Drake flatters girls with empty lies; this is also the theme of his hit “Best I Ever Had”

Nas is so rich and ghetto famous, his old cribs in the hood are monuments to his success. His competition treat them like museums.

His new location could be anywhere in the world…

Though this is what happens when you actually Google Earth “Nas.”

Nas is bragging about how much his catalog of songs is worth, comparing it to Michael Jackson’s ATV Music Publishing (owner of The Beatles‘ songs and others). The 'Mottola can’t touch’ refers to an incident in 2001 when Sony Music Entertainment, headed by Tommy Mottola, unsuccessfully tried to take all of Jackson’s music rights

Sony is also the parent company of Columbia Records, Nas' old label. He could be saying that, like MJ, Tommy Mottola can’t touch his publishing either. Whether or not this boast is true remains to be seen…

During Kingdom Come Jay began heavily promoting his new Champagne venture with Ace of Spades. It’s expensive, costing around $300 per bottle.

Mr. Chow’s is a Chinese fine dining restaurant on 57th Street in New York City. TAO Uptown is also an Asian restaurant, and Nobu is one of the most exclusive and well-regarded restaurants in the world.

Jay is melancholic, even depressive in this section. The joy that these expensive things brings him is fleeting. He drinks, but it ends up as urine. He eats expensive food, but it ends up as waste, the same as if he ate Chinese food from the corner.

With his elite cadence skills, the way Hov says “thou’s” sounds like “hours.“ This is another expression of saving: he coulda saved himself six hours by staying home with his wife, instead of going to the club to show off his “success.”

A portrait of a harsh life as a poor black kid in the projects. Black skin becomes “ashy” or white, when it gets dry and damaged during cold winter weather. It is also a double entendre meaning Jay is “white knuckling”, because his “back [is] to the wall”.

Too bad young Jay-Z didn’t have any shea butter!

The “My back to the wall” part can be interpreted in two different ways:

• It gives you an image of his “back to the wall”, waiting on the blocks for customers.
• His back was to the wall, meaning that he didn’t have a cent in his pocket, as he repeats in the next line.

“Pockets filled with a lot of lint” could also potentially be a reference to Rakim’s line in Paid in Full.

In the first line, he’s using “mommy” or “mami” as he often does for a general term for a female. In this case probably a young teen. Saying that the reason she was impregnated or “knocked up” is because her parents didn’t watch over her (or couldn’t), and were not around (i.e. mom working lots of hours, father absent or incarcerated). So as a result the young lady had sex behind her parents' backs.

“Knocked down” after being “knocked up” because getting pregnant was a misfortune rather than a joyous event as it is in middle-class families. The mother is left to raise the child by herself like many other inner-city women

This section can also be a reflection on Jay’s childhood. His father (who he says numerous times he doesn’t want to be like) knocked up his mother because she didn’t have someone looking out for her. That clown reference is to his father who left Jay as a child with his mother to raise by herself with no child support payments.

Sidenote: Jay-Z in Decoded explains a part of this line saying; “Again I’m talking about the flipside of the Money, Cash, Hoes” type songs. Sex can knock you up and knock you down."