Quartz 4

Rap God

12 min read

Rap God, in some ways, is what’s known, especially in rap culture, as a diss song. You might hear the verb to diss occasionally in other contexts, but probably used in a joking manner. If you diss someone, you verbally attack them or talk badly about them.1 A diss song or diss track is a song where a rapper attacks another with his words. Now, here Eminem prefaces this song saying he’ll go easy on someone. This means he won’t be so cruel to him or that he will show mercy, meaning he’ll be somewhat kid or forgiving.
[Intro]
“Look, I was gonna go easy on you not to hurt your feelings"
"But I’m only going to get this one chance” (Six minutes—, six minutes—)
“Something’s wrong, I can feel it” (Six minutes, Slim Shady, you’re on!)
”Just a feeling I’ve got, like something’s about to happen, but I don’t know what.
If that means what I think it means, we’re in trouble, big trouble;
And if he is as bananas2 as you say, I’m not taking any chances"
"You are just what the doc ordered”

just what the doctor ordered

[Chorus]
I’m beginnin’ to feel like a Rap God, Rap God
All my people from the front to the back nod3, back nod
Now, who thinks their arms are long enough to slap box, slap box?
They said I rap like a robot, so call me Rap-bot

[Verse 1]
But for me to rap like a computer it must be in my genes
I got a laptop in my back pocket
My pen’ll go off when I half-cock it
Got a fat knot4 from that rap profit
Made a livin’ and a killin’ off it
Ever since Bill Clinton was still in office
With Monica Lewinsky feelin’ on his nutsack5
I’m an MC6 still as honest but as rude and as indecent as all hell
Syllables, skill-a-holic7 (Kill ‘em all with)
This flippity dippity-hippity hip-hop
You don’t really wanna get into a pissin’ match
With this rappity brat, packin’ a MAC in the back of the Ac’
backpack rap crap, yap-yap, yackety-yack
And at the exact same time, I attempt these lyrical acrobat stunts while I’m practicin’ that I’ll still be able to break a motherfuckin’ table over the back of a couple of faggots and crack it in half
Only realized it was ironic, I was signed to Aftermath8 after the fact
How could I not blow9? All I do is drop F-bombs
Feel my wrath of attack
Rappers are havin’ a rough time period, here’s a Maxipad10
It’s actually disastrously bad for the wack11
While I’m masterfully constructing this masterpiece

[Chorus]
‘Cause I’m beginnin’ to feel like a Rap God, Rap God
All my people from the front to the back nod, back nod
Now, who thinks their arms are long enough to slap box, slap box?
Let me show you maintainin’ this shit ain’t that hard, that hard
Everybody want the key and the secret to rap immortality like Ι have got

[Verse 2]
Well, to be truthful the blueprint’s
Simply rage and youthful exuberance
Everybody loves to root for a nuisance
Hit the Earth like an asteroid
Did nothing but shoot for the Moon since (Pew!)
MC’s get taken to school with this music
’Cause I use it as a vehicle to “bust the rhyme”
Now I lead a new school full of students
Me? I’m a product of Rakim
Lakim Shabazz, 2Pac, N.W.A, Cube, hey Doc, Ren
Yella, Eazy, thank you, they got Slim
Inspired enough to one day grow up, blow up and be in a position
To meet Run–D.M.C., and induct them
Into the motherfuckin’ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Even though I’ll walk in the church and burst in a ball of flames
Only Hall of Fame I’ll be inducted in is the alcohol of fame On the wall of shame
You fags think it’s all a game, ‘til I walk a flock of flames
Off a plank and, tell me what in the fuck are you thinkin’?
Little gay-lookin’ boy
So gay I can barely say it with a straight face, lookin’ boy (Ha-ha!)
You’re witnessin’ a mass-occur
Like you’re watching a church gathering take place, lookin’ boy
”Oy vey, that boy’s gay!”—that’s all they say, lookin’ boy
You get a thumbs up, pat on the back
And a “way to go” from your label every day, lookin’ boy
Hey, lookin’ boy! What you say, lookin’ boy?
I get a “hell yeah” from Dre, lookin’ boy
I’ma work for everything I have, never asked nobody for shit
Get outta my face, lookin’ boy!
Basically, boy, you’re never gonna be capable Of keepin’ up with the same pace, lookin’ boy, ‘cause—
[Chorus]
I’m beginnin’ to feel like a Rap God, Rap God
All my people from the front to the back nod, back nod
The way I’m racin’ around the track, call me NASCAR, NASCAR
Dale Earnhardt of the trailer park, the White Trash God
Kneel before General Zod
This planet’s Krypton—no, Asgard, Asgard

