Ross' sounds here are reminiscent of Jay-Z’s famous impersonation of a money machine on “I Can’t Get With That”

James Prince is the CEO of Houston’s Rap-a-Lot Records, and has put out legendary albums by the likes of The Geto Boys, Big Mike, Scarface, Z-Ro, and more

A powerful metaphor for the trappings of fame – you may be surrounded by wonderful things, but you are in essence buried underground – kept away from other people and meaningful interactions the same lifestyle that provides you with said things

With this metaphor of digging his own grave he closes the circle to the very first metaphor in the song, the pine box coffin:

If you was in a pine box
I would surely break the lock

Well speaking of greats from the past, Jay’s still doing alright, and even six-feet under Biggie Smalls and Pac are as popular as they ever were. Then there’s also the small matter of one Marshall Mathers.

Drake elaborated on this idea in a recent Billboard interview:

I genuinely feel like the first one that really launched a career in this time period. I say it on my album, “They take the greats from the past and compare us/But I wonder if they’d ever survive in this era.” And that shit to me [is] everything. Not even the leaks-I’m just talking about how malicious and intrusive the Internet is, and how essential and necessary the Internet is in our lives, in our careers. Twitter is an opinion with no consequences because you can be anybody, you can hide from anybody, you don’t have to see anybody – but you can reach anybody. And that shit is crazy

These sites that are driven on tearing artists down daily… I remember back in the day – there were like two or three individuals on the radio, and one publication that would attack rappers and artists. And if you didn’t make that, you were good. There wasn’t really that much else to fuck you over. Lord only knows what people got away with – I can’t imagine. I commend any artist thriving in this generation, because it’s difficult. You have to have thick skin and just care about your craft, and know that there’s a thousand positive people for every one negative person

It’s crazy how fast it’s all moving. Artists from the past, they had a different grind. It was more pavement, hitting the streets. Maybe it was harder work, I’ll never know. But for this generation it’s very hard work, upkeep, to be successful

Drizzy here addresses the inevitable haters, who wonder if he was a one-album wonder – in hip-hop, not an unreasonable expectation.

But seeing as Take Care went platinum in 2 months, Drizzy doesn’t have to worry about being forgotten any time soon.

Drake keeps going with the wordplay here:

Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, a black British singer who performs as Seal, was formerly married to German model Heidi Klum

Drake plays on the historical image of the black buck and other Antebellum tropes to pun on the word “slave” and the term “field Negro”, which was best explained by Malcolm X in his famous speech:

The field negro, those were the masses. There was always more negros in the field as there were negros in the house. There negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house, they ate high up on the hog. The negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was left in the insides of the hog. They call them chit'lins nowaday. In those days, they called them what they were, guts! That’s what you were, a guteater. And some of you are still guteaters. The field negro was beaten, from morning til night. He lived in a shack, in a hut. He wore cast-off clothes. He hated his master.