These lyrics are interpolated from Desiigner’s hit song “Tiimmy Turner”

Tiimmy, Tiimmy, Tiimmy Turner
He was wishin' for a burner
To kill everybody walkin’
He knows that his soul in the furnace

Rapsody flipped Desiigner’s lyrics to reference multi-Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tina Turner.

Through several homophones, Rapsody name-drops her music labels: 9th Wonder’s Jamla Records and Jay Z’s Roc Nation. She also name-drops rapper Desiigner and his label G.O.O.D. Music, whose track “Tiimmy Turner” influenced this song.

Jay Z is well known not to write his lyrics down. Having studied Jay throughout her career and now working under him on Roc Nation, Rapsody expects to reach the same level of lyrical ability. She spoke about studying Jay Z in an interview with Ebony magazine:

[…] the one I listened to over and over for months was (Jay Z’s) The Black Album. I knew it word for word and front to back. Even to this day I can’t listen to an album without listening to how it rides and the inflections, because that’s in me. The cadence is one of the most important part of a hip-hop song. […] Once you master flow, everything falls into place

One of Rapsody’s earlier tracks, “The Flow,” was released on a 2010 compilation tape titled 9th Wonder presents: Rapsody Replay.

This intro was sampled from the intro to Public Enemy’s song “Rebel Without a Pause.”

The vocal was originally lifted from Rev. Jesse Jackson’s introduction of the Soul Children song “I Don’t Know What This World Is Coming To”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B358YR99Rrg

Kendrick Lamar (aka K-Dot) featured Rapsody on his song “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” off his 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly. While TPAB was widely regarded as the best album of 2015, earning Kendrick 6 Grammys and nomination for Album Of The Year, Rapsody’s verse was the only featured rap verse on the entire album. It was also named one of XXL magazine’s top 15 verses of that year—it’s certainly reasonable to think that other artists would be jealous of Rapsody for this recognition.

In a video published by Vevo for their Rhyme and Reason series, Rapsody discussed the story behind writing this verse for Kendrick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7pJCdrfr7o

This song samples the piano melody and vocal harmonies from Solange Knowles' song “Mad” featuring Lil Wayne, off her 2016 album A Seat at the Table.

Since Rapsody signed to Jay Z’s Roc Nation in July 2016, she is literally rapping over her boss’s (Jay Z) wife’s (Beyoncé) sister’s (Solange) sample. Other artists would be justifiably jealous of Rapsody’s connection, which helped her get this instrumental for her own song.

The pursuit of equality for blacks in America has been a slow fought war that continues to this day. Progress made from the end of the Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement to present day has often been met with resistance from those striving to maintain varying degrees of oppression.

By stating “They try to stall the progress by killing off all the leaders,” Talib makes specific reference to black activists and political leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Fred Hampton who dedicated their lives to the pursuit of equal rights and were killed as a result.