In the first verse of his song, he questions what the cost of a dollar really means to us. He then proceeds to imply that the question to him is ridiculous but it gets him thinking about it, “How much a dollar really cost? The question is detrimental, paralyzin' my thoughts/Parasites in my stomach keep me with a gut feeling” (AZ Lyrics 1). In this particular situation it “costs” Lamar his place Heaven, which he would ultimately think has no price. Moreover, this rhetorical question analyzes the “esteem” for riches. While Lamar places little an incentive on a dollar, to the individual, its value is naturally more dominant. In the next verse he says how parasites in his stomach makes him feel some type of way and then details how he is driving …show more content…
The "semi-tan complexion" alludes to individuals of mixed origins, who have parentage from Europe, Asia, and different Khoisan and Bantu clans of Southern Africa. Khoisans or "Colored Race" establishes are transcendently inserted in the dry districts of Southern Africa. While Ten Rand is South African money, generally proportionate to one dollar, "stressin' about dry land" additionally infers that the homeless man is suffocating in addiction and poverty. Following after that, Lamar speaks on the sterotype of a crack addict asking him for money, to specifically buy crack, “Deep water, powder blue skies that crack open/A piece of crack that he wanted, I knew he was smokin'/He begged and pleaded/Asked me to feed him twice, I didn't believe it/Told him, "Beat it"/Contributin' money just for his pipe, I couldn't see it” (AZ Lyrics 1). Lamar labels the man with the generalization of a crack addict. He thinks "deep water, powder blue skies that crack open" are code words for heroin. The man proceeds and asks Lamar to feed him, yet he doesn't trust
...from the dullness of schoolwork to many possibilities. The next lines poke fun at the value of education and celebrate their street learning. ?Lurk late,? ?Strike straight,? ?Sing sin,? and ?Thin gin,? contradict any possibility for mental growth. Symbolism comes in the picture in the next line, ?We Jazz June,? which has many meanings. The word ?Jazz? signifies sexual intercourse. Then the word ?June? becomes a female. The tone of the poem dramatically changes when the reader learns the dropouts die soon. The group end in the last line, ?Die soon,? the final consequence of trying to be cool. Seemingly having fun in the beginning being cool, they are now completely powerless because they are dead. The poem really gives an obvious picture of what young African-American males are driven to do under the impression of trying to be cool. Since their minds are headed straight to corruption, they have no clue because they are having so much fun being cool. Leaving school, staying out late, singing sin, drinking alcohol, and having sex apparently are the only things that are important to them. With this mentality, more and more inner city males while continue hastening toward their death.
All of this is brought to the reader by an abundant use of figurative language throughout the song. For Instance, the scaffold the man is standing on symbolizes his position in life (he is scared and wants to escape. In the third stanza, after describing the problems with his world and how he prays, he curses the windstorms. This is actually a metaphor for his mental confusion and despair. In the next stanza, the prestige of the boardroom is made evident by the allusion of it towards a pharoahs tomb. We know in the end that he has pulled it all together when he calls his “crystal clear canvas” (the windows) a “masterpiece” . He has given value to his work and thus, value to his life.
In the song he states, “I can plow a field all day long/ I can catch catfish from dusk ‘till dawn/ We make our on whiskey and our own smoke, too/ Ain’t too many things these old boys can’t do.” In addition, He stated, “But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife/ For 43 dollars my friend lost his life/ I’d love to spit some beech nut in that dude’s eyes/ And shoot him with my old 45.” The author is really trying to persuade everyone that they can do pretty much anything to live on their own because that is how they are raised and that if you mess with one of them; you got it coming your way.
...ng dwelled in because he was an useless African American in the eyes of the racist, white men. Little did he know that this decision he made in order to run away from poverty would become the impetus to his success as a writer later on in life. In Wright’s autobiography, his sense of hunger derived from poverty represents both the injustice African Americans had to face back then, and also what overcoming that hunger means to his own kind.
He imagined his mother lying desperately ill and his being able to secure only a Negro doctor for her. He toyed with that idea for a few minutes and then dropped it for a momentary vision of himself participating as a sympathiser in a sit-in demonstration. This was possible but he did not linger with it. Instead, he approached the ultimate horror. He brought home a beautiful suspiciously Negroid woman. Prepare yourself, he said. There is nothing you can do about it. This is the woman I have chosen. (15)
It starts by describing a young woman in college, stating, “she has no idea what she’s doing in college, the major she majored in don’t make no money, she won’t drop out, her parents will look at her funny (West).” By doing this the song establishes that this woman wants success but she doesn’t know how to obtain it since she was basically pushed into pursuing a career in college that she was unsure of in order to obtain success. The song furthers the story of the woman when she states that she gives up and goes on to say that her tuition money is enough to buy a few pairs of new shoes. The desire for success and frustration of not being able to achieve it, is what essentially leads the woman to take this shortcut of dropping out of school to acquire material possessions in the “now” instead of the slower, more standard route of finishing her education and finding success through that. Kanye West then describes in the song his addiction to material possessions when he began to acquire wealth from his music career.
