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  • I’m back b****es let’s get to it I’m glad we are all alive

  • Jun 24, 2022

    Reserved for op

  • Jun 24, 2022
    ·
    edited

    Song 2 Ghoti

    Everything I could find about Assassin’s Creed on Ghoti:

    “Manifest the new world that Columbus thought he found”
    “Assassin’s Creed, rapping it back indeed
    Like a mansion that’s lacking fees, tapping the blackest keys
    Capture catastrophes like a camera feed
    Ball like a can of peas, fall like Michael Jackson on anaesthes’”
    “Neuralink is now pirating all your fantasies”
    “Lasso to the hammer squeeze (I see your power)
    Thor and Wonder Woman battle at the apple trees
    Or like Adam-Eve happened at an Applebees”
    “Giant leaps, beware where that landing ladder leads”
    “Egyptian museum, they keep the kings in crates”
    “You decide, apple pie or the fries come with the snake”
    “They catching bait with fish”

    1. “Assassin’s Creed” can be a killer’s beliefs and rapping that describes rappers announcing their murders in song form, which is currently being used as evidence against them in court. Will they defend themselves?

    2. If belief is interpreted more religiously like the opposite of the Apostle’s Creed, there is a hypocritical killer who believes in God, even though the 5th Commandment says “Thou shalt not kill”. If you boil down “assassin” to the essential part, sin, you’re left with a sinner’s belief in God.

    3. Continuing “Manifest the new world that Columbus thought he found” from The Lion’s Deen, the New World Order in Assassin’s Creed was the ultimate goal for the Templar Order, a concept of worldwide peace for humanity under the control and supervision of a one world government. This false utopia is equally as backwards as Columbus misusing religion for imperialism. The “new world” that we should be manifesting is the one that Assassins strive for, a world at peace through free will, instead of control. Being an open world game also adds a meta layer to the search for freedom.

    4. You have to kill 9 Templar targets like there are 9 actual songs on this album.

    5. In Assassin’s Creed, the Apples of Eden were used to control humans, who were created to work as slaves for the Isu. Eventually, Adam and Eve steal one of the apples like the biblical story states and a war breaks out, pitting humanity against its creators. This ultimately leads to The Great Catastrophe or Ragnarok, hence the mention of Thor in the 2nd verse. The event seems like our worst fears of global warming confirmed as the entire planet burned for weeks and catastrophic blazes ravaged what remained of the earth.

    6. “Ball like a can of peas, (Propo)fol/fall like Michael Jackson on anaesthes’” implies the phrase: ball til you fall. “Can of peas” can be read as canopies or the crowns near the top of trees, as opposed to the ground where you can fall like apples. “Blackest keys” can be flats on a piano or flats as in a smaller form of housing than a mansion. A more extreme contrast is going from a mansion to the flat surface of no property when you’re flat broke. These various forms of descent can describe the rise and fall of the Isu civilization in Assassin’s Creed. However, you can still communicate with them with the help of Crystal Balls, but will we actually learn from their mistakes?

    7. “Giant leaps” like The Leap of Faith, in which you dive off a high structure and land, unharmed into a cushioning material such as hay. It’s not a tool to use against your enemies, but an act you embrace for strengthening your resolve like meditation. This is meant to contrast with Neil’s Armstrong’s “One giant leap for mankind” and the questions raised by our technological advancement into space travel.

    8. “Rapping it back” implies repeating. The Animus allows its user to relive the memories of their ancestors through their genetic material. Extended use creates a bleeding effect that gives the user some of the skills and capabilities they experienced with their ancestor.

    9. “I see your power” can apply to said memories like Power Corrupts All and Power to the People, you decide.

    10. “Tapping the blackest keys” and “Pirating all your fantasies” are references to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, which takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy. The protagonist of this part, Edward Kenway, is eventually killed inside his own mansion by Templar-employed mercenaries.

