Banana clips are long clips that are curved like bananas. Some guy got his head split by bullets.

Kendrick reprises this term on “1 Train”

Also note the use of the word “split” (like a banana split)

This also juxtaposes some contrasting imagery, an instrument of killing and a dessert, the latter usually associated with relaxation, the last course of a proper meal. This highlights the brutality of the killings going on in the hoods he describes, at no point are you safe.

All of his songs are dedicated to people he knew who died or suffered. He recognizes their pain, prays for them, and fights for a different reality, even if they’ve been “wrong” (killed, prostituted, used drugs, etc.)

There’s also a Biblical allusion here:

2 Corinthians 12:10

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

He counts 5 lives on this song: Dave, Dave’s brother, Keisha, Keisha’s sister and himself.
The “count lives” is a play on to the two previous lines, “Four/ Fives” and “20 generations”.

And in doing this, he hopes in turn, someone will sing for him.

If he had cared about money, drugs or gang violence, he wouldn’t have rapped.“four, Fives” is a reference to a .45 calibre handgun.

If you listen to the pronunciation of the word “four”, Kendrick pronounces it as “foe” (as in enemy). He adds double meaning to this word as he follows it by “fives” to give reference to 45 used in a particular gun.

Also could be another gang reference, 5 being another name for a Piru Blood as a reference to their symbol, a five-point star.

Connected to the next line: “Fives, I count lives all on these songs.” Dave, Dave’s brother, Keisha, Keisha’s sister, and himself = Five lives.

Since 4 x 5 = 20, the four fives could reference the 20 generations whose lives are being cursed in the line earlier in the verse.

“Schema” is a psychological term for the category of thought we immediately put our experiences into. This happens automatically, and it’s a hard habit to shake—hence why Kendrick is “stuck” in it (he also explains earlier how this becomes routine). In his case, the schema is death: he’s been exposed to so much dying that he routinely interprets his experiences through the category of death. “Schema” also sounds like “scheme of.”

These threats can happen, because the tongue, or his voice, is powerful, and things you say can easily carry a lot of weight.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” – Proverbs 18:21

As he states at the beginning of the verse:

“Sometimes I look in a mirror and ask myself
Am I really scared of passing away,”

It’s harder to look at himself everyday because he’s becoming a man he doesn’t like, thus making him sick to the stomach.

Also note the inference on glass and watch, the typical mirrors are made of glass, so why be so specific? The wordplay infers he’s watching a hour-glass, with time slowly slipping away from him. He talks about looking in the mirror every day. This line might imply that the sins he’s committed makes looking at himself in the mirror harder and harder.

Kendrick here makes watch sound like “wash”, to infer not only that its getting harder to “watch” the person he is slowly becoming, but also to say as this change is happening he is slowly not recognizing the person he sees in the mirror, like a mirror with a blurred reflection that he can’t “wash” and fix.

She tries to prove her point to Kendrick once again, saying that she’s so good with her clients that there will be more people who’ll remember about her rather than remember him and GKMC.

The music itself directly contradicts her however. Her lyrics literally ‘fade away’ as she sings. Despite her insistence that she knows her fate, the fading volume highlights the bitter reality that death is universal and inescapable. No matter what she claims, the reality of death makes it all bluster.

She then motivates herself, thinking that the only important thing is making money right now, whether she dies in the process or not. Her profession has disallowed her from seeing men as human beings who have also been corrupted by the “m.A.A.d city” they live in. Rather, she sees them solely as potential sources of income.

On a broader note, it means that prostitution will go on and on; the current condition of these women will perpetuate for longer than this song will be played for. This reinforces the point that Kendrick should not talk about her on his album, there is no way that the song will make any difference and the paradigm will continue well after the song has lost in popularity.