[Verse 3]
So you’ll be Thor and I’ll be Odin
You rodent, I’m omnipotent
Let off, then I’m reloadin’ Immediately with these bombs I’m totin’
And I should not be woken
I’m the walkin’ dead, but I’m just a talkin’ head, a zombie floatin’
But I got your mom deep-throatin’
I’m out my Ramen Noodle
We have nothin’ in common, poodle
I’m a Doberman, pinch yourself in the arm and pay homage, pupil
It’s me, my honesty’s brutal
But it’s honestly futile if I don’t utilize what I do though
For good at least once in a while
So I wanna make sure somewhere in this chicken scratch I scribble and doodle enough rhymes
To maybe try to help get some people through tough times
But I gotta keep a few punchlines
Just in case ‘cause even you unsigned
Rappers are hungry lookin’ at me like it’s lunchtime
I know there was a time where once I
Was king of the underground
But I still rap like I’m on my Pharoahe Monch grind
So I crunch rhymes, but sometimes when you combine
Appeal with the skin color of mine
You get too big and here they come tryin’
To censor you like that one line
I said on “I’m Back” from The Mathers LP 1 when I
Tried to say I’ll take seven kids from Columbine
Put ‘em all in a line, add an AK-47, a revolver and a 9
See if I get away with it now that I ain’t as big as I was, but I’m
Morphed into an immortal, comin’ through the portal
You’re stuck in a time warp from 2004 though
And I don’t know what the fuck that you rhyme for
You’re pointless as Rapunzel with fuckin’ cornrows
You write normal? Fuck being normal!
And I just bought a new Raygun from the future
Just to come and shoot ya, like when Fabolous made Ray J mad
’Cause Fab said he looked like a fag at Mayweather’s pad
Singin’ to a man while he played piano
Man, oh man, that was a 24/7 special on the cable channel
So Ray J went straight to the radio station
The very next day, “Hey Fab, I’ma kill you!”
Lyrics comin’ at you at supersonic speed (J.J. Fad)
Uh, summa-lumma, dooma-lumma, you assumin’ I’m a human
What I gotta do to get it through to12 you? I’m superhuman
Innovative and I’m made of rubber so that anything you say is ricocheting off of me and it’ll glue to you and
I’m devastating, more than ever demonstrating13
How to give a motherfuckin’ audience a feeling like it’s levitating
Never fading, and I know the haters are forever waiting for the day that they can say I fell off, they’ll be celebrating
’Cause I know the way to get ‘em motivated
I make elevating music, you make elevator music
”Oh, he’s too mainstream.”
Well, that’s what they do when they get jealous, they confuse it
”It’s not hip-hop, it’s pop14,”—‘cause I found a hella way to fuse15 it
With rock, shock rap with Doc
Throw on16 “Lose Yourself” and make ‘em lose it
”I don’t know how to make songs like that
I don’t know what words to use.”
Let me know when it occurs to you while I’m rippin17’ any one of these verses that versus you
It’s curtains, I’m inadvertently hurtin’ you
How many verses I gotta murder to prove that if you were half as nice, your songs you could sacrifice virgins too?!

