Slug has previously acknowledged his allegorical use of women in his raps, which we see in songs like The Woman With the Tattooed Hands.

In this song, it is not much different. However, where other female characters have represented abstract ideas and problems, Lucy is a fictional woman who Slug used as a medium to discuss problems with numerous ex-girlfriends, without having to drop any real names.

Slug would later say:

When I look back on it, 10 years later, I’m like ‘Man, by no means were any of those women in my life really so bad that they deserved to be demonized.

Of course, this was long after his Lucy Ford EP’s..which, coincidentally, sounds a lot like Lucifer..

Jay-Z has talked before about the many record labels who turned him down before releasing Reasonable Doubt, inspiring him to do things all on his own. He has continued this trend throughout his career, using his leverage to flip the game and take advantage of those who used to play him.

Jay is from the Marcy Projects of Brooklyn, New York. Violence was so prevalent around Hov that a lot of people became desensitized; at the age of 12 he saw fit to shoot his own brother for stealing his ring to support a crack addiction.

For many reasons, including the smuggling of drugs into America by the Reagan Administration, the wholesale price of one kilo of cocaine dropped from $60k to around $15k in the mid-late ‘80s. Jay has also claimed to have done business in different states causing even more fluctuations in cocaine prices.

The difference between supply and demand of the drug and the Dow Jones index of Wall Street is that the selling and using of crack cocaine became a life and death matter in urban communities.