When getting a perm one’s hair is basically getting fried to make it curl up, but of course, when this is done too long, you’re gonna end up with burned hair.

A potter’s field is an area where unidentified or people who can’t afford an actual grave get buried. The term originates from Matthew 27:3-8.

3 — Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders
4 — Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that
5 — And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself
6 — And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood
7 — And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in
8 — Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day

Frukwan’ll break and make a dagger out of Jacob’s ladder, which in the Bible, is the ladder to Heaven. So technically, he’d stabbing someone with something that takes you to heaven and stabbing could lead to death which is something you’ll go to heaven for. Or you could say, that he’s making you reach the most wonderful thing in the world by killing you with the entrance.

Shabazz here drops a wordplay on the word shoot. At a gallery, people would naturally shoot a lot of pictures with their cameras, but the Gravediggaz are only out to shoot guns.

Normas Bates is the name of the Ed Gein-inspired main character of the Psycho series, which make “I’m psyched out” a pun. As the title suggests, the main character of the book and film series suffers from psychosis and has got a few screws loose.

To get a meal, The Gatekeeper and his blood brothers must kill someone (rip on a peel). “God degree” is a 5% term for food, why you can find in the annotation for the following line by Ghostface Killah:

Swallow this murder one verse like God Degree.

Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease which acts very slowly, but like RZA said, is also deadly. Symptoms of the disease include loss of vision, spasms and physical and intellectual disabilities like numbness, dysfunctions and dementia.

This line is a sample from Cypress Hill’s song “Pigs” which is the first track off their self-titled debut album. The track itself is about cops, or “pigs”, not doing their job and fucking up society by not doing so.

Well this pig’s standin' eatin' donuts
While some motherfucker’s out robbin' your home
– B-Real

Trichinosis is an extremely rare parasitic disease which is usually caused by eating undercooked meat. Note how RZA gracefully plays a disease gotten from uncooked meat with “smoking” him. (Smoking is killing someone with a firearm, but of course also a type of cooking.).

In a ‘98 interview with Blues & Soul magazine Jay explained the reasoning on why he chose to sample the musical Annie:

What happened was I was on tour and Kid Capri played me the track. Mark ‘45’ King had produced it, and at the time it was just beats and the sampled hook. You know, Mark’s known for making famous hip hop beats like ‘900 Number’ with no rap on them. So, once I heard it, I was like ‘I gotta have that’ — and I tracked Mark down. At first he was like ‘Nah man, it’s for my compilation album’, but he eventually let me have it. You know, I knew how people in the ghetto would relate to words like ‘Instead of treated we get tricked’ and ‘Instead of kisses we get kicked’… It’s like when we watch movies we’re always rooting for the villain or the underdog because that’s who we feel we are. It’s us against society. And, to me, the way the kids in the chorus are singing ‘It’s a hard-knock life’ is more like they’re REJOICING about it. Like they’re too strong to let it bring them down. And so that’s also the reason why I call it the ‘Ghetto Anthem’.