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Rainy Dayz (Remix) Raekwon (Ft. Ghostface Killah) – Rainy Dayz (Remix)
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For this remix of “Rainy Dayz,” the melody and chorus of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes track “You Know How to Make Me Feel So Good” is flipped Wu-Tang style courtesy of producer Mr. Dalvin of the R&B group Jodeci. The trio of Raekwon, Ghostface, and Dalvin also worked on the remix to Jodeci’s single “Freek'n You” around the same time. This version was only released as a B-side on the “Rainy Dayz” single.

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That George gets his kicks from wearing Wisdom's clothes A Tribe Called Quest (Ft. Brand Nubian) – Georgie Porgie
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Wisdom’s clothes meaning women’s clothes. Wisdom represents Woman in Five Percent terminology.

Apparently pistol-packing George is also a cross-dresser (or possibly a transsexual). Sadat seems more offended by this than the armed robberies. But which would you rather run into in the street: a guy with a gun or a guy in a dress?

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Why a man would want to be a weak cipher man A Tribe Called Quest (Ft. Brand Nubian) – Georgie Porgie
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A good example of Supreme Alphabet wordplay here. As well as implying a frail, emasculated man, the phrase weak cipher man literally means woman.

Cipher represents the letter O and weak is being used in place of Wisdom to represent the letter W. Weak Cipher Man = W O MAN.

Jamar asking why George would want to be a “weak cipher man” suggests that he thinks sexual orientation is a choice, rather than George just being born gay. See Q-Tip’s verse for more of this.

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2,068

9 years

The Supreme Alphabet is not something that is generally known. It would therefore be good to reference the Five-Percenters here, so that people can understand where it comes from.

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He cipher monkey cipher A Tribe Called Quest (Ft. Brand Nubian) – Georgie Porgie
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Supreme Alphabet slang for the slur homo.

He represents the letter H and Cipher represents the letter O. The letter M is usually Master but Monkey is used instead to give the phrase a more negative spin.

Puba also uses this phrase in “Nitty Gritty” by KMD.

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Georgie Porgie A Tribe Called Quest (Ft. Brand Nubian) – Georgie Porgie
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This unreleased oddity is the original version of “Show Business”.

Fortunately for Tribe’s legacy the label flat out rejected the track and everyone had to rewrite their rhymes. Puba bailed in protest and Diamond D stepped in at the last minute. And thus the track we now know as “Show Business” was born.

It is worth noticing that the members of Tribe have changed their opinion on this subject. On “We the People….”, which was released on 2016, Q-Tip’s hook criticises the homophobia of the alt-right and Trump’s administration. The track defends and unifies oppressed minorities – such as blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, the poor and gays.

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I just sold out that Fillmore Mac Miller – Loud
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Likely refers to San Francisco’s famous Fillmore Auditorium where Mac played a sold out show in 2011.

Could also be a comment on his show at The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD, described by a Washington Post music critic as “the single worst concert I’ve been to all year”. To be fair, that critic was well out of Miller’s target audience at 32 years old. Age-appropriate fans seemed to like it.

Mac has also sold out the Fillmore in Detroit a couple times

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7 years

there’s a fillmore en miami too

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7 years

could also be the Filmore in philly beings that mac is from Pittsburgh, it’s only a turnpike drive away

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She Watch Channel Zero?! Public Enemy – She Watch Channel Zero?!
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In this update of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Chuck and Flav warn against the dangers of watching too many soap operas and becoming brainwashed by their imaginary world. Samples “Angel of Death” by Slayer (released on Def Jam a couple of years earlier).

Somewhat ironically, Flavor Flav went on to ‘star’ in several reality TV shows.

Black Rock Coalition members Follow For Now covered this song…fitting, since their band’s name comes from another Public Enemy song (“Bring The Noise”).

Chuck D’s handwritten lyrics below. Courtesy of the Adler Archives
http://www.scribd.com/doc/136340118/She-Watch-Channel-Zero

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six sextillion tons Earth Poor Righteous Teachers – We Dat Nice
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Six sextillion (6 x 1021) metric tons is roughly the mass of the Earth (Google returns 5.9742 sextillion).

This is one of the lessons taught by the Nation of Islam and the Five Percent Nation. Both groups have a list of Actual Facts, basic statistics about the Earth, some more accurate than others. Other such stats you may be familiar with from rap lyrics:

  • 93 million miles – the distance between the Earth and the Sun

  • 29 million sq. miles – the inhabitable surface area of the Earth (23 million of useful land, 6 million of wasteland)

Poor Righteous Teachers are living up to their name here. Peep the speed of sound reference later in the verse too.

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Erase your earthly ass at the speed of 1-1-2-0
Feet per second Poor Righteous Teachers – We Dat Nice
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These godly lyrics will take mortal rappers out. 1,120 ft/s is the speed of sound quoted in the aforementioned Actual Facts.

The speed of sound isn’t actually constant – it depends on the physical properties of the material it’s travelling through. But through dry air at 20 °C, sound travels at 1,126 ft/s. Drop the temp to around 16 °C and you get close to the quoted figure.

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At times we play legendary battles on tapes GZA – Auto Bio
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Before Hip Hop music made it onto wax, old school DJ and MC battles circulated around New York on cassette tapes. That was how the music spread from borough to borough and city to city.

Given the following line and the Wu’s love of martial arts films, it could also refer to VHS copies of old school kung fu flicks.

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