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The “tombs” here isn’t a literal gravesite. Rather, “The Tombs” is the nickname for the Manhattan Detention Complex

The boondocks is slang for the outskirts of the county. It is usually empty with acres upon acres upon acres of land.

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A$AP Rocky’s fourth track off his debut studio album, Long.Live.A$AP. The meaning of the song’s title is levels, as he explained here.

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“Punks jump up to get beat down” likely comes from a line originally said by KRS-One at the end of the Boogie Down Productions song “My Philosophy”:

I don’t play around, nor do I eff around
And you can tell by the bodies that are left around
When some clown jumps up to get beat down
Broken down to his very last compound

This hook would become so popular that it even made it into a Nike ad in 2008:

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Hov nods here to Biz Markie’s 1988 classic “Vapors”. To “catch the vapors” means to be jealous of the newfound success of someone you used to snub

In a more literal sense, he could be using a vaporizer instead of rolling papers to do his once-in-a-blue weed smoking

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Sadat gives us some harsh but necessary lessons about loyalty, hard work, and being early to rise

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We at RG can’t speak to Sadat’s experiences with the Ivy League, but he did really serve some jail time in 2006, stemming from a 2005 arrest for gun possession

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Sadat and Brand Nubian’s influence has long outpaced their record sales. Even Brand Nubian’s classic and influential first album, One For All, has sold only about 350,000 copies

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Check out our in-depth interview with Invincible here

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I Self Lord And Master” is a popular NGE backronym for “Islam”

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