Her husband's head in her hands, you tried to put it back in Wu-Tang Clan (Ft. Isaac Hayes) – I Can’t Go to Sleep
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First lady Jackie Kennedy was sitting next to JFK when he was assassinated and cradled what was left of his head on the drive to the hospital. Immediately after the shooting she climbed out onto the back of the car. Some have speculated that she was trying to retrieve a chunk of her husband’s brain.
JFK is viewed as somewhat of an icon in the civil rights movement, often mentioned in the same breath as Dr King.
When your rap wasn't doing well, I'm the nigga that gave you a hand Wu-Tang Clan (Ft. Isaac Hayes) – I Can’t Go to Sleep
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What is this?
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Everything we do is being monitored – internet access, mobile phone records, CCTV cameras and so on.
Candid Camera was the original hidden camera television show that inspired later shows like Punk’d. Its famous catchphrase was “Smile you’re on Candid Camera”.
Iff you ask me, they "Dead Wrong" Royce da 5'9" – Boom
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Biggie often referred to himself as “The King”, and Royce believes that none of these new school rappers are talented enough to be crowned as his successor.
To emphasize this, he references Biggie’s posthumous song “Dead Wrong”, which also featured Eminem, old friend of Royce.
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He now calls for a modern vehicle, but still implying bloodshed
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'Cause I'd start the second album off on another note; now—
That note threw some niggas in the hood off OutKast – A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)
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André said the following about why he decided to quit smoking weed going into the ATLiens sessions:
I always kept weed, I always kept an ounce. I was kind of abusing it, I wasn’t looking my best, I had a platinum album out and I would do stuff like go to projects to buy weed. I knew it wasn’t too clever, I was putting myself in danger.
The content on ATLiens didn’t conform to the “hood” standard of rap music with its spacious production drawing influence from acts such as George Clinton. They abandoned the “playa” party personas in favor of deeper lyrical content and subject matter very left-of-center for the time period. Despite ATLiens going on to be regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time, the group used a skit at the end of “Return of the ‘G’” from Aquemini to display how some people felt about their transition:
Man, first they was some pimps, man. Then they was some aliens, or some genies, or some shit. Then they be talkin' about that black righteous space, man, whatever, man. Fuck them. I ain’t fuckin' with them no more, man.
When André completes the rhyme “spoke” with “note”, we don’t expect him to say “now” right after in a higher note. This is throwing us, the listeners, off, similarly to how people were thrown off by André’s choice to stay sober.
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With the knowledge of ourselves and our forefathers Wu-Tang Clan (Ft. Isaac Hayes) – I Can’t Go to Sleep
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Marcus Garvey was a journalist/orator who inspired movements with the aim of black ancestors retaining Africa from European colonial powers. Garvey was deported to Jamaica in the 1920s as an “undesirable alien” – he had tried to empower black people. RZA’s use of export rather than deport creates the sense that Garvey was not regarded as having the basic rights of a human
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Malcolm X, seminal Black Power activist, was shot multiple times, whilst addressing a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom, at a speech with his children (“seeds”) in attendance
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