Forever - Intellectual

MLB season starts in late March/early April and ends in late October/early November.
NFL season starts in late August/early September and ends in late January/early February
NBA season starts in late October/early November and ends in late May/early June.

The “Big Three” (baseball, football, and basketball) are all played during the “fall” (the one season when all organizations play.)

And so does hockey, but that’s not really a “ball team”, is it? “And went hard” is a continuation on the intercourse metaphor in the previous line.

He and the other rappers on this track are willing to tell you exactly what they think about life and fame. The “few” rappers in the video are: Eminem & Slaughterhouse.

It is sweet that Kanye would trade all his success to have his grandmother (who died in the mid-2000s and was the subject of “Roses”)

One wonders why he doesn’t talk instead about his mother’s death, which sent him into a deep depression for a time. Perhaps he just needed time to grieve properly, as he did mention her several years later on Clique.

Summary of this verse: he’s tired of the limelight..

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KANYE: We don’t believe you, you need more people!

Despite never releasing a studio album when this song was recorded, Drake is calling himself the GOAT. Ego much?

Fun fact: Em came out on stage at one of Drake’s concerts to perform his verse on this track. After Em spit his verse, Drake called him the “greatest ever”.

You shouldn’t play basketball with a sprained ankle, and you shouldn’t “play” (try to mess) with Drake.

A noted bit of irony is that before this song was released, Drake hurt his knee in a game of basketball, then further injured it on stage; after this, he had to get surgery.

With all the fame and glory Drizzy has, why would he want to ever leave this lifestyle? The lifestyle may be catching up to him however and he may be “too young to be feeling this old”. Apparently, Drake wants to retire by age 30

In Finding Nemo, Nemo is a fish who goes missing, and his father has to look for him.

This line can be taken to mean that Drake is literally swimming in money so you can’t see him

Might also be worthy to note that “Nemo” is a syllable reverse of “Money”. It’s another pun as an elision (shorthand for a full word/phrase) as in “Need mo' money!”

When he describes payback as a “taste”, saying immediately that he will “slap the taste” out of their mouth implies that he will come back to the top so fast that they will not even have time to realise how misplaced their doubts in him were. In addition, the consistent “ow” sounds create powerful assonance in “doubt”, “how”, “out”, “mouths” and loud.

He’s probably referring to his tattoo of a pistol he has on his neck…

In a live performance on the Grammys he actually said, “Pistol on my neck, you don’t wanna hear that thing talk.”

Lil Wayne would later interpolate this on the chorus of Swizz Beatz' 2018 track, “Pistol on My Side.”

A reference to Psalms 23:5 (my Haftorah portion), which is usually quoted to mean “I have more than enough wealth”

Also, Em is putting so many lyrics into his section of the song with his fast flow that the song almost can’t contain his words

(This is also a recycled line he used from the 8 Mile track, “Rabbit Run”.)

In the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of ”maniac” is: ”a person who behaves in an uncontrolled way, not worrying about risks or danger”. Someone obsessive or rather insane is interpreted as a Maniac.

In the article “Kanye West ’suffered nervous breakdown triggered by the anniversary of his mother’s death’ before being hospitalized last week” published by Joanna Crawley and Shaym Dodge on MailOnline, 30 November 2016, it says:

The 39-year-old rapper- who has always been a slave to his work- has reportedly been asking his wife Kim if he can have music equipment at his bedside and see his Yeezy fashion designs […] Kim told him he must focus on getting better.

The song ”Forever” was released 2009, which was less than a month before Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s VMA award, acceptance speech. The media questioned his behavior and made it seem as if he was a maniac.

Drake uses “balled” (past tense, slang for getting or having excess wealth) to function as a pun: “bald,” which is a side-effect of “chemo[therapy]”.

While Drake has dropped many mixtapes, this is probably a reference to So Far Gone, his 3rd mixtape which generated enough buzz to make Drake the most coveted free agent in the rap industry.

In Ontario when you buy liquor from the LCBO it comes in a brown bag that fits just the bottle. You see people drinking from the brown bag with booze in it and they are “faded off the brown.” Drake could also be drinking a brown liquor like whiskey.

Drake also plays on the name Nino Brown—the drug lord played by Wesley Snipes in New Jack City.

