Genius | Song Lyrics & Knowledge

They put the short against the tall and the old verses the new
Pretty soon it's gon' be me against you
All the things we been through and the tree that we bloomed
I wish you much success and stay true dead prez (Ft. K'naan & Stori James) – Till We Get There

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The government would rather people remain fighting and in discord. (Republicans v. Democrats, for example)

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104

2 years

M1 refers to the Willie Lynch Letter when he states the old vs new.

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I'm sorry homie if it's not what you used to
But the way that we livin' these Black lives is beautiful dead prez (Ft. K'naan & Stori James) – Till We Get There

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Rather than pin Black on Black killing, he notes that the Black community should be supporting and saving each other instead.

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The most dangerous armed and lethal yet peaceful dead prez (Ft. K'naan & Stori James) – Till We Get There

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The police presence was corrupt in his country so they all had guns. In his song, What’s Hardcore he notes that people would see roadblocks by gangsters. If people didn’t pay at the roadblock you would get shot.

You can’t go half a block without a roadblock
You don’t pay at the roadblock you get your throat shot
And each roadblock is set up by these gangsters
And different gangsters go by different standards

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You smell that fragrance? Smoke DZA (Ft. Mad Max) – Code Orange

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Marijuana smells something like a skunk’s spray or burned leaves or…like weed.

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Pigeon Cannibal Ox – Pigeon

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Vast Aire and Vordul Mega are beginning a career in ornithology.

This track contains a sample of “Portrait of Tracy” as performed by Jaco Pastorius.

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6 years

the pigeon is a metaphor for the poor. in a documentary they explained that it’s because pigeons are animals at the bottom of the food chain, yet keep on surviving, keep on going.

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I want to take over the encomienda and give it back to the people who work the land Immortal Technique – The Poverty of Philosophy

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Encomiendas were plantations of the Spanish empire all across Latin America. The Spanish government would ‘give’ a village or five full of Indians to an entrepreneur for labor, who in return would coerce them into conversion to Christianity. it’s worth nothing that especially toward the end of Spanish rule, when liberal economics introduced even less humane farming methods to Latin America, some encomenderos (the plantation owners) became real defenders of the rights of their serfs against capitalist oppression

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180

10 years

It was a system similar to sharecropping. Which was a form of slavery (Based on debt, similar to what they are now using against us) bestow upon the “free” African-Americans after the Civil War. Black “free” men were given pieces of land at huge loans and produced small yields. So in a case they were stuck in that land working to pay off a white land owner. Many stayed their all their lives without being able to pay their debt to that land owner.

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I seem to gravitate to the bottle of NyQuil then I salivate
Start off with the NyQuil, like, "I think I'll just have a taste"
Couple of sips of that then I gradually graduate
To a harder prescription drug called Valium
Like, "yeah, that's great"
I go to just take one and I end up like having eight Eminem – Déjà Vu

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It’s common for addicts to relapse on medications containing alcohol. Here, he’s noting that it starts by him saying he’ll just have a little taste. That moves to taking more pulls off the NyQuil until finally he’s fully relapsed.

(Notice the use of back-to-back homophones, “eight” and “ate”, “steak” and “stake”, there are only a handful of homophones, and not only did he use two in the same song in rhyme, he used BACK TO BACK)

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8 years

Over-the-counter medications are commonly abused since they are so easy to obtain and relatively cheap.

He planned on only taking a little taste of the NyQuil but ended up taking a couple sips.
NyQuil contains the drug Doxylamine, which is a Hypnotic that causes sedation. It also contains Dextromethorphan (DXM), which is a type of Hallucinogen called a Dissociative. A lot of it will make a person trip.

His judgement is impaired do to the NyQuil so he doesn’t think of the consequences of using even more drugs, and takes a Valium.
Valium is a benzodiazepine, which causes sedation and euphoria.
He only intended on taking one, but ended up taking another 7 and getting really fucked up.

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With yoke by the boatload Das Racist – Hugo Chavez

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Literally, a yoke is a wooden beam, normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs.

Yoke is also a slang term to choke someone from behind.

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11 years

He has a boat full of slaves from Bioko, the slave trade capital of subsaharan Africa. See previous line.

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11 years

Yoke in this context means cocaine. Cocaine is known as Yayo or Coke. He is in a country known for drugs exports and coming back with a boat full of cocaine.

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MoMA Das Racist – Hugo Chavez

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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world.