The Hip-Hop Lyric Appreciation Thread

[Ol’ Qwerty Bastard]

Ever hear a line in a hip-hop song that's just so ****ing quotable you can't help but want to use it in every day situations? Share those lines here. Whether they're actually good, or just so bad they're funny.

Just sent this hilarious classic to MLM

You don't know about my socks
Rudeboy, got tings in my socks
I got bare big tings in my socks, in my socks
Got pier green in my socks, in my socks
And that's just one sock
You don't know about my other sock
Bless my cotton socks
Don't make me have to remind you about my socks.

As far as actual great lines go, I've always found this line to be polarizing.

I live down the street from you've
Noticed me, I've never seen you
Wonder what the **** I do
Listen up, you nosy bitch, listen close
My most recent purchase, old black rope
Gonna learn how to tie it, hang it in my chamber
Perfect reminder, occult I'm made of
Come try it out whenever you wanna
Last night, 3:30 in the morning, Death on my front porch
Can feel him itching to take me with him, hail death
**** you waiting for
Like a question no one mention
He turns around, hands me his weapon
He slurs, "Use at your discretion, it's been a pleasure, Stefan"

[Frownland]

I've been obsessing over Billy Woods' History Will Absolve Me and the song Human Resources has become one of my new favourites.

Here's a few great lines.

From the first verse, which talks about religion

Grave is the fertile womb
Born again through empty tomb
One prophet twelve goons

Everyday Struggle ten absolutes
Got A Story To Tell
The most perfect truth; Death is eternal life
Hell is to exist with his light eternal night
Cold to the bone
Copper on eyelids I'm coming home

From the second verse, which talks about science as a religion

Cruel deities, fashioned from circuits and wire
Nimrod's shimmering tower reaching higher and higher

Late nights in labs practicing animal sacrifice
All under the watchful gaze of intelligent satellites
Pull fact from fiction like light separated by a prism
Surrounded by telescreens, advanced surveillance systems
Kaczynski's in prison
Danse Macabre, entranced by Mars. Heaven, Earth, then light!
Watch nuclear fission through black goggle
Lead burka

Moor Mother's **** is great too. From Creation Myth

A new type of happiness--a black happiness--that's filled with grief
Somehow ending up at the portal in time with just your torso
Nothing else
No Mind, just the innate wiring of your DNA.
The process of your chromosomes systematically forming to prevent one's own
Annihilation
I mean extermination, the labor of existence.
The first time you heard the whisper of death
That death that has always been lingering here
With you since the day you were born.
Heard it telling you must be both dead and alive.

Dragged my bloody self in 1919 and bled through the summer being slaughtered by whites.
Eclipse of chaos came after influx of terror from German and Irish immigrants.
American imperialists wasted no time joining mobs or riots
Even the descendants of the [I can't make this word out]
Still licking knives clean from the Trail of Tears
Joined in the slaughter and rampage.
All because of a feeling, an emotion: fear
And by the time I got to Watts I was missing most of my limbs.
Still had enough blood in my throat to gargle up nine words
"I resist to being both a survivor and a victim but I know the reality.
Some of us did just die
Under a boot
Under a pounding fist in the back of a car
Raped
A vagina mangled guts
Some of us did just die

And I was sure I was dead in Oakland
After being chained by my ankles by a pickup truck and dragged miles in Jasper, Texas
Where 81 pieces of me, my body was scattered across a back road.
The men dropped me off at a black cemetery
See that's how I got over
How I got over here in the same place I was in in 1866
A bleeding black body blowing in the wind.
Tripping on ironic thickness of things never changing.
Time is a balancing act that encompasses all things suspended in relusions.

[Ol’ Qwerty Bastard]

I love the way Billy Woods emphasizes his words and spouts them out in a way that makes them stick in your brain.

[DwnWthVwls]

I gotta rep Sage ofc...

Inherited Scars

I didn't tell anyone about what I seen or heard that day, mums the word still
I'm scared to plant ideas into your head while your rebellious side is fertile
Hurdles are getting knocked down
I'm running a losing race
Your legs aren't the only ones marked up - how many dreams have you chased?
If I could have said this to your face maybe you wouldn't have to write like I do,
Except I use paper instead of my body now; it's something you might want to try too
From haikus to horror stories, it's something in our blood that we share,
Something in our blood that appears on the surface of our skin when we bring it there
My facial expression said I didn't care
Hate and aggression must've made an impression on the little kid who stared,
Sitting on stairs when I would bother to bring my skates
My feeble attempt at being a strong, big brother doing father figure 8's
Ripping my cape on the ground that it dragged on
Tripping on fate and hearing the sounds of a sad song
Listen, it's great sharing time now that dad's gone,
But what's with the choice of words?
Or the body parts that you decided to tag them on?
I'm a vagabond, who moved to modern day Babylon and then back again
With minimal contact and you know I can't ask your mom what's happening
You've got such beautiful gifts What are you doing ruining the packaging?
How ironic come to think I probably put this ink on my back for him
I want you to laugh and sing more,
But you dropped anchor in a place
where dreams go to die and you're keeping your ass indoors
I'm asking for you to stick it out and see things through
You're asking for me to zip my mouth and keep it just between me and you

Runaways

It's not where you're from, not where you're at
It's where your going... and I am going home...

...to where? The land of the lost souls
Feeling the loneliness that really only exists in abandoned foster homes
How many images of missing kids can be fit onto a milk carton?
Framed, they're starting to look the same
Starting to say his name, and claim privileges
As if they found HIM!
The strangest little kids surrounding the circle of false friendship
Rings of fire are connected at the elbow
Cause they're tired, moms unexpectedly let go
The Velcro light component that keeps there unit cohesive
It's the music! So we give reasons to get sober
Life experiences to hum to
These kids play Red Rover I look for weaknesses to run through
With reckless abandon, they're standin', refuse to go down
The pinballs in their machine bounce between abusive homes now
If its fight or flight, they'll just choose to throw down
Ain't nothing like beating a dead horse, riding it through a ghost town
I move with no sound... I used to think I was invisible
Til they stopped me mid-stride and said
"I think I seen a picture of you..."
Picture that, I said "Nah I just got one of them faces
Placed next to an expiration date that changes.

[Key]

Hungry is an adjective attached to my philosophy, it's gotta be, progress revolves around economy
And I can see the consequence of capital first-hand, monorail construction pushed the tenants off the land
My people, get ready, it's about to get heavy, and when I'm not humbled then I got fam to check me
Silence won't protect me so I check one-two, and fight without fighting like the joint by Sun Tzu
On the hill, adjacent to Boeing Field, you can hear the planes flying over me behind my vocals
We speak in the Beacon Hill slang with a wonderful blend of black language and immigrant accent
And if the sun's out, half the kids will be absent, I'm navigating streets, sometimes it's like a labyrinth
I paint my voice while Sabzi builds the canvas to translate my ancestors anthems

The opening verses of this song are amazing. But the entire track is also fantastic.