Rappers often talk about how people come out of the woodwork to pretend that they’ve been friends with the rapper all along once the rapper finally makes money

This comes up in Eminem’s “Marshall Mathers”:

Family fighting and fussing
Over who wants to invite me to supper
All the sudden, I got 90 some cousins
A half-brother and sister who never seen me
Or even bothered to call me until they saw me on TV
- Eminem – “Marshall Mathers”

And Jay-Z talks about this on “8 Miles and Running”:

“Got their Jay-Z pom-poms and their Hov uniforms
Claimin' they been runnin'
And tellin' everybody like Martin Lawrence
‘Bout how hot my rap performance was before I was who I was
Claimin’ that they threw it up before I threw it up
You what? Where was you before I blew this up?”
- Jay-Z – 8 Miles and Running

Tooth fillings are generally associated with growing older and having dental problems. This is Eminem acknowledging that he is an older person than he used to be, however, he says that he will still rap with the same talent and ferocity he used to – so much that his age will not be able to keep up with it. The tooth fillings flying out of his mouth could also represent him casting away drugs and the dental problems that came with them, rewinding to the days before his addiction.

Macadamian is a type of nut. Eminem drives the stadium crowd “nuts”

Macadamian nut:

Also, I don’t think it is a coincidence that the Macadamia nut is a very pale/white colored nut…

Kanye’s saying people are going to build statues of him just like they do for people from wealthy families (“old money”).

Kanye, who is actually young money but appears to be old money, is age-confused like Benjamin Button, who looked like an old man but was actually young.

Also: Note the Benjamins = $$$$$ diction.

Hood dreams are the hopes people in the ghetto have of maybe getting lucky and becoming rich and famous. Chains are necklaces.

We know he was able to accomplish this, especially when he released a track titled “Chain Heavy”.

Hood dreams is a possible play on the more common “hoop dreams”, this being a song for a movie about LeBron James I think this was intentional by Mr. West.

This line is a triple entendre:

A touching reminiscence as Kanye remembers his grandma’s frailty and her hip problems.
Fanny packs are “unhip” (unfashionable).
Fanny packs make your hip look bad (see below).

A subtle allusion to the “life’s a bitch” meme in rap started by the Nas track “Life´s a Bitch”. He is comparing the music business with satisfying a woman. He tried in the music business (stuck my dick) until he succeeded (bitch came). Came=cum.

Kanye has, through his success, taken such control over his own destiny that life is lazily enjoying herself in his bed.

Eminem wants to remind people that he’s one of the most skilled rappers of all time, especially at battling.

Moreover, Eminem might be implying that he makes nincompoops famous by battling them and thereby drawing the public’s attention (Bozo was a relatively famous clown).

One may say that the “clown theme” could imply a diss to the Insane Clown Posse – but Proof squashed the beef for them back in 2005.

No labels signed Drake, so he had to promote himself entirely on his own with mixtapes and tours… and it worked: he had a bigger fanbase unsigned than almost all signed underground rappers.

Yes, it is true that “nothing was done for me” is an exaggeration. Drake’s uncle was in a band called Sly and the Family Stone and helped secure Drake a management team (connected to Jay-Z and others) way before Drake had a record deal, and he did make a little money on the side for his work with Degrassi. But for everyone claiming that he knows nothing about struggle, I direct you to this annotation.

In August 2009, several months after the release of his classic tape So Far Gone, Drake went on the America’s Most Wanted Tour with Young Money, which lasted approximately one month, touring across the United States.

Drake was highly coveted by every rap record label: they wanted him to sign his name on a contract (right next to the “X”, just like 1960s black civil right leader Malcolm X)

“X” is used to substitute for “&” in naming collaborating artists.
Eg : "Used to This – Future x Drake”

Much of the state of Nevada is in the desert. Between June and August, temperatures can go above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, Wayne is HOT!

The mixtape that made Drake’s reputation as a rapper, So Far Gone, was released without backing from a major record label

“Michelle” is referring to Michelle Obama, who was the First Lady of the US from 2009 to 2017. Barack Obama, her husband, “ran the world” as President of the US.

Em is tellin than he is being amazing as he is spitting his lyrics, people have gathered whole stadiums

Em compares himself to Hannibal Lecter, the deranged cannibal from The Silence of the Lambs. (Em’s depicted himself like this before: his appearance in the “You Don’t Know” video was patterned after Hannibal.)

To “save face” is an idiom that means to avoid humiliation. Now, one of Hannibal the Cannibal’s more famous deeds was to cut off a cop’s face (which he used as a disguise). Exaggerated violence like this has always been a hallmark of Slim Shady. Since Slim is Hannibal, his point is that you literally won’t even have a face you can save, as he’s gonna cut it off.

Another possible reference is one to the T.V. series “The A-Team”. The main character, Hannibal, saves “Faceman” or Face’s life multiple times.