In this song, she sings about events that have oppressed the African American people and other ethnicities in the United States for many years. In the song she states (line 60) “Mafia with diplomas keeping us in a coma trying to own a piece, of the "American Corona”, The Revolving Door, Insanity every floor, Skyscraping, paper chasing, What are we working for? Empty traditions, Reaching social positions, Teaching ambition to support the family superstition?” In this part of the song she is saying that everyone today is trying to be successful and trying to accomplish the American dream. She says that trying too hard to be successful is toxic and it will mess with one’s traditions that he or she does. She also is saying that in some ways it will mess with one’s social abilities with one’s family and friends. Success is only good if one is doing good and feeling good in the end. It is not good when there is no good in involved. Therefore, that’s why she calls it
The beauty of “What It Costs” comes largely from the fact it sung by guitarist Tim Foreman. His first time on lead vocals, Tim’s voice doesn’t cut through like Jon’s and carries far less grit. Yet there is a sincerity and gravel to it, mixed with a sweetness that is perfect for the song. Penned when his brother was forced to fly home in the middle of tour due to his daughter being sick, this song dares to uncover elements of love which often go undiscovered in music. A song about brotherly love, friendship, the love of a father and faith in
The Spanish words used in this song are: drogas, tiempo, yesca, jale, morena, and Vato. Drogas means drugs in English and tiempo means time in English. Yesca, means weed or marijuana in Spanish. Jale, is the conjugated form of the verb to pull in Spanish. When D.L. Downer says “Got to feed mi Jale…” (Suga Boom Boom) he is saying that he has to feed his addiction, he has to get more drugs. Morena, means dark-haired and/or dark-skinned woman in English. When Downer says “Fine little morena black on black even her eyes” (Suga Boom Boom) he is saying that she has dark hair, skin, and eyes. Vato, means dude or guy in English, but it has a negative connotation as a guy that you do not like or get along with. Downer refers to “chasing dragons,” a total of nine times, including once in the title. As described in the Urban Dictionary, chasing dragons refers to the high that you get the first few times you smoke opium, it makes the person happy, and makes all the troubles go away, but the rest of the time you are fiening for that high again but it gets harder and harder making you want to smoke more and more until you have nothing
Then the story slowly slides into a time of testing all you've learned with `acid testing', moment to see if what you learned is truly somehow connected and a part of you. Where you realize that "All your life you have heard of the debt you owe `Your People' because you have managed to have the things they have not largely had." In other words, for a colored person, your life was quite blessed in a time filled with the ignorance of racism. While you lived a splendid life, others who are colored suffered great hardships just for the color of their skin. Since you were lucky, you should give something back to the colored community so that others may be afforded a life such as yours.
The song starts out setting up a picture. The listener sees this person driving what seems to be a convertible through a dark desert road. The vehicle suggests that the speaker is wealthy and the time frame suggests that the actions about that are going to transpire will be illegal. People generally party at night also. The speaker then smells colitas, meaning “tail.” According to the management of The Eagles the word “colitas' was translated for them by their Mexican-American road manager as 'little buds'”(Adams). This bud refers to the end of a marijuana stalk that is actually stronger th...
He makes connections between himself and an African woman carrying a vase on her head when he performs a similar action, “My only option was to carry mattress on my head, like an African woman gracefully walking with a vase of water balanced on her head…” This isn’t the only time he makes a reference to African culture: he points out the difficult to pronounce African name of one of the neighbor’s sons and goes on to identify him by said description. When he is shunned, he draws a parallel to American explorers on foreign land, emphasising how much of an outsider he feels himself to be, as quoted above. He even calls himself “pale”, as if his light skin is a negative, unsightly
There is some evidence that connects our protagonist's line of thinking with his upbringing. Our protagonist's mother tells him, "The best blood of the South is in you," (page 8) when the child asks whom his father is. Clearly, his mother was proud of (and perhaps still in love with) this genteel white man who gave her a son. So his bold pronouncements make much sense in light of his own condition.
The landlady in the poem is pivotal in this context. The speaker suggests that she is well off and comes from a good background. She is polite by default, but the man can still sense her strain to remain civil, when a deeper stronger desire resonates within her. The desire temporarily escapes like steam, when her “light impersonality” (Soyinka 22) transitions to “hard on the mouthpiece” (Soyinka 26). The poem, albeit ironically, continually describes the landlady in glowing terms. It is her final action (to deny lease) and her crude questions that reveal her shallow and racist self. The West African man thinks she is considerate enough to vary her tonal emphasis to keep it civil, but her civility wears thin under the weight of her racism. As the reader, one gets the impression that she has a sense of decorum. If she was dealing with a white person, she would be well-mannered, but she is talking to an African. The thought itself leads to “silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding” (Soyinka
The landlady in the poem is pivotal in this context. The speaker suggests that she is well off and comes from a good background. She is polite by default, but the man can still sense her strain to remain civil, when a deeper stronger desire resonates within her. The desire temporarily escapes like steam, when her “light impersonality” (22) transitions to “hard on the mouthpiece” (25). The poem, albeit ironically, continually describes the landlady in glowing terms. It is her final action (to deny lease) and her crude questions that reveal her shallow and racist self. The West African man thinks she is considerate enough to vary her tonal emphasis to keep it civil, but her civility wears thin under the weight of her racism. As the reader, one gets the impression that she has a sense of decorum. If she was dealing with a white person, she would be well-mannered, but she is talking to an African. The thought itself leads to “silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding”