Vacaville is a city allegedly populated by tweekers and located in the northeastern Bay Area of California. Too $hort lived there for a spell, presumably, as did Cindy Sheehan

He must have woken up in the south side of Vacaville, because that’s where a state prison (Solano) is located

2Pac went to high school on the border of Mill Valley, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, and Marin City, a gang-fraught suburb of Mill Valley. See it on the Rap Map!

i.e., Join Forces with the Kings. Get it? It means he aligned with the people in the know, the people that are actually trying to do the right thing, and is willing to be a Batman-esque figure in the rap game, knowing that it will garner a certain level of hate from unenlightened souls, but at least SOME of those souls will see the light, and in turn project light themselves.

This could also be a reference to LeBron’s decision to come to Miami. LeBron joined forces with Wade & Bosh in order to win championships. LeBron reportedly rapped this line when he threw a housewarming party when he first moved to Miami.

RZA, in The Wu-Tang Manual: “This line is typical of Meth in that it’s multilayered. It could mean that he’s drunk in a theater watching A Streetcar Named Desire. Or it could mean he has a six pack of beer in his car, named Desire”

When he puts his full time and effort into rap people just laugh at what he does and don’t take him seriously. To be fair, Weird Al does a surprisingly good Em impression

The rap game is just using him as a “staircase” in order to get bigger and gain a bigger fanbase thus earn more money; in other words, the rap game keeps stepping on him…

And this is a reason why he’s telling the rap game that it’s time to leave: to “get steppin'” (using wordplay).

This sounds a little bit mantra-like (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me”), but it’s true: Eminem hasn’t always been critically acclaimed or respected by the industry—he was even namechecked in Bernard Goldberg’s 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America

But you know what? He does deserve respect

It’s hard to imagine how Em could more assertively take control of his relationship with Kim (aside from maybe demanding full custody of their daughter, Hailie, or by taking out a restraining order or something)

More likely he’s going to take charge of his relationship to hip-hop, first and foremost by releasing new music, not letting critics and naysayers hate on him while he remains silent. The end of this line shows him being more candid about what he intends to do: he may not be the boss of the listening public, but he damn sure won’t give us the final word

Em and Kim were together from 1989 to 2006, minus the 5 years they were divorced (before they remarried, and subsequently redivorced)

Then again, he also started rapping at age 14 and has been doing it ever since, minus the few-year hiatus he took after releasing Encore

In short, he’s spent at least half of his 37 years in a love-hate thang with both his girl and his musical medium.. which one is he talking to now?

Em’s rap career, like a whirlwind romance, was an emotional roller coaster. Time was, he was the most promising and talked about MC in the country

But around the time of the release of Encore, the backlash began — critics and fans began to take him for granted