Ugh, school flunky18, pill junkie19
But look at the accolades these skills brung20 me
Full of myself, but still hungry21
I bully22 myself ‘cause I make me do what I put my mind to
And I’m a million leagues above you
ill when I speak in tongues23, but it’s still tongue-in-cheek, fuck you
I’m drunk, so, Satan, take the fucking wheel
I’ma sleep in the front seat
Bumpin’24 Heavy D and the Boyz, still “Chunky but Funky”
But in my head there’s something I can feel tugging and struggling
Angels fight with devils and here’s what they want from me
They’re askin’ me to eliminate some of the women hate
But if you take into consideration the bitter hatred I have, then you may be a little patient
And more sympathetic to the situation
And understand the discrimination
But fuck it, life’s handin’25 you lemons26? Make lemonade then!
But if I can’t batter the women
How the fuck am I supposed to bake ‘em a cake then?
Don’t mistake him for27 Satan
It’s a fatal mistake if you think I need to be overseas and take a vacation
To trip28 a broad29, and make her fall on her face and
Don’t be a retard—be a king? Think not
Why be a king when you can be a god?

Footnotes

  1. I’m sorry I didn’t see you at the show, I must’ve missed you. Don’t think I did that intentionally just to diss you. But what’s this shit you said about you like to cut your wrists too? I say that shit just clownin’, dawg, come on, how fucked up is you? ↩

  2. crazy ↩

  3. if you nod, nod your head or your head nods, you move your head up and down to show agreement, understanding, etc. ↩

  4. Here, knot is slang for a roll of dollar bills. Fat here means thick. ↩

  5. scrotum ↩

  6. In rap, “MC” stands for “Master of Ceremonies.” It refers to the person who controls the flow and energy of a live performance or recording session. ↩

  7. Eminem is known for his creative manipulation(派生词:manipulate) of words. Skill-a-holic is a made up word that derives from terms like alcoholic(someone who is addicted to alcohol) or workaholic(a person who obsessively works hard). With that in mind, a skill-a-holic would be someone obsessed with improving their skill. ↩

  8. Aftermath Entertainment ↩

  9. used to show that you are annoyed, surprised or do not care about sth; I’m blowed if I’m going to (= I certainly will not) let him treat you like that. ↩

  10. Menstrual pad ↩

  11. weirdo ↩

  12. to make sb understand or accept what you say, especially when you are trying to help them ） I find it impossible to get through to her. How can I get it through to him that this is really important? ↩

  13. to show and explain how sth works or how to do sth 示范；演示Her job involves demonstrating new educational software. 她的工作包括演示新的教学软件 Let me demonstrate to you how it works. 让我来为你演示一下它是怎么运行的。 ↩

  14. pop music ↩

  15. When an electric device fuses or when you fuse it, it stops working because of a fault ↩

  16. To play the song. Throw the song on = play the song. The expression comes from the time when you had to actually place a round vinyl disc on a record player in order to hear the music ↩

  17. to tear sth or to become torn, often suddenly or violently （突然或猛烈地）撕破，裂开 ↩

  18. In school, we say someone flunks when they fail. For example, if you flunk an exam, it seems you did not get a good enough grade to pass it. We can make this into a phrasal verb, flunk out, which would mean to be dismissed from school because one failed too many courses. Eminem creatively turns this into a noun. basically saying he’s person who flunked out of school. ↩

  19. a drug addict (= a person who is unable to stop taking dangerous drugs). A pill junkie would be a person addicted to prescription medicines, like pain killers. Eminem is known to have struggled with addiction to different kinds of medications. Eminem’s accolades are all the awards that he’s earned as an artist, also all the albums he has sold and in a general sense everything he’s accomplished. So in these lines he’s saying despite these lows in his life(being an addict, failing school), he has been immensely successful. ↩

  20. bring ↩

  21. In a figurative sense, if you’re hungry, you want or need something very much; A good manager has got to be hungry. Hungry for success. ↩

  22. to frighten or hurt a weaker person; to use your strength or power to make sb do sth ↩

  23. To speak in tongues is to say strange words that no one can understand. We often hear this used when someone is possessed) by something like a demon, for example like in the famous horror film, the Exorcist. ↩

  24. to hit sb/sth by accident ↩

  25. to pass or give sth to sb ↩

  26. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. ↩

  27. to think wrongly that sb/sth is sb/sth else 把…错当成 SYN confuse I think you must be mistaking me for someone else. 我看你准是认错人了。 ↩

  28. to catch sb’s foot and make them fall or almost fall ↩

  29. an offensive way of referring to a woman; 婆娘 ↩

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