    11. Preceding the Templar Order, “The Snake” refers to The Order of the Ancients, which was founded by Egyptian Pharaoh Smenkhkare, hence the Egyptian museum line. He upheld a strict supremacist view of the Isu and sought to use the Pieces of Eden to politically and religiously shepherd humanity into recreating Isu societies on Earth, as well as revive the Isu. As one of The Order’s members approached death, Eudoros’ last words were “The Snake will never die”. Related is the Grand Temple Key, which contains the Ouroboros design of a serpent biting its own tail, symbolizing cycles and infinity.

    12. Biblically, “fishers of men” refers to delivering sinners from hell by converting them to Christianity. Then, the linguistic transformation of “Ghoti” into “Fish” can be interpreted as religious conversion, since the fish is a symbol of Jesus. However, even by the end of the song, Jesus is barely here and no one is converted. It’s more like mapping out where we need to go by Track 10. “They catching bait with fish” is backwards, but lines up the devil deceiving Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit. The devil’s goal is not to catch fish for immediate food, but to give you temporary pleasure in the illusion that you could be anything more than bait at the bottom. If the final takeaway of the song is backwards, then maybe the song title is too. The opposite of the fish is the snake and that’s where we’re at right now. I think of the early descent from mansions, which are equated with heaven in Mural Jr./The Gospel of John and a more straightforward title could be Fallen Angels. Currently, it feels more like Ghoti=Snake, but the hope is that it will become the fish of Jesus sooner than later.

  • Jun 24, 2022
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    edited

    Song 3 AUTOBOTO

    “How you gon survive in the (Nishigawa Iaido) Club?”
    Lupe wears a jacket for the Nishigawa Iaido Club, which connects a lot of the remaining dots for me. Nishigawa means “westside” as in Westside Chicago. Iaido describes living in harmony with one’s surroundings (or The Way, the meaning of Deen), always prepared to respond to any threat. The original purpose of iaido was to efficiently slay an opponent with one stroke of the sword immediately after unsheathing it. Opposed to drill music, this was primarily for self-defense and the gun equivalent would be a headshot. Nowadays, iaido is performed solo as a meditative practice for cultivating peace of mind. The same motions of the sword are carried out against an imaginary enemy. Another way to look at it is conquering the enemy within yourself and confronting your own imperfections to find Zion within you. The end goal of iaido is less about skillful sword handling and more about overcoming the enemy without having to use the sword in the first place. To convince the enemy not to attack is preferable over engaging in meaningless conflict and I feel this captures the arc of the album. From lethal weapon to an artform which examines the spirit, residing in the sword. “You each have blades that will drill a new earth”

    In the XXL interview, Lupe said the album was more or less recorded in chronological order. Skipping over The Lion’s Deen, it makes sense if Autoboto was actually the 2nd song, since it broadly outlines what he needs to talk about: transformation, inner conflict, knowing thyself vs. the powers that be, segregation vs. cultural fusion, original sin/ghosts of the past, religion/meditation, water/rain, trial, lies and truth. When I think of the album as a whole, I return to Autoboto the most. Not saying that everything was planned from the start, cause we know it wasn’t, but it’s possible that he kept drawing from this well for direction.

    “Reporting live from the hive”
    The Machines in The Matrix form a seemingly connected hive-mind, especially at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, where they coalesce into a face to speak to Neo. Also, hive as in the Autobot, Bumblebee.

    “But it was the (Black) Souls, the (Vice) Lords and GDs (Gangster Disciples)”
    “Maybe my ghost knows (Boo)”
    The street gangs representing Westside Chicago already have a blend of wickedness and righteousness to start with. However, by omitting the first half, it highlights the spiritual aspect and goes along with seeing his past self as a ghost in the second verse.

    “Got wise to the nudge”
    Wake up, Neo. Could also be about the The Oracle nudging Neo into thinking he wasn’t The One in order for him to later be fully aware of the sacrifice he would have to make.

