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The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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Get a nut is a pun on the phrase “busting a nut”, which is a euphemism for the male orgasm. The girls (curls) are looking for DOOM to have sex with. Nut is a double entendre for sex and money it’s slang for cumming and money which is the two things the song is about.
Also note: Being “nuts” is a common synonym for mad. Nut in this mad world
Also a reference to the song “The Rain” by Oran “Juice” Jones. One of the song’s closing lines is “It’s my world–you just a squirrel, tryin' to get a nut”.
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“Fishscale” is high-quality, uncut cocaine, which looks flaky and glittery. This is a variation on the idiom, “all that glitters is not gold”, which may date back as far as ancient Greece, but is perhaps most famously attributed to Shakespeare. Here, it implies that while rappers look fancy and act like drug dealers, looks can be deceiving.
Now hook me with two apple pies and a small fries Madvillain – Money Folder
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DOOM, sarcastically expresses his concern for these other MC’s. It’s really just a joke, he knows he’s always going to be better than them, as they are cooking up MF DOOM’s McDonald’s order.
He also wears glasses, giving him “four eyes”.
This line is a play on the phrase a “sight for sore eyes”, a common welcoming.
The four eyes also refers to both Madlib and DOOM, together as Madvillain.
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What is this?
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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What is this?
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What is this?
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Reference to the phrase “you don’t know shit from Shinola”. Shinola was a company that produced shoe polish during the early to mid-twentieth century. Modern rappers don’t have very discerning tastes: they copied (bit) his style, but couldn’t tell it apart from Lil Wayne, so to speak. They don’t know their gold chains from Shinola.
Additionally, there’s a type of “neck shine” known as a dookie rope, hence, the shit comparison.
“they don’t know their neck shine from Shinola”
This could mean that they are wearing fake jewlery, and it also references the line below talking about everything that shines isn’t real (gold).
also, as someone has already said, neck shine is sweat from working hard. But they can’t tell that sweat from someone smearing shinola to look like they worked hard
i feel like he means that they dont know their success (i.e. their chains, i.e. neck shine) is fake (neck shines from being oolished with shinola). Referencing ‘dont know shit from shinola’ also adds to the first line of the song saying the “rest is empty with no brain”
the way I see it, the neck shine is jewelry, but at the same time it’s a metaphorical chain holding them back, just like shinola, which represents the shoeshining black man stereotype.
67
I see a double entendre here along with the existing interpretations referring to shinola polish:
neck shine: the sweat on your neck from hard work
shinola: a play on neck shine and shinola polish and the record industry term “payola” – the practice of bribing radio stations or DJs to play your music
Doom’s saying here that these other rappers think they’ve worked hard and earned what they’ve got, but really they’re just coasting on their lucky break with the record companies
617
Or they bite the chain as with biting coins to see it they pure cast back in the days. They bite just to appear knowledgeable but actually have no idea how to tell if they bling a fake.
And also stretch this line on the next one. Not everything glitter is gold. Some are just painted (shinola =shoe polish to make a dull looking shoe shine)
They’ve bit but don’t know there neck shine (chain)
Since Shinola is a polish. The reference mean this wack style bitter can’t even tell between a real MC and the fake one.
An original gold or /silver chain or fake that was painted silver / gold (shinola)
8
@KuZ Could be referencing Blackface, poor and offensive caricature of a black man.
Maybe the rappers bit at the feet of DOOM and they don’t know that there is Shinola shoe polish on their necks.
110,521
@transcribers , I don’t hear the “but.” I’ve listened to Madib’s Stones Throw 101 Remix, and there as well I don’t hear a “but.” It sounds more like “they’ve bitten, don’t know…” or maybe “they’ve bit ‘n’ don’t know…”