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The idea of a “starving artist” has been around for years, but here Vordul gives it a hip-hop twist: rather then having no food, the artist has only one turntable and no mic.

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“Rep live” echoes the sentiment of “live live” from Iron Galaxy. Simply put, it means to live in the moment, to approach life with every aspect of your being. The shift from “live” to “rep” is key: he has become more assertive. Rather than just living, he is actively repping his own life and the greater human existence through his art. He then goes on to reference the culture of hip-hop, and the bond between graffiti artists and rappers in particular.

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Vordul and Vast, as well as others like them, rebel against numerous aspects of society and their own culture, in the name of spreading knowledge and truth. This is no easy path, and results in innumerable “stabs and scars” of the physical, mental and spiritual variety, but through it all they remain elevated above pigeons.

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The medium Shamar uses to express himself is in the writing and rapping of hip-hop: the bars that make up a verse. However, these “bars” can also be taken to mean prison bars, and in many ways, artists are trapped within their craft and their own passions.

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Mega Allah represents his being one with spirituality/God, but in a fashion similar to numerous other lines Vordul spits throughout the album, this aspect of his self exists only in another realm, hence “from afar”. His physical self, “Amar” (as in Shamar Gardner, his birthname) is his chosen vessel for life on Earth.

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In the same vein as the song “Pigeon”, this final track reinforces the album’s theme of rising above one’s circumstances and becoming something greater through self-awareness and creativity: “screaming phoenix”.

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This sample is the same as the one at the start of Solomon Child’s “Gorilla Hood”, although it is being torn up by Cip One. Kind’ve sounds like “in the shadow of our God”, suggesting Ace got hella divine in this one.

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Much like the Giant at the top of the beanstalk, Ace too can smell something coming: the tears of the idiots impressed/dumbfounded by this killer verse.

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Reference to his graffiti skills, be it detailed buffers or simple throw-ups.

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His new album will make those whippersnappers copying his steez reel those teeth back in due to its inimitable complexity, as well as making them give him props as a teacher and hip-hop pioneer.

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