    “I ain’t wanna headwash no more”
    He didn’t wanna water it down with a whole bunch of conditions lol.

    “Like a helmet with a GoPro, but I mean Golgo 13”
    This references the assassin for hire from Golgo 13: The Professional, abbreviated as GoPro like the camera. Golgo 13 shows little to no emotion when shooting to kill, contrasted by the tears at the end of the album. Lupe pauses in between Golgo and 13 to fit the flow, so you can also hear it as Go Go (Gadget Flow) for the upbeat tempo, opposite of slo-mo. Golgo is short for Golgotha, known as The Place of the Skull due to the cliff’s face resembling a human skull. It was the location of Jesus’ crucifixion and the Golgo 13 logo features a skeleton wearing a crown of thorns. If Jerusalem is Zion, then Golgotha can be the Drill Music. Combined with the unlucky number 13, the only implication of rappers aiming for headshots is martyrdom.

    “I get signals from The Source”

    1. Carerra Lu was his alter-ego before F&L’s official release and the plug/drug dealer anti-Lupe Fiasco represents the source of his career. Several songs feel like callbacks to previous work and this wouldn’t be the first time he portrayed the fast life of a car as a negative influence. “The sound of the motor only reverend you confess to”

    2. In The Matrix, The Source is believed to be the central computing core for the entire Machine mainframe. The previous 6 versions of The One were signaled to end up at The Source and reload The Matrix, but Neo instead forms a truce with the Machines in exchange for ridding The Matrix of Agent Smith.

    3. Not quite the tongue twisting (“I can Twist”) of Adrenaline Rush, but Autoboto is the most upbeat song on the album. The 100 Chicagos video has similar shades, watch and pinky ring to Twista’s in The Source magazine. The Source was The Bible of Hip-Hop and The Matrix gets its signals from the real Bible.

    4. Joan of Arc believes she heard voices and saw visions sent from God, signaling her to free France from the English. It’s worth mentioning that Ghoti illustrates a problem with English.

    5. Before his assassination, Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to Mecca or the source of Muhammad, signaling his conversion to Islam.

    6. In Transformers, The Autobot Matrix of Leadership gave Optimus a way to communicate with the source of his lineage, the deceased Primes who came before him. Assassin’s Creed works similarly by reliving memories of the ancestors through the Animus.

    7. The source of drill music was a rapper named Pacman, signaling the completion of the Pac-Man family in the Mural trilogy and a Pac-Man interpretation of the album cover.

    In The Matrix, the second representative of The Source is named Deus Ex Machina, which translates to God From The Machine. Originating in greek and roman theatre, an actor playing God would be lowered by a crane onto the stage to resolve the plot. In the XXL interview, Lupe mentioned his attempt at being that savior for Rondo, but reality isn’t as convenient as a story. The situation was beyond both of their control and all you can do is write raps about it. Taking the union of God and machine literally, it can apply to the Transformers religion and robotic sentience. “Computers ain’t got no souls, but I be giving da’wah to the Pro Tools” Alternatively, it can speak to the incompatibility of technological advancement with the long standing traditions of religion.

  • Jun 24, 2022
    ·
    1 reply

    Song 4

  • Jun 24, 2022

    Song 5

  • Jun 24, 2022
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    edited

    6 Ms. Mural

    Ms. Mural/Ms. Pac-Man = Joan of Arc

    “This isn’t normally allowed”
    “A product of a Pontiff for the election of a saint
    A gift from the read for the digestion of the can’t
    A visual garnish for the confessions of the Frank”
    “Martyrdom will call”
    “It’s not really a beef, but conceptually, it’s steak/stake
    Like do genitals and gender roles succesfully conflate”
    "It never ceases to amaze, my mouth is medically agape
    One day its raising up the brand, the next it's shredding it to flakes
    And the velocity of trends is what referees the pace
    Professionally accept what ethically I hate"
    “Less like putting on some makeup, more like severing a face”
    “How you articulated the nature and put it all on trial
    Took it up to Heaven, then put it on the ground
    The painter asked the patron, can you stand up on the pile/pyre”
    “When your heart’s unknown in the Arc of Joan”

    In Christianity, agape is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God". This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a deep and profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. Jesus lived out agape love by sacrificing himself on the cross for the sins of the world. There is a specific painting being illustrated here, such as Joan of Arc’s Death at the Stake by Stilke Hermann Anton or Joan of Arc at the Stake in Rouen by Jules Lenepveu. Considering the namesake of Ms. Mural stems from Ms. Pac-Man, Joan of Arc led the French army in The Hundred Years’ War during a time when women did not normally fight in battle. The reason why they ultimately burned her to death was because she refused to stop wearing men’s clothes, at odds with her claims of receiving visions and voices sent from God. “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing, for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord, your God.” - Deutoronomy 22:5

    Her imprisonment feeds into Lupe’s time at Atlantic and the sham of a trial connects back to Autoboto’s “I defend myself in court”. Despite being an illiterate peasant, she was able to outsmart the English’s manipulative tactics for the most part. After she was burned to death, they discovered her heart remained intact, which was seen as a miracle at the time. In 1456, King Charles ordered that Joan’s case be reinvestigated in the hopes of clearing her name, even after death. He declared her innocent of all charges and declared her a martyr for France. This sounds similar to the title track mentioning a DNA test posthumously proving one’s innocence only when it’s too late. On May 16, 1920, she was formally canonized as a saint on and on June 24, 1920, the French parliament decreed a yearly national festival in her honor on the second Sunday in May. June 24 is also the release date lol, but I wouldn’t put it past Lupe as he did something similar with Tetsuo and Youth.

    I’m sure there’s still more like the words used to explain Ghoti are “enough women nation” and how it fits within other forms of hypocrisy across the album, but I’ve covered a lot already. Anyway, this is like when I found out Body of Work was walking you through Deep Cover, amazing.

  • Jun 24, 2022
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    edited

    7 Naomi

    Naomi seems to reiterate Kiosk’s point of exploiting naive youth, but it’s done more subtly. Every time Lupe tries to focus on a serious subject, he gets distracted by social media or a fancy car. The italian man might suggest the voice of christianity, since Rome is the home of the catholic church. The Celts are implied again when he mentions being in North Boston often, but Lupe is just fed a bunch of food until he ends up in a coffin. The Malcolm X scheme does something similar where Lupe tries to follow in his footsteps, only to be derailed by those profiting off his death. X-wing sounds like swing if you say it fast enough, conflating entertainment and murder. Swing music like just shut up and dance, swing like Naomi Osaka playing a tennis match and most of all, take a swing from the Fatal Flying Guillotine. Probably the brightest beat on here, so it’s misleading, but this is an album of hypocrisy after all.

    Additionally, Naomi Osaka’s biracial mix of Haitian and Japanese probably speaks to Lupe as a black martial artist, while opening the doors for other juxtapositions:

    Chill/melts
    Italian/Sicilian
    Inter-cooled Subaru/blowing glass (heat)
    Affogato (gelato/ice cream)/Chicken Vesuvio (volcano)
    Dolce vita (sweet life)/coffin

  • Jun 24, 2022

    8

  • Jun 24, 2022
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    edited

    9 SEATTLE

    Seattle has a reputation for being one of the rainiest cities in America. The truth doesn't quite match up, but it still rains about half the year there.

    "I'd keep a secret, but I'm honest
If I ever go and leak it"
    "Cross my heart and I hope to (die/live)"
    "Molotov Cocktail Goku, bottling up what I go through"

    Raining or leaking is a metaphor for crying tears. Lupe has always been very guarded about his personal life and he would rather tell his story in the form of a concept like The Cool, because it might hurt too much to say it directly. He is hurting inside, but even so, he has to persevere with the strength of a basketball team like the Seattle Supersonics or the speed of Super Sonic (yellow like Pac-Man/the cover, I Gotcha callback, inspired by Dragonball) and make it out of Chicago.

