Your favourite metaphors from rap tracks

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I don't know if this has been a thread already --I couldn't find it. I heard one by Lloyd Banks today I really liked: "Lloyd Banks is cooler than the other side of the pillow." I LOVE that! And my favourite of all time is probably Jigga's "I'm like short sleeves: I bear arms." Which he may have cribbed from somewhere. Thoughts?

― antexit (antexit), Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Those are both similies.

― Annoying pedant (Wooden), Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

two of my fave biggie similes:

"cut short, like leprechauns"

"I drop unexpectedly, like birdshit"

― Drew Daniel, Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, Annoying Pedant, but in rap parlance they're called metaphors.

― antexit (antexit), Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

And a simile is a type of metaphor, you know.

― antexit (antexit), Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

excuse me, flows just go through me, like trees to branches, cliffs to avalanches.

― 2tekz, Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't that first one a Jay-Z line, Drew?

"Your reign on top was shorter than leprechauns." From "The Ruler's Back" off Blueprint.

― antexit (antexit), Sunday, 17 October 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

'...cooler than the other side of your pillow' was dropped by someone in De La, I think. Or Tribe. I forget. Lloyd Banks definitely didn't come up with it first, though, that's for sure.

Picking nits, sorry.

'Your rhymes is weak, like clock-radio speakers" -- GZA

― skowly (skowly), Sunday, 17 October 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't that first one a Jay-Z line, Drew?

"Your reign on top was shorter than leprechauns." From "The Ruler's Back" off Blueprint.

Jay-Z famously took that line from Biggie, i think as a bit of tribute....biggie did it first.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Sunday, 17 October 2004 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll be there like Michael Jackson in your atmosphere/Gerbils for rectums, I break you off like Richard Gere
-Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Sunday, 17 October 2004 15:17 (twenty-one years ago)

'Your rhymes is weak, like clock-radio speakers" -- GZA

lyrics is weak, but yeah good example.

i always dug big l's "Ask beavis i get nothing butt-head."

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Sunday, 17 October 2004 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I donno if that counts.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Sunday, 17 October 2004 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"niggas be tryin' to test but they weak like seven days
mcs run away when i kick it
they act so chicken
they should come with a large drink and biscuit"

-canibus

i love that biggie one about cliff and avalanches...
haven't come across that other side of the pillow line,its great though...

― robin (robin), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm just a victim of society,
its 'cris the menace
with more shit out on the streets than evicted tenants

-ludacris on the made you look remix

(is that a metaphor?
otherwise what is it?
just a comparison?)

― robin (robin), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

jay "i pack heat like i'm the oven door"

― Symplistic (shmuel), Sunday, 17 October 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe there aren't that many non-simile metaphors in rap

― Symplistic (shmuel), Sunday, 17 October 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"niggas so gas if a bitch sucked they dick they'd probably come helium"

- canibus

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 17 October 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

POX Busta Rhymes Similes

― Al (sitcom), Sunday, 17 October 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

nore: "i'm like a hammer you hold in your hand - i make hits"

― jake b. (cerybut), Sunday, 17 October 2004 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"when we hungry you look like pie / sweet potato ass nigga, you lemon meringue apple custard, cherry jelly / don't make me get the biscuit buster"

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 17 October 2004 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

(lil wayne)

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 17 October 2004 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

The only double simile in rap ever?

"Like the Knicks I got game like I worked at Hasbro."

― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, 17 October 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't know what this means but i find it hilarious and provocative: 'marinatin' in the bushes with a chip on my phone'

don't know where i heard this piece of poetry, nor what the fuck it could possibly mean, but that's the fun of it. and it actually is a metaphor as opposed to most of the posts above.

― j.m. lockery (j.m. lockery), Monday, 18 October 2004 00:12 (twenty-one years ago)

'marinatin' in the bushes with a chip on my phone' is not a metaphor. marinating = chilling, hanging out or whatever and the 'chip in his phone' is an illegal chip that allows him to make calls without a bill or time limit. so yeah, it's just a statement.

my favorites:

"Do the Right Thing like a Spike Lee joint/ Bang this pussy in his right knee joint" - Beanie Sigel

"I had the best of life in my clenches but monkey wrenches was thrown/ Like chairs kings sit on, my prayers seem too long" - Andre 3000

"Check the method, soundtrack voodoo uh and bamboo like strapped
Come better you, oh sorry verbal dyslexic
You better Come Strapped like Bamboo on the Voodoo soundtrack
And make sure not even one bar sounds wack" - Ras Kass

Common was once a genius at this. here are ones from a single Common song, "Orange Pineapple Juice":

"I'm the shit, you're shit out of luck, tough
I'm the act to follow, housing kids like Ronald
Mac like Donald Goines, flows I change like coins"

"I'm like a mom on section 8, over-bearing kids"

"You's a hamburger, I'ma Fudrucker
Askin me to lettuce ketchup, knowin you can't cut the mustard
So where's the beef, jerky?"

