![]() And the truth hurts: The drug game has no winners. To be sure, the line is cruel and unsympathetic, but Hopsin's never been one for sparing feelings. Hopsin turns this value on its head and likens those hustling in the drug game to hamsters stuck running nowhere in their wheel. Hopsin calls into question the ideal of "realness" in hip-hop, which has long been affiliated with street cred. "The term real niggas publicly used/And I need to know what it means 'cause I'm fucking confused/Are you one for always busting your tool with nothing to lose/And something to prove to homies up in your crew?/Is it because you're selling drugs to get loot/And brag about how you done been shot and stabbed, like it's fun to be you?/But your life's a struggle, right? And you just hustling through/Nah, you hamster-ass nigga. The assonant use of the hard "oh" vowel sound also gives this couplet a pained, longing feel. The inclusion of the word "overdose" also suggests that perhaps trouble is operating as a kind of drug, and K'naan is so accustomed to it that he goes into withdrawals without it. ![]() You would expect trouble to be uncaring and unkind, but K'naan presents trouble as a soothing figure. This is personification at its best - unexpected and complex. Like an overdose, I'm slowly/Drifting into the arms of trouble, then trouble holds me." Some rappers pour their souls into their lyrics, and you can bet that a rapper like Scarface wouldn't dare use a potentially effeminate word like "diary" unless he was doing just that. This line speaks to how important rap is - how important any form of expression is - to the artist as more than just a career or way to entertain. Scarface's rap was his diary, and this song comes off his album named, that's right, The Diary. It's funny how it can be easier to talk to the world than to your own mother. "I got this killa up inside of me/I can't talk to my mother so I talk to my diary." ![]() It's a great line, because the "motherfucker" does stand out in Lauryn's otherwise clean verse it perks you up, but she's still using the word in an enlightened manner, thus getting the point across without compromising the quality of her lyrics. Lauryn Hill gives a taste of her biting wit and humor, commenting on the state of music - hip-hop in particular. "And even after all my logic and my theory/I add a "Motherfucker" so you ignorant niggas hear me." The believability of the meeting story makes CL's thank-you to Troy that much more powerful. The story of how Troy and CL met may seem incidental, but it is those kinds of idiosyncratic specifics that make the story so genuine and the nostalgia so poignant. The whole purpose of this song, as indicated in the title, is to honor memory and reminisce about a friend who's passed. "T to the R-uh-O-Y, how did you and I meet?/In front of Big Lou's, fighting in the street/But only you saw what took many time to see/I dedicate this to you for believing in me." And he makes it sound easy and fluent - like a finger roll in basketball. The image of a seamstress sitting at her machine, running through mundane line after line, just seems to fit with a mediocre rapper, so the simile is so apt. Wale is a cool cat, and his wordplay here is seamless. When combined, the gap between what we need and what he has is clear and startling. He then pairs this with a commentary on the priorities of the day's youth, who are more concerned with video games than practical knowledge. ![]() Mos Def raises the stakes of this rhyme in the first line by presenting the challenges humanity faces in this day in age. "Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients/Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you in PlayStation." Keep reading for the full countdown to see which rhymes struck as some of the best of all time. Is technical skill the prime consideration? Poetic quality? Historical significance? Selecting the very best lyrics from a library of oh so many is a tough task, thoughy. So now we're evening things out by taking a look at the other end of the spectrum and examining rap lyrics to find cleverness and wordplay worthy of being praised. ![]() We've given you the fifty worst rap lyrics of all time, but going through all the dreck and drivel to get to the crème de la crème of crappiness was tedious and rather exhausting. ![]()
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