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Kanye alludes to the ever-so-familar “rags-to-riches” line used often in Rap music and is essentially the Hip-Hop story, by saying that he used to be running from the cops (jumping over fences), to being one of the hottest rappers/producers in the game (driving a car that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Is this a possible reference to the classic Melle Mel line from the hook of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s, “The Message”?

Don’t push me, ‘cause I’m close to the edge

K. Dot doesn’t need you to tempt him to either lose his mind and kill you, or off himself, because he takes that into reconciliation enough, and if you bother himself enough about it, he might just take action.

Johnny could masquerade her pain by making her fall in love with him, love being one of the most therapeutic things in existence.

This could also serve more meanings that just the girl. He could be referencing “Mother Earth” here, Mother Earth is a she, right?

Anyways, he said that violence is all around, and don’t you think this violence going on in the world would hurt the Earth as well?

He wants to spread some love around this world, by telling everyone to “turn to blue”, or turn to god, which doesn’t always mean a God, because this song also suggests that a “God” could be anyone that saves you from pain.

A God, in Christianity, would save someone from pain in the following way:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Rapsody doesn’t play around. She’ll either,

• Choke you out so that she’ll get death charges, and she’ll get put on death row.

• Choke you out similar to the way that the “Death Row Records” CEO/founder, Suge Knight, did to a girl in the club.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TpGc_WDyA4

This is referencing the rappers who like to mention that say that they sell drugs in their music, and touching on that by saying that no, he’s never sold them as many rappers have, but he’s been affiliated with a lot of them that were sold.

Johnny either,

• Calls out the “braggadocio” style of rappers who like to mention their efforts in selling drugs in a very positive manner.

• Is not proud of his habits of doing drugs, and thought that it might of been a brighter idea to have kept that to himself.

Furthermore, when Johnny states that that is probably his problem, he could have meant,

• The reason he feels like he has a problem (rap-wise) is because he feels like he should be bragging about selling drugs, as many rappers endeavor in nowadays.

• He feels as though all of his problems in life are not only because of him doing drugs, it’s that he always brags about it to people, and in that way he only makes himself feel worse because of people’s depiction of him.

Roc is a legend. He cannot be truly honored by a mere portrait, his physique has to be fully accounted for in a sculpture.

Often when a sculpture of someone is made they are able to be displayed in a more public manner rather than in a museum.

If he was sculpted, more people could know his legacy.

This could also be referring to the way portrait is a one-dimensional piece of art, as a sculpture is three-dimensional. Roc could be saying here that you should not take his lines in a one-dimensional sense like a portrait, but look for deeper meaning and look towards all aspects, like a sculpture.

A lot of people criticize hip-hop nowadays, and say that is it far from what it once was, some even say that hip-hop is dead. Murs thinks otherwise, and is here to tell you that hip-hop isn’t to be defined by what critics say it is. It progresses, as does every other genre. It’s evolved from some scratches on a record,

or some people in the park trying to see who can spit the flyest poem in the Bronx.

Murs is saying that in hip-hop, whether it sounds far from the roots or not, if it still reigns true where it came from, then it’s still alive and well.