― Rollie Pemberton (Rollie Pemberton), Monday, 18 October 2004 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

a metaphor, according to Webster's, is: "a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as if it were another." ergo, marinating qualifies. the 'chip on my phone' is not a metaphor since it actually is a chip. sorry im such an indie rock twerp that i didnt know that. i should have known better than to venture into a rap thread.

― j.m. lockery (j.m. lockery), Monday, 18 October 2004 01:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"My hip hop wil rock and shock the nation like the emancipation proclamation."

I recently started to think this one is really great because

1. Hey, it really did rock and shock the nation

and

2. It's comparing his rhymes to a speech-act that (in theory) set people free

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 18 October 2004 01:42 (twenty-one years ago)

that one Ghostface line with "heavy scripts like Mamet" in it

― mucho, Monday, 18 October 2004 04:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"Your hearbeat sound like sasquatch feet" of course!

― Jacob (Jacob), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:29 (twenty-one years ago)

"I met a four / in other words she wasn't a dime"
-Wordsworth

now for another simile...

"I stay around trees like Christmas presents"
Lloyd "Ty Lattimore" Banks

― d. mitha (ykeo), Monday, 18 October 2004 13:07 (twenty-one years ago)

i bomb atomically, like socrates philosophys and hypotheses = probably the worst

― 2tekz, Monday, 18 October 2004 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

"I love you like a fat kid loves cake."

KIDDING!

― Ian Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 18 October 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe someone in this thread can help me out with a question that has plagued me for ten plus years:

In "Giving Up the Nappy Dugout," what the fuck does Ice Cube mean when he says that the girl has "been in so many rooms, she got a dot on her forehead"?

Perhaps there is a comically simple explanation that I am missing?
Anyone?

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Monday, 18 October 2004 23:59 (twenty-one years ago)

YES I TOO HAVE BEEN BEMUSED BY THIS MYSTERY FOR THIRTEEN YEARS

― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Perhaps Ice Cube is comparing women of the Hindu faith to whores? If so, that's pretty sick.

― Ian Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe she has a scarlet letter '0' on her face.

― Sympatico (shmuel), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 01:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Best subversive metaphor ever,

ODB (on his feature on a Mariah Carey single): "Me and Mariah go back like babies and pacifiyahs"

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 01:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been wondering about that Ice Cube line for ten years!

― antexit (antexit), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 09:32 (twenty-one years ago)

This is one of my favourites:

"underground like ley lines..."

It's doubly appropriate, because only an undie rapper would ever use the term ley lines in a rap verse!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 09:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a diamond, you're a cubic zirconia
Nice & Smooth - Hip-Hop Junkies

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 10:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the Ice Cube line refers to hotel rooms specifically, and the dot on the forehead references the little tiny dot-shaped peephole you use to see out of them/into them. With the hotel room locale suggesting illicit dalliance, or prostitution.

― Nefertiti The Beautiful One, Tuesday, 19 October 2004 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Um, that Nas song where he is a gun and his words are bullets.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Tash from Alkaholiks, one of the genuine wits in hip-hop:

"That's why I'm screaming on mcs like I'm onyx,
I'm hooked on gin and tonic like yo mama's hooked on phonics"

― tremendoid, Tuesday, 19 October 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

i bomb atomically, like socrates philosophys and hypotheses = probably the worst
-- 2tekz (hjgj...), October 18th, 2004.

that's a misreading of the line:

"I bomb atomically, Socrates philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be droppin these..."
=one of the best lines ever

― tremendoid, Tuesday, 19 October 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

to cover my ass here's an actual metaphor, also from alkaholiks: Mary Jane

― tremendoid, Tuesday, 19 October 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

before your mama sees a seed in her bag / like popcorn, man
--Lloyd Banks

― p$, Tuesday, 19 October 2004 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.