    There's also Sleepless in Seattle, which isn't a 1:1 comparison, but the premise works broadly. The movie is about a widowed architect from Chicago who lost his wife to cancer (like Lupe has lost loved ones to gun violence) and starts a new life in Seattle, while going through the grieving process. Not sure, but I think Lupe moved to California ("Jordan made me Bull, but Kobe made me a Laker"), so they're both on the west coast I guess.

  • Jun 24, 2022
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    edited

    10


    -Singh

    "From the window of a plane I've seen the window of a cell
    The plane started to fly, the rain started to fell
    Thats LaGuardia and Rikers, a airport next to a jail
    I took a picture looked like my window was crying
    'Cause it was sad 'cause all they saw every day was somebody flying
    And they was trapped, this s*** is wack
    But it was crack under my wall like a plaque"

  • Jun 24, 2022

    Vamos la mano

  • Jun 24, 2022

    It wasn't enough to actually call the album Drill Music in Zion, he ended up delivering on the other things he mentioned in Forest Fires, except for dropping in March:
    "Videos filled with hoes, with real popular diamonds" = Kiosk
    "I wanna compete with Martin" = Malcolm X scheme on Naomi

  • Jun 24, 2022
    ·
    1 reply

  • in4dadissecting

  • Jun 26, 2022
    ·
    1 reply

    Naomi seems to reiterate Kiosk’s point of exploiting naive youth, but it’s done more subtly. Every time Lupe tries to focus on a serious subject, he gets distracted by social media or a fancy car. The italian man might suggest the voice of christianity, since Rome is the home of the catholic church. The Celts are implied again when he mentions being in North Boston often, but Lupe is just fed a bunch of food until he ends up in a coffin. The Malcolm X scheme does something similar where Lupe tries to follow in his footsteps, only to be derailed by those profiting off his death. X-wing sounds like swing if you say it fast enough, conflating entertainment and murder. Swing music like just shut up and dance, swing like Naomi Osaka playing a tennis match and most of all, take a swing from the Fatal Flying Guillotine. Probably the brightest beat on here, so it’s misleading, but this is an album of hypocrisy after all.

    Additionally, Naomi Osaka’s biracial mix of Haitian and Japanese probably speaks to Lupe as a black martial artist, while opening the doors for other juxtapositions:

    Chill/melts
    Italian/Sicilian
    Inter-cooled Subaru/blowing glass (heat)
    Affogato (gelato/ice cream)/Chicken Vesuvio (volcano)
    Dolce vita (sweet life)/coffin

  • Jun 26, 2022
    ·
    1 reply
    HaroldsChicken

    Song 4

  • Jun 26, 2022

    lupe posted this pic on his ig. prolly referencing the on faux nem verse

    "From the window of a plane I've seen the window of a cell
    The plane started to fly, the rain started to fell
    Thats LaGuardia and Rikers, a airport next to a jail
    I took a picture looked like my window was crying
    'Cause it was sad 'cause all they saw every day was somebody flying
    And they was trapped, this s*** is wack
    But it was crack under my wall like a plaque"

  • Jun 26, 2022
    ·
    2 replies

    Unrelated but Drill Music In Zion is such a hard title

  • Moonchaser

    Unrelated but Drill Music In Zion is such a hard title

    This

  • Jun 27, 2022
    Nute

    Lol my fault working on a documentary, doing Uber and Lyft and just got a job on a boat cause my last job they put on a dead bird in my office . Working on buying a computer then going to go line by line like we did in deciphering tetsuo and youth. This album pretty straight forward though . I want Skulls

