Just Text - Intellectual

This line originates from the time that Shah was detained by Homeland Security while trying to enter the United States via Canada. He was held for 12 hours without any explanation as to why he was being detained—the authorities said they could detain whoever they wanted “at their discretion.”

Shah’s phone was blowing up after he missed his flight, but he wasn’t allowed to use his phone in the detainment room. He needed to secretly text his lawyer to help him get back into the US—but the phone calls were disrupting his ability to move in stealth. “Just text” was inadvertently anthemized as a result of this catch 22.

This is kinda an inside joke but it’s a funny story. Eddy is my longtime engineer and producer, you probably know him as L.Eddy or L.Eddy Beethoven. Eddy was always wearing this silver dog tag and I was like my dog needs a real gold chain now that things are starting to pop. So one day we’re at the studio and I surprised him by putting a chain around his neck just like I do in our video for Pay Day 71. He was so happy he told his mom Lisa and she was like you 3 gold chains in this safe son. So next day I see Eddy he literally got 3 new chains. Eddy’s Dominican and ‘demagogo’ is local slang for haters. He was catching a lot of hate from people hoping he wasn’t really that successful and couldn’t actually afford all those chains and thinking that maybe he just stole them. So to prove those demagogos wrong even more, Lisa also gave him his dad’s gold Rolex watch she also had hidden away in that damn safe

When Shah was a kid he literally had to jump over barbed wire fences just to escape the police who were chasing him. This line can also be interpreted metaphorically, denoting the figurative hurdles he had to overcome while growing up in Canada.

This is a double entendre: “everybody tryna fuck me” could mean that people want to have sex with Shah or else they want to fuck him over, as in take advantage of him and his new successes. If they’re not trying to do either of these things, then they’re trying to ‘fuck with’ Shah, as in wanting to be a part of his crew and movement.

This bar is a play on the old phrase ‘time is money’ which was originally coined by Benjamin Franklin in his book “Advice to a Young Tradesman” in 1746. Shah is taking this phrase and using it to show how important and busy he is, which makes his time valuable. The more value something has, the more expensive it gets.

Calling his time expensive using a Franklin quote also has double meaning as Franklin is on the $100 bill. Money is a common theme in Shah’s music, he often mentions the names of the presidents on the US bills or references ‘dead presidents’

Shah wants them to eat, but instead of gratitude they are jealous Shah’s plateful, not realizing his full plate will feed them too. Shah wants them to eat but they, at the very least, will need to make their own plate

“5:46” is a reference to Biggie’s song, “Warning”:

Who the fuck is this? Paging me at 5:46
In the mornin'?
Crack of dawn and now I’m yawnin'…

In this case, Shah receives a message from his favorite ex-girlfriend who has just moved into town. Assuming Shah is talking about Essex St. in New York, which is the Lower East Side, it wouldn’t be too far from where he lives in the city.