“Ain’t No Half Steppin” is a song by Big Daddy Kane who was a mentor to Jay in the early 90’s. In order to be the best, Hova had to focus on rapping and staying on top of his game in every release, just like he couldn’t be caught off guard when hustling on the block.

Prufrock’s concern here is a very real consideration for many people. For example:

• Would you be embarrassed to eat heavily sauced chicken wings on a first date?

• Would you be embarrassed to eat messy BBQ ribs on a job interview that included a lunch?

• Would the risk of cracking a tooth scare you away from eating pitted fruit?

Prufrock’s getting on in age; he doesn’t want to lose a tooth, or eat the “wrong” thing as part of his diet, or be seen with delicious peach juices running down his chin: in other words, he’s going crazy troubling himself with mundane concerns. The line also functions more subtly as a metaphor for the girl he desires, who appears to be a younger woman. Think of the peach as a kind of stand-in for Eve’s apple. (And if you’re seeing some sexual innuendo in the line, you’re not wrong.)

The peach is also a metaphor for taking a bite out of life, as if taking the bite will justify his existence and renew his vitality. The fruit is juicy as hell and drips all over. It’s real; sweet and sour, hard and soft, smooth and fuzzy, ripe and unripe. It’s delicious, but you can’t let it rot.

Hamlet, to whom Prufrock feels inferior, contemplates things like murder and the secrets of the universe. Prufrock, though equally fraught with existential malaise, is more pathetic, as his contemplative nature lacks any of the dramatic interest of Hamlet’s. The simple act of eating a peach is something that consumes his conscience in bitter inner debate.

In the end, too, unlike Prufrock, Hamlet actually did something. Though it took the prospect of his own death to spur him into action, he got decisive and killed his uncle Claudius. Prufrock sees himself as a coward who will never find the courage to act no matter what.

Peaches, apart from juicy and invigorating, are seen in traditional Chinese folklore as symbols of life and immortality. Called 仙桃, “xiāntáo” , they were consumed by the immortals in order to prolong their lives indefinitely. Eliot was havily interested in Eastern culture and myth where, he believed, the spiritual salvation will eventually come for the stale Western ideas (remember the chanting from the Upanishad in the final verses of The Waste Land).

He might be wondering not only if he dares eat something that drips and stains in public but also, ultimately, if he dares to live, as opposed to just keeping his listless existence.

Rolling up your trousers is cool now!

At the time, though, it would have been the hallmark of a dweeby, fussy, entirely unsexy old man. Prufrock foresees the life ahead of him ending in the kind of pathetic solitude and indecision he expresses in the next two lines. Decisions like whether he should change the part in his hair will be the most important issues he’ll face now that he’s chickened out on actual romance.

This is a stark contrast with the 7th stanza, where Prufrock speaks of dressing in classy formal wear. Now he does not even care for fashion sense, suggesting that his hope is finally diminishing.

This rolled-trousers image also suggests the speaker walking on the beach, as he does in the next few lines–one rolls one’s trousers up so as not to get them wet as one walks in the surf. Prufrock seems not to want to get his fantasy life (the ocean–the “chambers of the sea”) all over his real life (where one has to worry about things like one’s clothes).

The lyrical repetition is emblematic of the speaker’s indecision.

The line alludes to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: “A time to be born, and a time to die,” etc. It could also refer to the first line of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” in which the shepherd says, “Had we but world enough and time…” and goes on to say that then he and the girl he wants could talk endlessly about whether to make love, but life is fleeting: “The grave’s a fine and private place / But none I think do there embrace.” Lonely Prufrock, though, has the time.

Another relevant passage from the same poem:

My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.

This line referenced the murder case of former NBA player Jayson Williams' and the death (by gunfire) of his limo driver. Its been through courts for most of this decade and all we really know is something killed the driver

Budden has lost his driving force the rap game use to provide him.