, though, the cold bloodedness refers to literal temperature, and the running noses refers to sniffles induced by Minnesota winters, which do not play: