Somewhere between amateurs and grandmasters of iambic pentameter Lupe Fiasco (Ft. Nikki Jean) – Little Death
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Lupe is by definition a poet as he has special, even unique, powers of imagination and expression.
Iambic pentameter is a means of describing the rhythm in a verse, something you probably learned in English class. If Lupe were a traditional poet publishing books instead of songs; he might have received cultural recognition from academia, which he is unlikely to receive any time soon as a rapper.
While Lupe might be too modest to call himself a grandmaster, there’s nothing stopping us declaring that he is one of the best to ever do it.
That has a stunning turbot and more mercifully murdered Pisces Lupe Fiasco (Ft. Nikki Jean) – Little Death
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There’s a restaurant that serves a delicious dish made with the fish turbot.
Some believe being a pescetarian, someone who eats fish (pisces) but not meat is less cruel and more environmentally friendly.
The mercifully murdered Pisces recalls this line from Kurt Cobain.
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After having the phone rights stripped, the prisoner is forced to post their communications (“gotta mail us”) with friends and family.
The way he says this, it sounds like “got a malice”, where Prisoner 2 (the guard) dislikes and even hates the prisoners on the other side of the bars. The guard in his bitterness wishes harm to come to the inmates.
In shopping bags 'til Akeem take our pocket cash Lupe Fiasco (Ft. Terrace Martin & Troi Irons) – Body of Work
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Lupe is talking about the worthlessness of materialistic consumerism.
We “pop tags” to make us feel better about yourselves but we have been conned into buying brand name “trash” for example cheaply produced clothing which isn’t made to last.
In the movie Coming to America Arsenio Hall’s character spends all of his money on useless things for their apartment that is supposed to remain looking “poor.” Eddie Murphy’s character “Akeem” takes all of his “Pocket Cash” so he doesn’t create any more mischief or waste his money on “trash.”
Wordplay:
cast/ caste. The caste system refers to dividing society into groups of different social status. A “dollar caste” is the social group which is forced to shop in dollar stores.
dollar/ dalit. The dalit caste are the untouchables in the Indian caste system.
It's why they treat niggas like shit Lupe Fiasco (Ft. Ayesha Jaco) – Prisoner 1 & 2
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In prison, guards have all the power. These lines suggests that it is the nature of humans to use and abuse power.
In the Stanford University prison experiment students were assigned roles as either guards or prisoners. The 1971 experiment was due to run for 14 days but was terminated after only 6 days with a third of “guards” showing sadistic tendencies with many of the “prisoners” being emotionally traumatized.
The implication is that given power, people are prone to abusing it.
With each beatdown, he help us
Wrong one gon' knock his ass out though
It's why he gotta lock all the niggas out for
Warden told the boy he better calm down
Step back from the brink and put the bomb down Lupe Fiasco (Ft. Ayesha Jaco) – Prisoner 1 & 2
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The guard (Prisoner 2) tries to explain himself to the inmates. Telling them during searches and beatings that he is doing it for their own good.
At this point in the verse the perspective is unclear. Is Prisoner 1 imagining the guard’s perspective criticising or has he begun to adopt his captor’s world view (see: Stockholm Syndrome).
One view is that if the victim believes the same values as the aggressor they will be accepted – which is what seems to happen in the last few lines where the narrator appears to identify more with the warden than the “boy” who “better calm down”.
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Dew describes tiny drops of water that condense onto cool surfaces such as the windows of cars and houses.
Lupe is saying nothing else can block his view.
“Only dew can prevent what’s my view”
Can also be heard as:
“Only dew can prevent what’s my ‘fuel’”
as in the watering down of that which can catch fire- Us. Which feeds into the next lines.
“I match matchsticks with wicks
Wicker man, take a sip of liquor and
Spit the lip off warriors
And spit flames, nigga, get in the gang ahh”
Which can be heard as:
“I match matchsticks with wicks
‘Wicker man’, take a sip of liquor and
Spit the ‘Lid” off warriors
And spit flames, nigga, get in the gang 'ahh?’"
As a question of allegiance after he blows the minds of his haters (and to those who are “too cool” suggesting that they too can be “Kool and [in] the Gang”)
He’s spits fire, but we won’t catch it if we resist it by watering down our capacity for understanding.
Genius.
And little whirls have lesser worlds and so on to viscosity Lupe Fiasco – Dots & Lines
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Big Worlds (record labels) have little worlds (artists) feeding on velocity — magnitude and direction… ability to release albums and promote artists.
Little worlds (artists) have lesser worlds (fans).
Lewis Fry Richardson, the English mathematician and meteorologist wrote the following rhyme in his 1922 book Weather Prediction by Numerical Process:
Big whirls have little whirls,
That feed on their velocity;
And little whirls have lesser whirls,
And so on to viscosity.”
In turbulence, energy is transferred from “big whirls” (say, a large hurricane) down to smaller features (these smaller whirls depend on the larger whirls for their energy) and so on all the way until viscosity turns the energy into heat (this occurs at a really small scale).
Visually these lines suggest smaller and small worlds orbiting each other until they reach viscosity (a property of physical matter when it reaches a thick and sticky state). In other words record labels are messing with Lupe’s flow.
Wordplay — whirls/ worlds
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This is the prisoners 5th year of his sentence, or his time with the Department of Corrections(DOC). This sets up the rest of this verse – over these years Prisoner 1 has been observing Prisoner 2 (The Guard) and imagines what is going on in his head from a third person perspective.
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Murders are acquitted of their crimes because of unreliable witnesses.
‘'The atelier slowly fills with baboons.’‘
An atelier is a studio or workshop. So maybe Lupe is positioning music studios and court rooms as both filling with baboons, or silly people. And both the music industry and the criminal justice system are both engaged in ’‘monkey business’‘ or shenanigans.
104
this entire third verse seems to describe an interaction between ex lovers who have become reunited. la petite mort is the little death within both of them due to obviously the loss of love and innocence as they got to know each other better.
this particular line refers to the madness and bickering.(baboons and other monkey business) accusations without any concrete evidence. instead the accuser, themselves, isn’t innocent and is also guilty of their own shortcomings. (the junkie’s a funky witness).
the rest of the verse describes a nostalgic but probably toxic continuation of a broken and dead relationship. however, the two lovers are co-dependent. as much as they kill each other they also need each other. la petite mort
213
Atelier is the french word for studio. Lu comparin these rappers to monkeys and their monkey binness. The killers he talks about could be either one who talks about killing in their songs or actually kills their songs. The former goes free because his fans, being compared to junkie’s, would indeed be a funky witness. The latter also goes free in the way that they’re unnoticed by these “junkies” or overly drugged out people
7
Baboons and other monkey business refers to how primitive our law structure is as the court may as well be run by monkeys because of how fickle the justice can be due to the intricate ways in which lawyers can weave their way out of situations.