'Til one day you was found hung dead in the cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (Ft. Duke Bootee & Grandmaster Melle Mel) – The Message
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The kid got raped so many times that it felt like living in Hell, getting the same punishment over and over again. It drove him to suicide – the leading cause of death for prisoners.
Eating out of garbage pails, used to be a fag hag Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (Ft. Duke Bootee & Grandmaster Melle Mel) – The Message
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A fag hag is a woman who loves to hang out with gay guys.
This woman used to have lots of friends, but now she’s mentally ill and homeless – she’s “living in a bag” and eating thrown away food. Where are all her friends now?
I guess that's why they got me sitting in fuckin' coach Kanye West (Ft. Kid Cudi & Raekwon) – Gorgeous
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These lines are often seen as some of Kanye’s best lines of all time.
Continuing from the Beatles reference in the previous line, Kanye uses the band as an example to point out further racial inequalities. A black person who achieved as much in the musical world as The Beatles would not receive their dues. They’d be thought of no more highly than a cockroach, which are usually portrayed as being amongst the most vile and disgusting insects. Hence the image of sitting in coach, behind the First-Class seats in a commercial airline.
Kanye beats the would-be haters to the punch and minimizes one of his most-impressive accolades (being a “black Beatle” – whatever that is).
When Roy Orbison realised a band he’d never heard of were going to overshadow his 1963 tour of Britain, he made a similar remark:
Orbison: What’s a Beatle anyway?
John Lennon: I am.
Rappers in the past have called themselves “black Beatles"—one of the first being Public Enemy in 1998—but this expression became iconic after this line was dropped.
Still get laid in the afterlife
If we die in each other's arms
Still get laid, yeah, yeah, yeah Kanye West (Ft. Bon Iver) – Lost In the World
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Let's break out of this fake-ass party
Turn this into a classic night Kanye West (Ft. Bon Iver) – Lost In the World
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Plastic: artificial, insincere, and toxic. So much of our world is fake, and overly concerned with status and materialistic goods.
Here, Kanye advocates abandoning these trappings for pure, vivid experiences, such as getting laid.
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Sugar Ray Leonard was the top boxer of the 1980s. He is not to be confused with Sugar Ray Robinson, another top boxer who had long retired.
This line refers to the early days of cable TV, which was not available in most urban neighborhoods. Many sporting events, especially boxing matches,, had moved to cable and people in the inner city couldn’t watch them because they didn’t have cable.
Even if they had cable, the protagonist couldn’t watch such things because his mother has the TV monopolized 24/7.
Got sent up for a eight-year bid Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (Ft. Duke Bootee & Grandmaster Melle Mel) – The Message
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A life of crime led to an 8 year prison sentence.
Thanks to policies such as “Three Strikes”, minimum sentencing, and downright racism, this has become an even bigger problem for African Americans over the past 30 years. It is estimated that 1 in 3 African American boys born today will go to prison.
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This line is juxtaposed with the previous line. Before, the woman was very optimistic about her chance in the city, even after she’d arrived. It clearly didn’t turn out that way – she had to turn to prostitution to make her way in the city.
Spend the next two years as a undercover fag Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (Ft. Duke Bootee & Grandmaster Melle Mel) – The Message
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“Maytag” is slang for a prison rape victim. Prison rape is a gigantic, intractable problem in the US, and most people are too busy making don’t-drop-the-soap jokes to care
I'm trying not to lose my head
Ah-huh-huh-huh-huh Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (Ft. Duke Bootee & Grandmaster Melle Mel) – The Message
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Don’t push me and being close to the edge are both figures of speech. When combined they make both literal and figurative sense. He’s at the end of his wits and is about to snap – the stress of living in the ghetto is wearing him down.
It’s also a really great image, which really conveys how much he’s struggling to stay afloat.
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