Life is full of ups and downs and then it ‘drops’ – then you die. Similar to the ‘life’s a bitch then you die’ phrase. But he shouldn’t fear death because he owns the world (his life – his theme park)

This line extends the earlier reference to Space Jam, in which alien antagonists are sent to Earth to enslave NBA players. The aliens are working for Moron Mountain, an extraterrestrial theme park.

Quintuple entendre people! The buzz he’s talkin about was:

his buzz cut when he first blew up.
the amount of publicity he had when he almost overdosed
the actual buzz the fans are producing for him.
the buzz of the defibrilator used to revive him following an OD.
The high one gets when using drugs or alcohol is also called a “buzz”

Reference to Em’s drug problems in the period between Encore (2004) and Relapse (2009)
This line could also refer to when he attempted suicide back in 1997 by overdosing on Tylenol shortly after the release of Infinite.

A buzz for the average person is the result of a couple drinks or a puff of a joint–even a cigarette for some.

This line suggests that a buzz for Eminem is an overdose (in parallel to over-performing). Hence: Eminem has an outrageously high drug tolerance (as opposed to other rappers who get a buzz from less good performance).

Refers to the remix of Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” (which is about Eminem) in which Gucci Mane accuses Eminem of lying about having had sex with Mariah. Mane says:

So like Pinocchio, his nose gon' grow

What Eminem means exactly by this line, is that the public, and other rappers probably, is “waiting patiently” for Eminem to lie (When ). They want something to call him out on and tear him down with. In the context of Gucci’s accusation, Eminem’s saying: “You keep waiting patiently for my nose to grow—you do that—it never well.”

The “waiting patiently” line is a subtle allusion to the 50 Cent song “Patiently Waiting” on which Em (predictably) out-rapped 50.

In keeping with the theme of rejuvenation in this verse, Eminem is back and hungry again. His passion for rap has once again been ignited and no one can put it out.

Also, it’s referencing the Olympic torch, which can’t be put out once it is lit until the end of each Olympic Games. Like athletes in the Olympics, Em is the best of the best.

This song was used in “More Than a Game”, a documentary about LeBron James

Drake is comparing himself to LeBron, who will go down as one of, if not the best basketball player ever. Drake, still new to the rap game, is setting equally high expectations for himself

A Nike marketing campaign for LeBron is centered on the idea that we’re all witnesses to LeBron’s greatness:

“Ever-ever” is a reference to the hook of “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”.

Note he also used a similar opening in his verse on “Swagga Like Us” by T.I.:

“Mr. West is in the buildin'
Swagger on a hundred thousand trillion”

He is implying that he is about to “kill” the other rappers on this song (or just in general).

Also note he used a similar opening in his verse on Chris Brown’s Down (which coincidentally was followed on Brown’s Exclusive by another song called Forever). “Mr West is in the building, Children, Ladies”.

Interestingly, these introductory lines were not present in the song’s original audio release.

A common theme in rap: the rapper is motivated to succeed by criticism. The haters have inspired Drake, and now he’s rich enough that he’s a regular flier on G-IV jets

Cf. Jay-Z’s “Hate” for another example of feeding off hate

This line also inspired Far East Movement’s “Like A G6”, as this article shows.

A G6 is not a Gatorade flavor. It’s not a car, convertible, four-door. It’s not a watch… But Drake, Drake talks about having G-IV pilots on deck, so we said, ‘What’s flyer than a G-IV?’ Of course, it would be a G6.

McLovin is the name on the fake ID of Fogell, the dorkiest of the 3 teens trying to get laid in the movie Superbad, and the only one to succeed. Now that Kanye has money all the bad bitches (Gold Diggers) want to fuck.

Moreover, this a use of wordplay, in reference to the popular fast food restaurant, McDonalds, known for their chicken nuggets.

Kanye has had a couple paparazzi camera smash lash-outs.

Cameras “snap” pictures; Paparazzi cause Kanye to “snap” (lose his temper).

Kanye has been known to speak his mind on live TV heeding no thought to any ramifications, sparking rumors regarding his mental health. Two particular instances were his controversial comments about George Bush’s lack of respect for Black people and his iconic tirade at the VMA’s.

Perhaps an allusion to his changed state of mind, more fully revealed on the song “25 To Life” from the Recovery album

It’s also a reference to how Em is constantly changing the rap game. He was out of the game for awhile, but now he’s back into it, and it’ll be better than it was before. Possibly a reference to how Relapse bombed critically, but he’s learned his lesson and he’ll be better than that now.

Kanye is doing an impression of all the people who used to disdain him before he became successful

“Bueller” is a reference to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in which the title character skips school for a day to go to downtown Chicago, just as Kanye used to skip classes before dropping out of college entirely (a subject addressed in his debut album The College Dropout). In an oft-referenced scene in the film, a teacher (played by monotone character actor Ben Stein) repeats Bueller’s name on the attendance while the class stares at his empty seat.

