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Eddie Murphy, a black man who has done volatile and hilarious stand-up comedy on the theme of race in America, cashed out big in the Shrek playing both a donkey (not fully human) and a sidekick (not as important as the white characters), while nevertheless bringing a great deal of witty and distinctively black energy to an otherwise boring franchise. Someone concerned about the image of blacks in popular culture would be both encouraged and discouraged by different aspects of this role – that’s why it’s “complex”
I gotta 'pologize to Mos and Kweli (Kweli) Kanye West (Ft. Ludacris) – Breathe In Breathe Out
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This is a reference to the Black Star song “Respiration”.
Instead of rapping about the world around him, he finds himself rapping about his fame and wealth.
He is apologizing to Mos Def and Talib Kweli because of their reputation as “conscious” political rappers, whose 1998 album Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are: Black Star was critical of the materialistic turn in hip-hop. As of College Dropout, Kanye saw himself as someone with one foot in the underground. Indeed, he collaborated with Mos and Kweli on a variety of tracks and public appearances.
Kanye tried to keep his connection to “conscious” rap alive in 2005, changing his track “Diamonds Are Forever” to the more politically-charged “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”. Today, though, rapping about unimaginable wealth is Kanye’s métier, and this kind of apology is unthinkable.
It’s worth noting though that both Mos and Kweli are still close to Kanye – Mos is signed to GOOD Music and has appeared with him on many songs (Lord Lord Lord, Don’t Look Down, Drunk and Hot Girls); and Ye produced and featured on Talib’s In The Mood, and Kweli returned the favour on the MBDTF B-side Chain Heavy.
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Note that these “complex” lines reference the fracas over the Jay-Z track PSA – he compared himself to “Che Guavera with bling on,” earning criticism for seeming to trivialize revolutionary politics.
Kanye West was featured on the cover of Complex Magazine in April/May 2009 issue.
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“I got mouths to feed” – GZA has just established that he has lots of seeds (those he is responsible for, his literal and metaphorical children), and he is loath to see their lives “wasted” in the ghetto cycle of beef and violence. He has to take care of them, and he doesn’t want to raise any more beef (street violence) than is strictly necessary to do so.
Very complex metaphorical tangle – but as brilliant as anything GZA came up with in his prime.
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A “square” is slag for a boring person. Shad will move on these boring MC’s like a chess piece. A chess board has squares (double entendre). Deadly indeed.
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Put down the cat if he bit me like Roy's boy Siegfried Shad – Yaa I Get It
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Shadrach does not use any words that involve swearing or cursing in his songs — he “doesn’t bad mouth.”
But just because he doesn’t swear does not mean he won’t put anyone in their place, particularly if they “bite” his rhymes.
Roy, of the famous Vegas sideshow duo Siegfried & Roy, was badly mauled by a tiger (a cat) in 2003. Shad intimates that the tiger was subsequently “put down” by Siegfried, but that isn’t true, as the duo insisted that the tiger was not at fault and should not be harmed.
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Inspectah Deck’s rhymes are as dirty and raw as pornography.
When we hit the kung-fu flicks up in Times Square, every theater that wasn’t playing kung-fu was playing porno. Both of them were hardcore, but with different definitions.
RZA, Wu-Tang Manual
But I'm as wise as the old owl, plus the Gold Child Nas (Ft. Lauryn Hill) – If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)
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Nas is making two points here. First, Western history is a tissue of lies, particularly where it concerns marginalized communities like African-Americans. It typically seeks to explain, justify, or mitigate crimes like slavery, Jim Crow laws, and structural white supremacy, by portraying blacks as only partially civilized, or somehow responsible for their own plight.
But Nas, being enlightened (in part, one assumes, by Five Percent doctrines) sees past these illusions. He compares himself to the “old owl”, appropriate given Hegel’s famous observation that history can only be correctly understood at its completion
The owl of Minerva flies at dusk.
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