In the intro Lawnge plays a rap fan looking for the next hot record. He makes oblique references to a couple of artists here.

1. Vanilla Ice, purveyor of piss poor rap music and subject of international scorn. He represents the commercial pop star rappers.

2. Big Daddy Kane, whose third album Taste of Chocolate marked the beginning of the end of his popularity with a core Hip Hop audience. Kane represents 80s rappers that were struggling to maintain their appeal by 1990.

Lawnge passes up both options in favour of “something different”, “something slamming”. And that something turns out to be Black Sheep.

MC Lyte’s I Cram To Understand U meets a Rastafarian term meaning understanding at a higher level of consciousness. Also see use of the word ‘Babylon’ later on.

Works as a general warning to MCs but primarily aimed at LL Cool J who released I’m Bad a year or so earlier.

A quick shot to the dome of LL Cool J.

Just before Fuck What You Think was supposed to come out, Main Source were featured in Rap Pages magazine. In the interview Mikey D accused LL of ripping off his style (the Kangol, the chains etc) back in the day in Queens. With that in mind (and the emphasis Mikey puts on true), this seemingly innocuous line reads like a sly reference to Uncle L’s I’m Bad.

i.e. One of Mikey D’s freestyles. I’m not sure what inspired Mikey to switch to Spanish for the first word of this verse but it’s a nice touch!

A diss to Slick Rick, presumably for his simplistic, story-telling rhyme style (we know from Ego Trippin' (MC’s Ultra Remix) that Ultra aren’t down with ‘childish rhymes’). Rather than mention The Ruler by name, Kool Keith derides his unique fashion sense and then makes an oblique reference to Children’s Story, perhaps Ricky’s best known track after The Show.

Al B. Sure! is collateral damage, dragged into proceedings because of his R&B collaboration with Slick Rick. The scratched lyric ‘feel about ya’ is from his track “Nite and Day”.

These next few lines are directed at Big Daddy Kane who had a well-deserved reputation as a fast rapper due to tracks like “Wrath of Kane”, “Set it Off”, and “Raw”.

An early (the first on wax?) use of this phrase meaning to “take care of business” or “get this money”. Often credited to the Wu-Tang Clan due to their usage of it in the 90s (also see “milk this cow”). U-God even opened a clothes shop called Walking Dogs in Staten Island.

See Ghostface Killah’s “Mighty Healthy” for more Divine Force influence on The Wu.

These lines are lifted from “Holy War” by Divine Force, an underground cut from 1987 that also used the same breakbeat as “Mighty Healthy”.

In a 2005 interview, RZA explained the link between Divine Force and the Wu and recalled paying the original rapper, Sir Ibu, for the use of his lines:

GZA had a man called Melquan… They call him Funky President Melquan. He had a group named Divine Force, with Sir Ibu… When Ghost did it over, Sir Ibu, who was my buddy, came over and said: “Yo, I need money for that!”. So I gave him $2500. Motherfucker! (laughs) That’s my nigga though.

Kanye West sampled these vocals and recycled the breakbeat for his 2012 song “New God Flow”. We doubt Sir Ibu got paid for that!

Note: For the younguns out there, herb was 80s/90s slang for a nerd, punk, sucker etc.

These lines are aimed at Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. Tip and the Beatnuts had a brief falling out in the 90s.

“You better keep it subliminal” is a direct response to the liner notes of The Low End Theory in which Tribe profess love for Black Sheep, The Beatnuts, “and anyone else who feels we dissed them subliminally”.

“We Can Get Down” is of course the name of a Tribe song but the way Fashion uses it here, it’s more like an invitation to a fair one.