The 25 Worst Annotations on Rap Genius

Image via Complex Original

Lyric: "The way I turn the money over, you should call me Flipper."

While the juxtaposition of an image of 50 Cent and one of the cover of a movie featuring the fun-loving dolphin Flipper, elicits a chuckle, it doesn't help those Rap Genius is supposed to be helping: people unfamiliar with rap colloquialisms. From this annotation, someone who doesn't listen to much rap may think Curtis has made as much money as the people behind the popular family film franchise. Not that he hasn't, but those in the know, know exactly what Fif was flippin'.   

Lyric: "This might offend my political connects."

In 2008, when a then black-haired Barack Obama decided to run for the catalpresidency, Jay-Z helped the senator catalyze Generation X, and Hov's sweeping endorsement helped Obama secure his seat as the 44th commander-in-chief. So in "D.O.A." (from 2009's The Blueprint 3), Jay-Z's reference to his "political connects" is a nod to his relationship with Obama, not "the politics of the rap game." Two RG users later point this out, and yet their annotations remain lower, despite being correct.

Lyric: "No shirt on, I'm stunting, okay."

There is no denying the rise of Internet memes. They are an important part of understanding how we communicate and consume content online in the 21st century. To an unfamiliar reader—say an unsuspecting mother of teenagers looking for clarification regarding a lyric, a segment of RG's audience, no doubt—the insertion of boxer Manny Pacquiao into the photo above only further adds to its abstraction. Who is this guy laid out in the background? Why is he there? What does this even mean? The reader would have to be aware of Pac's humiliating fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.

If RG hopes to operate as a sort of knowledge center, it should never assume the reader knows anything. A little context goes a long way.

Lyric: "I think big, get cash, make them blink fast."

Three fails in nine words. Not exactly a winning ratio, if you ask us:

• "I think fast": The first annotation (image 1) is a sexist takedown of an artist whose business acumen is matched only by her ability on the mic. To say Nicki's physical attributions are to thank for the string of zeros in her bank account, the perfume she's launched, or her gig on American Idol is completely idiotic. Yes, Nicki Minaj looks like she walked off the set of a BET Uncut video, but she raps as well as your favorite rapper.


• "get cash": The second annotation is just a picture of money (blank stare).


• "make them blink fast": And the third—"Nicki is always blinking fast"—is about as clueless as the Stacey Dash's thoughts on Jay-Z and Beyonce's Cuban vacation.

Lyric: "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge."

For a site that claims to be the hip-hop Wikipedia, RG sure does crack a ton of jokes. This isn't to say scholarship shouldn't be lighthearted, but how is a Barney video with dubbed-over N.W.A lyrics helpful to the reader? The video provides no further understanding of how N.W.A maneuvered their way into the rap game with hard work and "the strength of street knowledge." Taken in full, the first line on N.W.A's debut single acts as the precursor to all that would follow, and a warning shot to herald the group's arrival. 

Lyric: "Rappers stepping to me, they want to get some/But I'm the Kane, so yo, you know the outcome."

While this would be a welcomed part of a longer annotation, it does not help the reader understand what exactly it is that Kane is saying. Just imagine, for a moment, that you don't know what "stepping" to someone means and reading that some another group spit the same line years later. Yeah. No dice.

Lyric: "Where drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones."

The troubling aspect of this particular annotation—aside from its completely wrong interpretation—is FlyPelicanFly and MCSmith automatically linking Common's lyrics to with what they deem to be hood tendencies. I wouldn't go as far to say there is "rampant drug and alcohol abuse in the hood." After all, most hoods don't mirror The Wire.

Jeremy, another user, later points to the correct understanding, and yet his analysis remains lower. Which annotation should an unfamiliar reader believe?

But the larger point here is this: Rap is more than lyrics, as Stephen Kearse of RESPECT. magazine so aptly put it. And it's definitely more than fools attempting to explain it.

Lyric: "Then next I check how many niggas can die from my Tec."

Either there are not enough Redman fans on Rap Genius, or people truly have a difficult time sorting out The Funk Doc's rhymes. Peruse the lyrics from his first few albums and you'll see very few annotations. When you do, it's usually shallow fare like the entry above. What's troubling is that this isn't even one of Redman's dense lyrics—it's actually not dense at all. Maybe this one should have gone unannotated as well.

