Relates back again to the Nelly reference as Nelly and other rappers are known for featuring women doing “booty claps” in their videos or references to it in the lyrics.

But, in DC, there’s an emphasis put on pulling the trigger on other people, hence making the revolver clap.

Growing up in the hood, Uptown did a lot of bad things and as time went on, it all came back to him and he paid for the things he did.

Here, Uptown equates the love he and his friends feel for one another as something that changes, whether it’s over a short period of time (seasons change every 3 months) or over a long period of them (erosion can take years to make noticeable changes).

When Uptown goes through the hood, he sees kids acting the toughest solely because their life is harder than most other people, which they feel gives them credit on the streets.

Uptown XO certainly sounds pretty confident here as he claims that even the haters love him, but they’re just ashamed to admit it.

Related back to the previous line as Nelly is from St. Louis and is known for help creating a brand of jeans known as “apple bottoms”, which are “form hugging” jeans that are intended to make the woman who’s wearing its bottom look like an apple.

The term gained popularity in the early 2000’s thanks to Nelly and other rappers (shout out to Flo Rida’s Low) mentioning apple bottoms in their songs, such as in Nelly’s infamous song “Tip Drill”.

Relates back to the line right before this where teachers thought that Uptown was not smart. Evidently, they thought this so much that they developed an IEP (Individualized Education Program) for him. Required in the US because of the Individuals with Disabilities Act, an IEP is designed for the student to reach educational goals easier than they normally would.

Teachers thought he’d turn out to be nothing because of his desire to become a musician, which is known as a tough business to get into. “Why not get a college degree instead?” they insisted.

Growing up in the inner city, you see/hear a lot of things you don’t want to.

In this case, if you were to open the window, you could hear gunshots which will undoubtedly end somebody’s life.

Ode is defined as being “a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion” or as “a poem intended to be sung.”

Basically, as Uptown XO mentioned earlier, he never really thought of rap as a career path he would follow and instead envisioned basketball as a better option. But, as he listened to some of his current major influences in hip hop such as Mos Def, Jay-Z (one of his more popular nicknames is “Jigga”), and 2pac (who will be referenced later), he realized that instead of becoming a ballplayer, he had something to say and raps were constantly on his mind. He began to pursue that career instead.