Now and Laters, gum drops and jelly beans are all types of candy, continuing the girl as candy wordplay.

Oddly enough this throwaway line has been recycled a few times. Nelly used it to describe his brightly coloured teeth in “Grillz” (in fact he jacked his whole flow on that song from this song). Snoop used it in “Candy”. And Prodigy opened “Illuminati” with it.

The stereotypical American family lifestyle of a house with a white picket fence, a secure job and a big car was out of reach for many veterans.

Masta Ace’s vocal sample from the first Crooklyn Dodgers track “Crooklyn” sets the tone for the “Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers” as the first version was more reflective to match the 1970s era of the Crooklyn movie, while this newer version represents the Brooklyn of the 1990s era represented in the movie Clockers.

The scratched hook features lines from Special Ed, Buckshot and Masta Ace from “Crooklyn”.

Buckshot established the theme of going back to the 70s earlier on in the track. Ace continues by imagining characters from 70s TV shows acting in the manner of 90s Crooklynites.

He begins with Freddy “Rerun” Stubbs, Roger “Raj” Thomas and Dwayne Nelson, the main characters from the sitcom What’s Happening!!.

Pelan is Five Percent slang for The Bronx (the acknowledged birthplace of Hip Hop). Brooklyn is Medina, Manhattan is Mecca, and Queens is The Desert.

Play on words, ‘Eric B.’ and ‘Eric be’. Refers to Eric’s role as the DJ in the group, handling the cuts and scratches. He was pretty prominent too – he had two whole tracks to himself on the Paid In Full album.

Wyandanch and Brentwood are neighbourhoods in Long Island, just minutes away from each other.

Rakim is from Wyandanch. EPMD are famously from Brentwood. As is often the case, the faux-beef between the groups was hyped up by the fans in those neighbourhoods rather than the groups themselves.

Erick Sermon tells the story of the feud in this video. Apparently he also told this story to Nas which is how it ended up in the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRh_Njm4pS0

A huge understatement. The rhyme styles that Rakim pioneered on this tune and “My Melody” changed rapping forever. Just ask Nas.

In fact, Rakim’s calm yet forceful, monotone flow was so different at the time that producer Marley Marl and mixer MC Shan laughed at him during the session.

Me and Marley laughed at Rakim. We had never heard a sound like his before. We would go on the other side of the wall laughing while he was rapping and come back out like we never laughed.

As for lyrical content, the God Rakim Allah was one of the first to represent the Five Percent Nation on wax.