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Double Entendre
- Punch may seem distant, but you can start to understand him if you listen for the messages between the bars of his raps.
- Similarly to how an outsider would have to listen between the bars of a prisoner’s cell to hear him–since the bars are blocking any actual connection–one (outsider) has to look beyond the emotional wall (bars) that Punch has built up to understand him (prisoner).
When I look up at y'all city like lookin' in the mirror
Damn near had a career, just might shed a tear, ungh ScHoolboy Q – Prescription / Oxymoron
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Q used to be a Hoover Crip, so looking at gang-ridden areas of Seattle reminds him of his past life. Moreover, If he hadn’t stopped cripping when he did, he could’ve eventually become a career criminal: someone who has three or more felonies on their record and consequently faces harder sentences.
He talks about seattle and his connection to it here:
I kept coming back, kept coming back. Then I started — I lost my place or whatever, now I’m living over there. Like, these n——s just accept me, let me live over there. I finish a tape, I’m sleeping on the couch, I start selling drugs — Oxycontin — I’m going back and forth to Seattle from over there. I didn’t want to tell ‘em. Like these n——s don’t — you know what I’m saying? I still had to hustle. Years kept passing, kept passing, kept passing. Top was damn near about to kick me out.
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Continuation off of the last line, Q’s body is cold as he is being shocked by the defibrillator because he is on the cusp of death and his natural body temperature is dropping
Being “cold” is essentially the same as being ruthless or dangerous when talking about gangbangers. Q could thus be saying that as a polar bear is always cold since it lives in arctic conditions, he is cold because he’s a ruthless gangbanger
Albeit Q isn’t the first rapper to rhyme about polar bears and the cold, he does add an intense spin to it.
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Building off of the Malcolm X quote which was referenced two bars ago, Malcolm X was a famed supporter of the Pan-African movement: the idea that all blacks should unite to fight oppression and create their own destiny, rather than succumb to ones which were assigned to them by oppressors. Stemming from this movement is the theory that if all of the blacks in America unified and created their own political party, per se, they would be able to influence the polls enough to effectively stop or fight oppression.
Khujo could be supporting this theory, and in turn be telling blacks to unite and fight for their rights through the ballots rather than killing one another over turf and money and in turn enforcing stereotypes.
Khujo could also be taking more of a Black Panther approach, saying that the mass amount of blacks in America is large enough to be able to create an army of enough size to be able to demand the end of oppression, by any means necessary.
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Where it looks like the American Dream is still alive Taalam Acey – Brotherly Love
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Earlier in the song, Acey talked about how he went to college to pursue the American Dream, but it didn’t work out and now he’s in a poverty stricken neighborhood where the American Dream has failed. They’re now going to a part of down that has big houses and is rich, where it looks like the inhabitants succeeded in living the American Dream.
then instead of getting fed up, what you need to do is wake up Taalam Acey – Brotherly Love
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A lot of people complain about their lack of money while spending it on useless items. Maybe if his friend didn’t spend his money on alcohol, he’d be able to get a better job or at least have more money to support his family. Acey is trying to get him to realize his faults and to change them, rather than complain about them.
To with all your pride and sexuality inside
Because with God as my guide, like my own self, I love you. Taalam Acey – Brotherly Love
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For some men, it can be tough to say “I love you” to another man. This is because you could be branded as gay or soft, and that’s not something you want to be branded as if you’re not. This emphasizes just how important that his friend is to him. He is important enough that Acey is willing to risk these brands just to help him out.
through think and thin and that if he's in pain,/
We need to put our brains, time, and money together to stop it Taalam Acey – Brotherly Love
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These bars emphasize just how much Acey loves his friend. He loves his friend so much that he’d be willing to share everything that is important to him with his friend. Acey is truly, a good friend.
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Q is commenting on all the good kids that feel trapped inside of mad cities that are enveloped in gang violence. He is telling these kids to rise above the violence around them and to be stronger than he was as a youth.
If Q was as scared of his environment as these kids are, he claims that he would’ve ended up copping some work and attempting to sell his way out of the hood, which he comments would ultimately lead him to a scene where medics are trying to bring him back to life via a defibrillator (possibly by gunshot or overdose).
713
It’s supposed to be “tier” not “tear” as in prison tiers. That’s why it’s “for my niggas who ain’t make it home.”
this part is actually giving props to the real G’s doing time a.k.a.“sitting on the tier” who didn’t snitch or “copped” a plea bargain and took a full sentence to keep others out of jail. Q is really admitting if he was facing serious prison time he would’ve copped a plea or snitched to avoid it without a second thought which he knows is against street code and would’ve been expecting to get killed by his peers for it.