Barstoliveby

Happy Birthday, Jay-Z!
📷:
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"We all trip but the way to survive,
Is hold your head and make sure you fall right/
And it's a quite fact, that whatever goes around comes right back/
It's just like that/
And we tryin to touch major paper/
Everybody in the struggle it gets greater later/
Never say can't, it's better to try/
And you can breathe long as you keep your head in the sky"/
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"Own boss, own your masters, slaves/
The mentality I carry with me to this very day/
F**k rich, let's get wealthy/ who else gon' feed we?/"
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Happy Wednesday! Today marks 12 years since the release of the American Gangster soundtrack (November 6, 2007). Like many of Jay-Z’s lyrics, there are either overt double entendres, or dual meanings in each of these bars.

"Own Boss, own your masters, slaves..."
These bars are riddled with dual meanings. On the surface, Hov is speaking about being your own boss and regaining control from your “owners”. Simultaneously, this is a message to artists about owning their master records or being slaves to the label (See: Prince). The word-play and concept is extended further by playing on the recording term “masters”. Additionally, this line is a direct reference to a conversation involving Frank Lucas in the movie “American Gangster”. In the referenced scene, Frank Lucas speaks about his mentor, Bumpy Johnson, being “rich, but not wealthy” because he didn’t own his own company. Frank wanted to change this, and be his own boss.
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