zaaaAP Lit SuperBlog

Lil Wayne Has the Best Similies Around

This is the song Grew Up a Screw Up remix by lil wayne. It is one of his best freestyles in my opinion.

I blew up before i grew up
Got introduced to the game now im at the head like crew cuts
Suit up and lace your boots up its war time
Its weezy baby no cryin no lyin
the mothafuckas is slippin they betta hold on
They trippin like Cedric is so large
I flow like im headless no mind
I can say dont rhyme and its gonna rhyme
Im so fresh i should be smacked like debone
And you get smacked like a baseball by B. Bonds
Im at the point i could kill a nigga with three lines
Watch this...... with three lines
We got the tossin the blunt and dip three times
We light them mothafuckas up and get tree high
And in the game im manning up like eli
R.I.P. B.I.....

My favorite lines in this song are:

"I flow like im headless no mind, i can say don't rhyme and it's gon rhyme" Lil waynes uses many similies in his raps but i especially like this one because it just shows how creative he can be. He is saying no matter what he is rapping about it is going to be amazing.

"We got that tussin the blunts is dipped 3 times, we light them mutha fuckas up and get tree high, and in the game i'm manning up lik eli."-This lyric has both a metaphor and a similie in it. The metaphor is kind of cliche but he changes it around a little bit, but the similie is great. He is saying how he is becoming a dominant rapper in the hip-hop game just like eli manning is in the nfl.

"I blew up before i grew up, got introduced to the game now i'm at their heads like crewcuts"-This similie is good as well. He is saying that he has been famous since before he was an adult. He started rapping at around 13 so many people knew him as a child. But he is also saying that since he has been in the game he is in peoples head. Lots of people love listening to him and he is also saying he is in other rappers heads intimidating them.

"And you'll get smacked like a baseball by B. Bonds"-This similie is good too but its funny to me. He is referring to Barry Bonds from the S.F. Giants. He has the homerun record. So if you get smacked like a baseball from B. Bonds odds are you will be seriously hurt.

Things Behind the Sun

So I'm not really feeling sonnets right now and I'm all election-ed out, so we can just talk about a pretty song.  For my poetry/music worksheet I used the song "Things Behind the Sun" by Nick Drake:

  lyrics

^ the lyrics are too long to fit on here so I posted the link.  The meaning I got from this song was to know your place in the world, to seize your own day and to look past others who love to watch other people try and fail.  Get past all of it and you will inevitably find happiness, even when it seems like the world is shattered and you cannot win.  My favorite lines were:

If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free

 

From this stanza I get the feeling that Drake wants people to understand their true place in the world. We were all born on a specific day in a specific place, but we also are just born beneath a huge mass of stars and it is not some miraculous thing.  I also like the imagery that Drake places in theses lines--a typical rainy autumn day--that may seem insignificant.  It really makes you picture a normal day,l and that that is what we are, a normal person born on a normal day.  There's so much to take apart in this song and I can't get through all of it on here, so this was just one of my favorite parts.

 

BLUUUUUUUUUUU

My favorite rapper right now is probably Blu, here are a few lines from the song entitled "Good Life" from his album with Exile called Below the Heavens:

And they heard flipping birds is the ticket
They get it and they run with it
Some slip and fall, others pause, see the outcome and call
On the Lord for some change cuz the game is too hard
To play straight by the rules, im trying to stay out the news
And make cake to buy food, fuck jewels
I think my soul glows bright enough, and fuck whips
I learn more when i ride the bus, and fuck gold
Its bad enough that we fight for bucks, and fuck hoes
Cuz in the end i need a wife to love

First, let me apologize for the profanity that might of offended anyone, but I think if you see through the f bombs you will realize that he has an amazing and unique message. We are all used to a hip hop industry that flaunts money, promotes drugs, and degrades women; but Blu brings a different, more realistic perspective on life than the mainstream rappers.
For those who don't know, "flipping birds" means selling cocaine, and Blu conveys the reality of drug dealing-that most end up worsening their situation-when other artists glorify the behavior. This is obviously problematic, because rap artists are role-models to many of the youth in our nation, and these kids learn corrupting lessons from their lyrics.
Also, Blu argues against material possessions. He places more importance on the necessities of life, such as food, and he demonstrates that people can be rich in character without having to wear jewels or gold. The final line, in my opinion, gives respect to a gender that is notoriously belittled in hip hop. Many rappers use women in their songs for expression through sexual means only, and Blu saying "fuck hoes" i think means that he does not need women to just have sex with. He knows that he will eventually love only one woman, so it is pointless to rap about getting as many women as possible like many others do.
On top of the positive message, Blu's lyrics have amazing creativity and an exceptional rhyme scheme. I would explain how he's so sick with his rhymes but I think you can just read it and see for yourself.

Anna and the Money

Seeing the fantastic play Caroline, Or Change reminded me of a similiar incident I had when I was a child.

The play made me reminisce about my childhood when we had, not a maid, but a cleaning lady. She was named Anna and was an immigrant from Russian that my parents had helped sponsor through my church. Anna came once about every two weeks to scour our house until it seemed nearly unrecognizable when I returned from school. Though I did not idolize and befriend Anna like Noah, I did befriend all of Anna's children. They cam to help their mother clean and often cleaned my room so that they could play with my dolls and toys.

Though I can never remember any issues regarding money in our laundry, there was once an incident with her regular pay. My mother always left Anna's pay between the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen counter when she took us to school in the morning. One hectic day when I was anxious to leave for school my mother discovered that the money had gone missing. She implored me to confess if I had taken it, but I had not. My sister finally relented that she had taken the money because she thought it was too much money, Anna didn't need that much. My mother was shocked that my sister stole money and did so because she seemed to know what was the right and wrong hourly pay.

When I think about this story now I am unsure if my mother had actually payed Anna too much too help her along, or if my sister just had too little conscious of what the right wage amount was. I tended to believe the second reason, but after seeing the play Wednesday I am beginning to rethink my reasoning.

Is it wrong to want to help people who we perceive as lower economic status than ourselves? Does our pure premise of others as "needing help" imply that we are elitist?