Muffins have those annoying papers on them that you hold onto to eat the muffin. Gambino ate the entire muffin, wrapper and all, because he gets paper.

Muffin is also slang for vagina, so CG could also be alluding to his enhanced ability to pick up women as a result of his increasing fame and affluence.

Another explanation to the line is that if you just ate a muffin, you are holding the paper it was wrapped in. So you got (have) paper.

J. Coles flow is as ice-cold as the cold shoulder a gold digger, who chases money and this gives said-shoulder to a broke man who approaches her. That’s cold. To expand and educate about this line, continue reading.

J. Cole flips the flow from a iambic pentameter couplets (Shakespearean like rhythm of speaking) to triplets (Say the the word triplet like, “Tri-pul-it”)

The classical, Shakespearean couplets have the affect of warming the listener when they hear the lines rapped in that manner, while the triplets allow the rapper to give off colder, more cynical, and even angry emotions (think Eminem’s “The Way I Am”. The flow in that song is nearly all triplets, and gives off a vibe of frustration and anger).

With this in mind, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that this line is autobiographical of earlier periods of J. Cole’s life. Back when he was broke, women would give him the cold shoulder when he would make sexual advances. This gives the line a bit of double entendre, punchline affect.

“Fighting demons” is a common metaphor in Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) for resisting temptation. Cole is referring to his struggles to remain faithful, and not sleep around.

Shock and awe refers to a military tactic of quickly dominating your opponent with overwhelming power. It was also the tactic used early on in the Iraq War

Also a reference to the book Shock Doctrine, which outlines how disaster capitalism was added by the use of electrical shocks, some of which involved Cattle Prods, popular with the beef ranchers turned soldiers in South American dictatorships

The Nasdaq is composed mostly of “hi-tech” stocks. The companies that own these stocks have fairly steady rates of growth, because of society’s continuing and growing reliance on their products and services.

Cole is using the Nasdaq’s performance for his continual rise in the rap game. His “new generation” status (Most of the Nasdaq are fairly young companies) will enable him to surpass the performance of his recent predecessors. (the DOW is older than the Nasdaq, and its performance is sluggish in comparison)