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Subarus have a classic hood scoop on a lot of the faster models that use a top mounted intercooler.
This permits the engine to cool off faster due to the shorter distance to the turbocharger, allowing more power.
Subarus are known for being great handling (moving) racing cars.
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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The obvious reading of this line, is that Lupe really enjoys this chicken risotto dish.
Note the colour of this dish (depending on the ingredients used) is almost entirely beige/ white.
There is a restaurant called “Dolce Vita” in North Boston known for its risottos, although interestingly chicken risotto is not listed on the menu.
'Round them Sicilians I be walking like the ambiance and talking Lupe Fiasco – NAOMI
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North Boston with its Italian quarter, is an almost entirely white neighbourhood. In the first verse Lupe “walking and talking” and enjoying Italian food, which contrasts with the second verse where he is in Roxbury a much more ethnically diverse neighbourhood with its historic association with Malcolm X.
“Walking like the ambience” perhaps suggests he feels pressured to change his demeanour to fit in.
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Affogato is an Italian dessert made with a scoop of milk or vanilla ice cream topped with a shot of hot espresso.
Note the visual symbolism of white ice cream being covered with brown coffee in relation to the contrasting Boston neighbourhoods in verse one and verse two.
In addition, Roxbury which was a predominately black neighbourhood by the 1960s, experienced “white flight” prior to 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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The reference is to the character Artie Bucco from the Sopranos who owns a restaurant called Vesuvio and always gives the mobsters free food. Hence the: “Look what I do for you” line.
These lines and the Sopranos reference suggest both an apparently friendly proprietor of an Italian restaurant and implied background level of threat which is something the character of Artie Bucco was always dealing with, like a black man in a white neighbourhood.
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Two punning similes, each dependent upon our ability to follow Lupe’s homophonic play.
“Ball” here plays upon definitions including the literal round object you can throw, a fancy dress-up event, and also is the name of a company known for making cans and jars, among other goods. The triple pun is a can of peas is literally full of tiny balls, Ball makes cans for peas, and, give that “can of peas” can also be read as “canapés,” a type of hors d'oeuvre which is often shaped like a ball, and served at fancy dinner party ball-like events.
The second simile deals with more serious content, specifically the death of Michael Jackson. “Fall” here focuses more on a single idea of collapsing or descending, but it does help carry the internal line rhyme between “ball” and “fall,” and “can of peas” with “anaesthes',” giving the line balance. As well, Michael Jackson’s final rehearsal, which occured the day before he died, is June 24th, the same date as the release of Drill Music in Zion.
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In much of recent world history the Christian Church was one of, if not the most powerful, institutions in many countries.
An edifice is a large imposing building. Where once cathedrals were the most powerful and impressive buildings being built, they are now often banks.
In this line Lupe points out in society there has been a switch from devotion to the church and faith, to people being devoted to money.
I ain't afraid of no ghosts, sticks still pick up fish like the old you
Bibimbap with the soju, Food & Liquor, that's Domu Lupe Fiasco (Ft. Nayirah) – SEATTLE
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Goju is a karate style, known for its “hard-soft” style with incredibly devastating punches.
Lupe details his rise, going from eating fish sticks to dining at Nobu, an expensive chain of restaurants with locations throughout the world which serve Japanese fusion cuisine.
Sticks refer both to chopsticks and guns.
“I ain’t afraid of no ghost” is the chorus from the Ghostbusters theme song. This is also possibly a diss of his former friend Kid Cudi (who recorded an album as a duo with Kanye West as “Kids See Ghosts”) who Lupe has dissed over the years.
Bibimbap (food) is a famous Korean dish, which includes rice topped with vegetables, chilli paste and beef.
Soju (liquor) is a Korean clear alcoholic beverage. Jinro Soju is the world’s best selling brand of liquor.
Domu is the title of a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo. The cover of Food & Liquor was based off the cover to Domu, specifically the floating objects surrounding Lu.
The motif made it back to comics as part of Marvel’s hip-hop album comic covers, imitating Food & Liquor.
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Drill music often contains details of actual violent crimes, which are often captured on CCTV and dash cams leading to conviction and imprisonment of drill rappers.
In the UK, drill music posted on YouTube is often self censored, as the police will request videos be removed that are considered to be inflaming gang tensions.
I’d also like to point out, in the setting of some Assassin’s Creed games, the entire plot is driven on avoiding catastrophies, hence the protagonist(s) have to tap into memories of ancestors to guide them activate hidden, pre-existing mechanisms on Earth build to save humanity and the First Civilization from extinction.
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@ewallace26 🤣🤣
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@ewallace26 One part of being a Moderator is to provide feedback to new users to help them improve their ability to construct effective, acceptable annotations. As you can see elsewhere on this song and album, many of those new users prefer downvoting to learning. But that comes with the territory.
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@poeticimmunity u might as well have just wrote the annotation for op to integrate if u was gon type that much about it lol
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@MeltingPlastic This is a bit too easy, and falls into generic platitude, telling me literally what the lines says. There is no new insight, and you restate the line directly at the end.
What is significant or meaningful about the simile that makes up this line (the “like”)? If we think formally about this as a simile, how does the source (“a camera feed”), which is what we know, modify the target (“capture catastrophes”), which we don’t know? This is the purpose of similes (and metaphors as well), to use pieces of language we understand to open new insights and possibilities into pieces of language that we don’t. For example, why is “capture” used to modify “castrophes”? Besides the usage of the C sound to build alliteration, how does “capture” relate to photography, how or what does it say about the collection of images that photography represents, and just because something is captured, is it understood? Answering these questions and better unpacking Lupe’s implied commentary on our relationship to catastrophes–we’d rather watch voyueristically with little to no understanding of them or any attempt on our part to ask how and why these may be happening.