This is a reference to fable of William Tell in which William was forced by a tyrant to shoot an apple that was sitting on his son’s head because William refused to bow down to the tyrant; Tell was successful in hitting the apple and not his son.

However, continuing with the meaning of the previous line, “Take a bastard lay him down in dirt”, it can also be referring to the Adam’s apple; Action is shooting at your throat, instead of above your head.

Jean Claude is reference to Jean Claude Van Damme; Jean Claude was an actor — most known for his martial art action movies. This ties in with “Hand skills”, in that martial arts involves the use of hand-to-hand combat; Action is good in the fine art of hurting dudes with hand-to-hand combat.

This is also a reference to Claude Monet; a famous French painter who founded the Impressionist movement. This ties in with “fine art” because Monet is a painter — or an artist.

“Put my head right through the Monet, ole” can have two meanings:

• In its literal meaning, Action can be headbutting his head through a Monet painting; This connects with the hand-to-hand combat and martial arts meaning mentioned above.
  Action is yelling ole to express happiness.

• Monet sounds like a distorted way to say money; Action can be bragging about how he has enough money he can dive into it.

Ole can be used in to express happiness and triumph from putting his head through the Monet painting or his fighting skills.

A blue collar worker is a member of the working class who does manual labor. The term derives from the workers wearing navy blue so dirt or grease stains would be concealed making the workers look cleaner.

Red and blue rags are a reference to the Bloods and the Crips. Members of these gangs tend to wear bandanas with the respective color of their gang (red for Bloods; blue for Crips) around their face, head, or in their pocket.

Murs is saying that people went from working hard to make money, to joining gangs and making money illegally (pimping, dealing, stealing).

This is a reference to the phrase “the whole nine yards.” It is a phrase that means “all of it.” As in that Murs and Rose went through all of it from naming kids they don’t have yet, to searching for houses they could live in together. Despite their relationship just starting.

A Bar Mitzvah is a Jewish ritual for when a child has reached his “coming of age”. It is a representation of when a Jewish child is now a full member of the Jewish community and is now morally responsible for his/her own actions. Some of these responsibilities include the ability to read or to be called to read from the Torah, engage in a Minyan, can own personal property, legally able to marry according to Jewish law, must follow the 613 laws of the Torah and keep the Halakha, has to testify as a witness in a Beth Din case.

This is a reference to the dynamic basketball duo of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls. Rose is a point guard and Noah is a Center. They have great chemistry and play exceptionally well with each other.

The Universal Zulu Nation is a Hip-Hop awareness group founded by one of the founders of Hip-Hop, Afrika Bambaataa. It started as reformed New York City gang members started to organize culture events for the youth that involved dance and music movements that would become known as the various elements of Hip-Hop.

In Brooklyn a lot of innocent people are wrongly accused by the police and sent to jail. They are also sometimes murdered due to them being caught in the crossfire of gang violence.

A pigskin is a common term for a football, since that is what they used to be made up of. Also the use of the word ‘tossed’ shows how easy it is.

Talib compares rappers to a movie in that they make up a fake persona in order to sell. A example of someone like this is Rick Ross. He talks about how he is a drug dealer, but in reality he used to be a correctional officer. People are paying money, “twelve dollar admission,” to listen to an artist who’s music is completely different than who they actually are.

Kweli throughout his entire career has remained true to his roots. He has been a socially conscious rapper throughout his entire career. He stayed in touch with the underground while he started to garner some mainstream attention lately. In his latest mixtape, Attack The Block, Kweli featured underground performers such as Skyzoo, John Forte, Posdnous, and Rubix Fashawn on his song That’s Enough . He was included in one of the BET Cyphers, having Mac Miller featured on one of his own songs, and even got on a Young Money song that included Mack Maine and Lil' Wayne.