  • Jun 27, 2022
    Moonchaser

    Unrelated but Drill Music In Zion is such a hard title

    Lupe a Matrix fan

  • Jun 27, 2022
    brianwuzhere

    Naomi seems to reiterate Kiosk’s point of exploiting naive youth, but it’s done more subtly. Every time Lupe tries to focus on a serious subject, he gets distracted by social media or a fancy car. The italian man might suggest the voice of christianity, since Rome is the home of the catholic church. The Celts are implied again when he mentions being in North Boston often, but Lupe is just fed a bunch of food until he ends up in a coffin. The Malcolm X scheme does something similar where Lupe tries to follow in his footsteps, only to be derailed by those profiting off his death. X-wing sounds like swing if you say it fast enough, conflating entertainment and murder. Swing music like just shut up and dance, swing like Naomi Osaka playing a tennis match and most of all, take a swing from the Fatal Flying Guillotine. Probably the brightest beat on here, so it’s misleading, but this is an album of hypocrisy after all.

    Additionally, Naomi Osaka’s biracial mix of Haitian and Japanese probably speaks to Lupe as a black martial artist, while opening the doors for other juxtapositions:

    Chill/melts
    Italian/Sicilian
    Inter-cooled Subaru/blowing glass (heat)
    Affogato (gelato/ice cream)/Chicken Vesuvio (volcano)
    Dolce vita (sweet life)/coffin

    Get an avy but you going off

  • Jun 27, 2022
    ThaTruth7

  • Jun 28, 2022

    Ms. Mural/Ms. Pac-Man = Joan of Arc

    “This isn’t normally allowed”
    “A product of a Pontiff for the election of a saint
    A gift from the read for the digestion of the can’t
    A visual garnish for the confessions of the Frank”
    “Martyrdom will call”
    “It’s not really a beef, but conceptually, it’s steak/stake
    Like do genitals and gender roles succesfully conflate”
    "It never ceases to amaze, my mouth is medically agape
    One day its raising up the brand, the next it's shredding it to flakes
    And the velocity of trends is what referees the pace
    Professionally accept what ethically I hate"
    “Less like putting on some makeup, more like severing a face”
    “How you articulated the nature and put it all on trial
    Took it up to Heaven, then put it on the ground
    The painter asked the patron, can you stand up on the pile/pyre”
    “When your heart’s unknown in the Arc of Joan”

    In Christianity, agape is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God". This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a deep and profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. Jesus lived out agape love by sacrificing himself on the cross for the sins of the world. There is a specific painting being illustrated here, such as Joan of Arc’s Death at the Stake by Stilke Hermann Anton or Joan of Arc at the Stake in Rouen by Jules Lenepveu. Considering the namesake of Ms. Mural stems from Ms. Pac-Man, Joan of Arc led the French army in The Hundred Years’ War during a time when women did not normally fight in battle. The reason why they ultimately burned her to death was because she refused to stop wearing men’s clothes, at odds with her claims of receiving visions and voices sent from God. “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing, for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord, your God.” - Deutoronomy 22:5

    Her imprisonment feeds into Lupe’s time at Atlantic and the sham of a trial connects back to Autoboto’s “I defend myself in court”. Despite being an illiterate peasant, she was able to outsmart the English’s manipulative tactics for the most part. After she was burned to death, they discovered her heart remained intact, which was seen as a miracle at the time. In 1456, King Charles ordered that Joan’s case be reinvestigated in the hopes of clearing her name, even after death. He declared her innocent of all charges and declared her a martyr for France. This sounds similar to the title track mentioning a DNA test posthumously proving one’s innocence only when it’s too late. On May 16, 1920, she was formally canonized as a saint on and on June 24, 1920, the French parliament decreed a yearly national festival in her honor on the second Sunday in May. June 24 is also the release date lol, but I wouldn’t put it past Lupe as he did something similar with Tetsuo and Youth.

    I’m sure there’s still more like the words used to explain Ghoti are “enough women nation” and how it fits within other forms of hypocrisy across the album, but I’ve covered a lot already. Anyway, this is like when I found out Body of Work was walking you through Deep Cover, amazing.