Possibly a reference to the pretty penny that Wayne supposedly charges people to perform on their songs (and the requirement that the host artist mentions his name in the track?)

This song is in the More Than a Game soundtrack, which was a movie about Lebron James – AKA The King (also a reference of Wayne being the King of rap)

“Say or Mention” is contract languange. If you’re required to promote something it’ll be by “saying or mentioning” like, Lil' Wayne on your radio station.

Yes, we’ve seen your glory Ye, we loved it…

If you sleep with a young girl, it’s statutory rape. So his domination of the rap game at an early age could be called statutory rape.

While clever, there is a problem with this line: Kanye’s debut album College Dropout came out when he was 27 – although he may have raped the production game when he was young, which is still the music business.

However, this song was inspired by LeBron James, who went straight to the NBA out of high school and immediately dominated, raping the game (basketball) at a young enough age comparable to statutory.

“Making it rain” (memorialized in a bomb ass song in its own right) is throwing dollar bills in the air in a strip club, a display of wealth common among athletes and rappers

Kanye plays with the standard meaning of the phrase, based on the line above about basketball teams: in basketball, a good shooter “makes it rain” and NBA teams want to shoot particularly well in the Spring, which is playoffs season (and also rainy season, weatherwise)

He pronounces it like “off spring” to continue the sexual metaphor since it would liken making it rain to orgasming during intercourse. The resulting phenomenon would be the birth of offspring or children.

Lil Wayne is famously proud of his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. Throughout his career, Wayne has referenced the area numerous times and frequently boasts his allegiance. A month later, he proudly reinforced his Louisiana ties on his October 2009 freestyle “Wasted”:

New Orleans nigga, I get Super-dome
Loyal to the game, the game been good to me

Wayne spoke about the strong rap presence in New Orleans and its influence on him via a interview with Fader:

What influenced us was the early New Orleans artists. We’re all just following that fabric, that tradition, and the culture now and it’s easy to follow when it’s natural.

Lil Wayne once again refers to himself as a Martian (see “Phone Home”), as an explanation for the surrealism of his lyrics

“Space Jam” (a movie starring Michael Jordan) is a movie about aliens who compete against MJ and the Looney Tunes in a basketball game.

He’s also playing on the fact that Marvin the Martian is a character in Space Jam while simultaneously bragging that he wears Air Jordan XI’s, the sneakers that came out to coincide with MJ’s movie:

kicks

The reference to Jordan in this line could also be a clever continuation of Drake’s referencing Lebron James. Drake may be Lebron (the young hotshot superstar) but Lil Wayne is reminding everyone that he is Jordan, the undisputed, seasoned pro. Wayne’s whole verse is basically reiterates that idea over and over in lines like “let the king talk” and “this is my theme park” for example. Just my thought.

So far Kanye’s only had one serious acting role, in hip hop thriller State Property 2. Surely there’s more to come

There is a double meaning here. On a deeper level, Kanye always acts crazy/can´t act normal in public! (cf. Swiftgate)

‘Ye was also in the movie Love Guru

And recently made a cameo appearance in Anchorman 2

Drake flatters girls with empty lies; this is also the theme of his hit “Best I Ever Had”

Slowing down one’s flow is normally something rappers do in order to make themselves more commercially viable. This is because, prior to Rap Genius, listeners had trouble understanding rapidfire lyrics

But Eminem doesn’t care about sales: he’s sold enough albums, more than any other rapper by far. This verse is all about his pride, and he wants to highlight his technical proficiency with a ridiculously fast flow

This may also be a subliminal diss to Wayne (mostly), Drake (less likely) and Kanye (really not) because they all spit their verses slow and he picks up the pace after he asks this question. therefore making them look like bozos

Go for broke also means to risk everything. He knows a slow verse would sell more, but he basically can do whatever he wants. This case, go against the expectations (and overcome them)

With reference to the theory that ‘slow = sales’, Em may be making a bid to prove his transcendence amidst the game. As was stated Eminem has sold more albums than any other rapper so obviously fast rapping does not mean less sales, but maybe that’s de to Em’s supreme gift for enunciation and narrative clarity. In fact, Em’s work here is a 101 course on the construction of a good verse; it should build, starting off slow and picking up energy as it progresses. While Em starts off fast here, wait til you see how frenetic things have become by the end!

Eminem increases his words per minute after this line from 223 Wpm to 288 Wpm, as a response to his previous line.