Lyric: "I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love."

Herein lies another problem with Rap Genius: Not every line deserves annotation. 50's proclamation is nothing more than a personal preference in his dealings with the fairer sex. No further analysis is needed because the line speaks for itself. And yet the unnamed RG scholar felt the need to make a bad joke, adding no clarity to the overall understanding of the song at all.

Lyric: "So I thank the nigga who gave the life for the birth of my son."

We agree, doctors deserve credit for all the great work they do. But the annotation is completely wrong. Game's proclamation has nothing to do with giving props to the doctor who birthed his son, but instead is a reference to the line before it ("They say everytime somebody die, a child is born"). RG user edb94 points this out, and yet the main annotation remains. Which brings us to another shortcoming in RG's mission: With such an extensive and ever-growing collection of rap songs to annotate, who acts as gatekeeper? Who dictates a good annotation from a bad one?

Lyric: "You know how the weed go, unbelievable."

Oh, dude, really? We bet when Biggie was chilling in Primo's studio penning the verses for this track, he was totally thinking of those times in college when he ran out of weed. Wait, what? Biggie didn't go to college? Oh, the track's called "Unbelievable"? I wish someone would have put that in that annotation.

Lyric: "Ass so fat that you could see it from the front."

While true—it is indeed a fat ass—the photo fails to acknowledge Mos Def's precise illustration: The ass is so fat that you can see it from the front. The photo depicts a pair of massive rear ends from the back instead of the logical choice of a frontal view.

The jocular tone of the annotation also points to another flaw in RG's grand experiment: There is no common thread of examination; analysis ranges from serious to playful, often with no real assessment at all.

Lyric: "Wish I could flap wings and fly away, to where black kings in Ghana stay."

In his now infamous blog post, investor Marc Andreessen noted that Rap Genius would set out to create the "Internet Talmud." But, it should be noted, that scholarship—if indeed Andreessen and RG's founders intend to develop the "definitive online community of rap aficionados"—should never be taken too lightheartedly.

While this annotation is correct in its analysis of Nas' desire to escape the streets of New York City's urban enclaves (Queens specifically), the line "swagged out Ghanaian king" indicates a poor understanding and utter lack of respect for the cultural importance of traditional tribal garb. Reducing the history of African ceremonial dress to two words—"swagged out"—is lazy at best.

Lyric: "You hearin' 'bout the squad pumpin' fear in your heart."

For an annotation to be effective, one must first be able to understand what exactly one is annotating. If that does not happen, you get what we have here. T.I. is not threatening to pump iron into someone's heart, he's simply talking about scaring 'em a little in his characteristic Southern twang. (Note to annotator: The "Fe" couplet is completed by a line with the words "near and dear"—does that rhyme to you?) 

Lyric: "I'm in that wide body, I'm a need two lanes/Blue seats white paint, wetter than new rain."

To whoever attempted to annotate this Lil Wayne line: Good effort. While we'll never know what was whirling around Weezy's head as he spit his woozy verse, this doesn't strike us as some sort of complicated metaphor. Considering the context and the following lines—him describing the seats and paint of said wide-bodied car—it's safe to say Mr. F. Baby was simply talking about a car.

Lyric: "It ain't hard girl just use your head."

To be fair, there is a disclaimer for this one: "This explanation hasn't yet been reviewed by the Rap Genius editors." So it stands to reason that when they do review it, this halfhearted attempt at an an explanation will be deleted or, at the very least, voted down. But since it's still here, let's look at what it provides: nothing. No explanation as to what Jeezy's euphemism is referring to. Sure, we know that the Snowman is slyly referring to getting topped off, but you wouldn't know that from this annotation.

Lyric: "Diva got rocked from the receiver bleeder."

When speaking to Mass Appeal about the opening track from Supreme Clientele, Ghostface admitted that he sometimes makes songs that are completely incapable of being deciphered. "Cause yo, if I wanted to write something down that you wouldn't understand, yo, I'ma do it," said Ghost referring to "Nutmeg." "I'm the first one that did it and made songs that made no sense to nobody. That's me." So while you may think you know what rap's Ironman is talking about, you probably have no idea.

Lyric: "Carry eight guns/two in the trunk/two in the waist/two in the ankle/two to just spank you."

