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Well up until now your only concept of rhythm is a four by four loop Aceyalone – Arhythamaticulas
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Almost every rapper rhymes over beat using a 4/4 time signature. Ace showcases his incredible skills as an emcee by rapping over odd time signatures such as 5/4, 6/8 or ¾. Most rappers wouldn’t dare to try this, let alone pull it off as fluidly as Aceyalone. Truly genius.

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'Til this cold-hearted game forces us to change teams J-Live – Epilogue
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“cold-hearted game” refers to the music industry, in which artists need to conform to the will of record execs etc. if they want to sell records. So true lyricism & staying true to yourself is one team, and selling out to conform for the masses is the other team.

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Admire the proud parent
Yo, the love's too deep, I gotta raise the art
The opposite of my father who never played the part ANTHM – Solstice (Be Still)
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ANTHM was brought up by a single mom, his father abandoned him at a young age. His dad never “played the part” of a father because he was never there for him.
The first two lines explain not only what Anthm feels for his music after creation but also what he believes a real father would feel for his child. Anthm is proud of, loves, and supports his art. Because of the third line, Anthm also refers to himself as a prized possession (as every child should be).

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A day to God is a thousand years RZA – A Day to God Is 1,000 Years (Stay With Me)
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Reference to the Bible verses:

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

This hook was also explained by RZA himself on his facebook.

To expound upon it, the first line was from a biblical quote that stated such a idea as to compare God’s time to man’s time. 1000 being an arbitrary number. Those who bare witness to God knows of his infinite existence. Those who don’t may still see the scientific and psychological idea of the statement through the law of correspondence. Thus a man is able in single day to present a idea that will last a thousand years or take a thousand years to materialize yet to him it all occurred in a single day.

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In the world of desire, there's a thousand snares RZA – A Day to God Is 1,000 Years (Stay With Me)
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This line confirms the previous line. Snare meaning traps although some fans thought I was referring to a drum. A snare drum is called such because the sound is trapped in. In the world of desires where we are motivated by our lower emotions and enticed by foolish pursuits we therefore find ourselves trapped time and time again. It’s desire that leads the animal to the trap. Whether it’s food water or a mate. Jesus is said to fast for 40 days and nights to conquer desire. We are advised to fast during Hanukkah or Ramadan and other religious traditions to build up defense to our desires and by doing so we are not guided by them into traps the may be detrimental to your being. Even today’s doctors and scientist are prescribing the benefits of fasting.

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1358290024_89970_sarikanpin

387

12 years

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Men walk around with a thousand fears RZA – A Day to God Is 1,000 Years (Stay With Me)
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From RZA’s facebook.

This denotes a idea that’s biblical and also Buddhist in context. 1000 again being an arbitrary number to give a sense of how numerous the ways of fear enter. Translation being, there are so many things we fear simply because of our lack of knowledge wisdom and understanding. This lack prevents us from reaching our equality and equilibrium with things in the world around us.

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Is nothing more then a subjective conclusion Canibus – Poet Laureate II
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This line is in reference to the previous

One should not assume the philosophy of David Hume…

He is stating that David Hume’s philosophy is not an OPINION, but a FACT. It’s a play on words as well because David Hume basically states that everything that you think is possible is also impossible. Anything that Science has proven, can also be disproven; because of this nothing is true.

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AR Marks
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2 years

David Hume was a philosopher who complained that Philosophy was becoming unfocused in its attempts to define the world, in contrast with science, which seemed to be making much greater leaps and bounds at the time. In Hume’s estimation, Philosophy’s error was trying to probe beyond the observable, into realms which Hume argued were un-observable and therefore, ultimately, unknowable.

What Canibus is saying is that one should not agree with Hume’s theory; as a matter of fact it is simply a subjective conclusion, which is ironic in its wordplay, in that Hume was concerned with objectivity vs subjectivity.

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James Kyle
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6 years

David Hume denied the Subject. I.e. he believed that there was no real, pure individual, but merely an aggregate of apparent forms, as in Buddhism. Therefore, saying that one should not assume David Hume’s philosophy is a subjective conclusion is a high-level philosophy joke; there is indeed no Subject to make the conclusion. The other interpretation, that he is saying Hume’s philosophy must be objectively true, doesn’t hold water; Hume was an empiricist, not a rationalist.

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Marked this as a stretch?
8 years

I agree with snowflakemusic. You should NOT assume that what David Hume concluded is anything MORE than an opinion (i.e. subjective conclusion).

David Hume’s most prominent “conclusion”, as far as I know, is pointing out the problem of causality. Basically:
We don’t know that X is the cause of Y. This is because it could just appear to be the cause, due to similar outcomes under similar circumstances in previous cases, while in reality there could be something completely different happening that we are unaware of, which is the actual cause of the event.

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Default_avatar_100

526

11 years

he is saying one should not (immediately think) that David Humes (research and theories) are anything more than an (opinion), thus he is saying it is not fact.

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1358290235_88498_microphone3

693

11 years

Hume did not expound skepticism to the degree that Berkeley did. Berkeley was a skeptic to the point he did not believe anything exists external to the mind. Hume granted that the external world exists and that one can rationally understand it. Hume was a skeptic, in a slight sense, because he was first to show the “problem of induction.” (I.E. Any conclusion which cannot be logically deduced and which therefore requires inductive reasoning–making one or more ultimately non-provable assumptions about uniformity in the natural world–cannot be regarded as truth-preserving. Incidentally much of our knowledge consists in inductive conclusions. However, for Hume, this did not require outright skepticism with regard to knowledge.

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delv
11 years

Canibus is suggesting that the moon itself is being changed as the telescopic knob is turned. Philosopher George Berkeley, a contemporary of David Hume, claimed “esse es pericipi”—being is perception, or that perception itself changes reality. Accordingly, the philosophies of Hume and Berkeley, both skeptics that questioned the validity of perception, aren’t just philosophies that emphasize relativism and subjectivity, but are instead philosophies that create a different kind of “objective conclusion”—one based in the real ability of the viewer to change the world.

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And I wonder if Allah take debit, cause a nigga got real bad credit The Roots (Ft. Dice Raw & Greg Porn) – The Dark (Trinity)
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This is some slick wordplay.

A credit card relies on a set balance a company gives you which you must repay at the end of the month, whereas a debit card only accesses money that you already own.
To receive a credit card you must have a decent credit history, which is a record of an individual’s past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy. Basically, if you’re shown to have trouble with debt in the past, you won’t be issued a credit card because the company cannot trust you to repay the money.

Dice Raw symbolically uses this idea in the same vein as his deathbed. Will Allah judge him solely on the present condition of his consciousness? Or will his past mistakes deny him salvation?

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10 years

I see this as the narrator taking society’s obsession with money to an extreme. Can he afford to get into heaven?

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Lyrics bang now and again, sing like the Chi-Lites Pharoahe Monch – The Jungle
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The Chi-Lites were a smooth soul group hailing from Chicago. Monch’s lyrics bang like guns, and they also come smoothly like the Chi-Lites' singing.

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Devon
10 years

PM often sings.

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A bizarre ride, Pharcyde, Fatlip, Pharoahe Monch – Time^2
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While’s Monch’s mental state is going on a bizarre ride, this is also a reference to The Pharcyde’s (of which Fatlip was a member) classic debut album, “A Bizarre Ride II Pharcyde”.

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Indocentric
10 years

The reference to Fatlip underscores the genius of the track. Fatlip struggled with a career slump after initial success with Pharcyde, as documented in Spike Jonze’s incredible music video for ‘what’s up fatlip?’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48LLdLbAiQg

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