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The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
There are two different ways to read the phrase “chocolate rain”:
These two interpretations coexist in the phrase “chocolate rain”, though which one the listener gravitates towards shapes what the song means for them. If they interpret “chocolate rain” as the former, the song becomes a prototypical example of early 2000s random humor. When read as the latter, the song is a commentary on racism. While the “random humor” interpretation does not hold much water, the quirky nature of the song, with its dramatic piano work, rich, deep vocals, and cryptic lyrics led many to not realize the true nature of the song when it was first released.
Chocolate rain may also be a metaphor for the absurdity of structural racism. Chocolate rain happening in real life would be absurd and nonsensical. Yet, in the song, Zonday sings about it as if it was real. This symbolizes the fact that structural racism, something which is absurd and nonsensical, should not be happening in our world, yet it is. It should not exist, like chocolate rain should not exist, and yet it does.
The term chocolate rain may also allude to the fact that racism is a manmade phenomenon. If, in the real world, there ever was chocolate rain, it would be because humans went and built some sort of thing that would take chocolate and make it rain down below. In nature, it does not happen. Just like how racism is a manmade phenomenon that is forced on us from those in power above, and it does not exist as part of our human nature.
It may also have a third additional meaning: People of color, with their darker skin, are exploited. Their suffering, exploitation, and toil, which is used to the advantage of the elite in society, rains down from the elite above to inflict even further pain on other people of color. The blood of people of color raining down upon us is a constant reminder of the bloodbath that systemic racism is and how it consumes all.
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If the random humor interpretation does not hold much water, then why is it still here?
As @michigoner said, the “rain” is probably referring to countless blood shed of black people from the past, now raining down upon the modern political landscape, unnoticeably (at least to the general white population) tainting the context of the whole discussion.
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as one of the lines is “history quickly crashing through your veins,” i.e. blood, it is also possible that Zonday’s using “chocolate rain” as a stand-in for the blood of black people, and the other lyrics explore different connotations of the word “blood”