How, we wonder, has no one voted down this "annotation"? Let's ignore the fact that out of all of Cam'ron's rhymes, which are usually heavy with internal rhymes and sometimes unintelligible slang, this one is as straightforward as they come.

Let's instead focus on the fact that there's nothing here but a quip that would upset the poor soul seeking further clarification on Killa's gun-carrying techniques.

Lyric: "Even in the dungeon, I glow/Even if it ain't sunny I glow."

Where's that guy who thought Lil Wayne's car line was actually about him finding a place in the rap game? We need him, because this is straight-up ridiculous. We get it: The person tried to be funny. But if you're going to crack jokes, try to be on point with the knowledge you're trying to kick. What's more puzzling is that the poster obviously understands what the line means because he or she links to another Lil Wayne line about his swagger being "so bright." This is what happens when you let the inmates run the prison.

Lyric: "Cole's planning funerals, you might fit the coffin."

Not every rap lyric needs to be deciphered and annotated. Some turns of phrases and metaphors are as clear as the fake diamonds on Lil Scrappy's chain. Take, for example, this line by J. Cole. Even when taken at face value, it's easy to understand that Cole's line is a warning shot; he's about to metaphorically kill who ever stands in his way. But, no, what we get is a tangential, tenuous-at-best link to a Jay-Z line also about a funeral. One that, coincidentally, also doesn't need to be annotated.

Lyric: "Now tell me that ain't insecurr/The concept of school seems so secure/ Sophmore, three yurrs"

In scholar bell hooks' seminal essay "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance," she examines how, when white men enter into the cultural space of another ethnicity, the idea becomes appealing because primitive fantasies arise. So the notion that by stressing urr, Kanye is trying to "mock some bourgeois black peoples' fetish with ghetto pronunciation of words" is untrue.

That RG believes bourgeois black people fetishize about pronouncing words with a certain accent is also pretty absurd. This is what hooks might interpret as the "consumption of otherness," whereupon whites place narrow-minded restrictions on "the other" through the occupation of a particular cultural space. In truth, Kanye probably just liked the sound of "insecurr" and felt the need to stress the pronunciation in the subsequent lines to pull off his playful rhyme scheme.

Lyric: "Lord knows, Lord Knows, I'm heavy, I got my weight up."

Sure, Drake has improved as an MC since the world first caught wind of the Canadian transplant on So Far Gone, but when Drizzy says he got his weight up, he's not talking about subject matter. He's talking about his position in the game. Since releasing two platinum albums and notching more No. 1 R&B/hip-hop singles than anyone in history (and, really, how long did it take him?) he's become a much bigger artist in the game—one could argue the biggest. Hence him telling his manager Gee Roberson in the next line that it's time for him to up his fee.

Lyric: "Hot sauce in all our Top Ramen, ya bish."

Scholarship is subjective. At its best, scholarly analysis adds insight through one's personal interpretation of a certain text or historical moment. Here, RG "scholar" JustTimoo explains that ramen noodles are "very famous in the hood." The claim is both culturally inaccurate and misleading.  I know plenty of people, some in my own family—who, though living in South Central L.A., hate ramen noodles. Rule #28 of academic scholarship: Never make a sweeping generalization without data to back it up.

Lyric: "The buddha monk's in your trunk, turn the bass up."

We have no idea what's going on here. On the one hand, there's a semblance of erudition with the writer telling us the producers on Illmatic. Then there's a link to a brass band playing a version of the song Large Professor sampled (Michael Jackson's "Human Nature") for the track. Then there's a quick hit about Nas liking to smoke weed. And finally there's an image of a beer from the Inlet Brewing Company called Monk in the Truck Organic Amber Ale. If you're able to glean anything from that regarding the line in question, then hats off to you.

Lyric: "My middle finger won't go down, how do I wave?"

Making sense of most lyrics from The Slim Shady LP is a difficult task. The album is full of cartoonish violence, wild fits of rage, and honest ruminations about the life of a struggling rapper. Even when Em is being silly, there's a glint of seriousness. So it's easy to see why someone would interpret his lyrics as pure comedy, as was done here. If your middle finger couldn't go down, masturbation would be difficult, yeah. But on an album with two songs featuring the phrase "don't give a fuck," it's clear there's a deeper meaning behind this seemingly playful ruse. But, as Slim said on "If I Get Locked Up Tonight": Some people just don't get it.