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Musical Interlude

Latoya

Big Boi feat. Mary J. Blige and DJ Drama – “Something’s Gonna Have to Give”

Lyrics (below the jump):

(Intro – DJ Drama)
It’s funny right?
They say things that changed.
No more messages in the music.
Record sales down. Gas prices up.

No more love from your love. No more love for your love.
Change is overdue. Something’s gotta give! Big Boi!!

(Big Boi – Verse 1)

You can try to run the planet
Or watch it on the news
Somebody’s getting shot
The weatherman’s looking confused
He’s reporting to a nation full of zombies
Strung out on Starbucks and bitching Abercrombie

Don’t get it mixed up
me too I have insomni-a
at times
but don’t be walking around here blind
feeling all around trying to find a righteous path.

It’s appealing when I rhyme
so every time I hit the Bass-ist.
You know, the common folk, blue collar
day to day workers that squeeze a dollar
so maybe they can swallow,
a little, not a lot, just enough to fill that bottle

But its a million dollars a gallon for gas to get to work tomorrow.
Thats if you gotta get it
can’t swim and carpool

you rob Peter to pay Paul to make due
make you wanna write a note and take a pistol to that bank too
then pass it on the teller
But you know better

(Chorus– Mary J Blige)

They try to tell us to stay strong,
but every day we losing jobs,
from College Park down to Beverly Hills,
Something’s Gonna Have to Give

Across the world they live in fear
but its the same thing over here.
If you can hear me on Capitol Hill,
Something’s gonna have to give.

(Big Boi – Verse 2)
The great debaters debate about who’s the greatest MCs
subject matter don’t matter because the verse is empty.
No food for thought, nothing for the brain to digest
so I guess it be about who can jive talk the best

but I give them light like the traffic I direct
inspiring they life like they was actors on my set
as if I was a politic
I’m higher than a tent
I’d be a liar if I wasn’t sick and tired of this mess.

(Chorus)

(Mary J Blige – Verse 3)
Single mother in the struggle and its no fun
but you don’t really understand until you are one
a child’s sick and hes losing his endurance
she wanna fix him but she ain’t got no insurance.

Now we don’t even wanna talk about the man’s plight
Out on parole with the promise that he’ll do right
but a felon has no chance for a new start
so its back to doing hand to hand on his own life
and at night we’re all the same
and I know you feel my pain

and the only hope I have
that helps me deal with the drama
is that maybe in November
I’ll be cheering for Obama.

(Chorus)

(Deep Voice)

The world is too big

(Big Boi – Verse 4)
Free ya mind or be stuck like porcupine
left behind
that’s the bottom line
gotta find that grind
because the time won’t come back around
get it now!

(Deep Voice)
The world is too big

(Big Boi)
Step on the stars
while you’re reaching for the sun
but never burn a bridge
each one teach one
If you lend a helping hand
you may never need one

(Deep Voice)
The world is too big

(Mary J Blige – Final Verse)

And I heard him say that every man, women, child was gonna be ok
I heard him say that they would bring home our soldiers home in one piece today, hey!

(Deep Voice)
The world is too big

(Mary J Blige)
But its not that way
They been selling us a dream
Telling us were on the same team
Now we all gotta deal with the lies.

(Chorus)

(H/T Todo Mundo)

10 thoughts on Musical Interlude

  1. I really like that the song points out that the average person is suffering, regardless of gender. It’s not just enough to have male feminists, but we need women fighting for men’s issues too (like incarceration rates). Really good message of unity, which is the only way any real and lasting progress will ever be made.

    Two small factual errors in the song though:

    We’re not “losing jobs every day.” The total number of jobs is up since 2000. However, the number that matters is actually the unemployment rate (since the raw number of jobs only matters in relation to the size of the population). Unemployment is presently 5.7%, which isn’t particularly high since the all time average is 5.6%. In December of 2007 unemployment was well below the average, at 5.0%. You can still argue that the US is doing poorly in the global economy, but the issues are things like the devaluation of the dollar and the price of oil (which th song mentions). But for job loss, we’re doing okay.

    As for “I heard him say that they would bring our soldiers home in one piece today,” it’s a pretty big stretch from Obama’s withdrawal plan. Obama’s campaign site says that he would conduct a phased withdrawal from Iraq which would, best case scenerio, be complete in the summer of 2010. Some troops would remain, just like we have in Germany, Japan, and every other country with an embassy. Obama’s plan does not call for the removal of troops from Afghanistan.

  2. people are losing jobs every day. statistically perhaps it’s not a problem on the rise, but it is a problem that many people are facing and it is real.

    i didn’t take the “i heard him say” to be directly referencing obama. in fact, mary continues to sing “but it’s not that way etc etc” – that the ‘american dream’ is far from the american reality.

  3. The best piece of hip hop I’ve heard since Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip’s album ‘Angles’.

    But then, I don’t listen to a vast amount of the genre.

    Equitist – You seem to be being pedantic as to the meaning of “Losing jobs”, indeed I would suggest that your criticism strays into the realms of ultra-pedantry. Especially due to your reliance upon the official unemployment statistics, which I have little evidence to suggest the reliability of.

    Furthermore if you can find someone offering a swifter withdrawal plan then Obama please inform me of their names and schemes. A military retreat is a tricky and risky thing to execute, with armies rather making themselves targets in the process.

  4. Latoya, have to listened to the latest Atmosphere album? I’m loving the stories of regular, middle-class working folks in the Midwest battling depression and despair while they work their shitty jobs and try to raise their kids (plus it’s a nice break from Slug’s usual writing topic: Slug).

    It’s definitely not an unmined topic in hip hop, but I haven’t seen anything along these lines in awhile.

  5. “I really like that the song points out that the average person is suffering, regardless of gender. It’s not just enough to have male feminists, but we need women fighting for men’s issues too (like incarceration rates). Really good message of unity, which is the only way any real and lasting progress will ever be made.”

    Could NOT agree more.

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  8. Latoya, can you look back in your archives and see is you have any raps on NAFTA and the WTO (World Trade Organization)?

    Look em up. You’ll find out that’s where most of this country’s troubles lie. Of course this gave rise to another bad policy called CAFTA.

  9. @Lauren –

    Ah, Slug. Naw, I haven’t listened to the new Atmosphere album. Slug tends to fall under my “mad at the world/break up” playlists so I tend to leave him alone unless I’m feeling moody. I’ll check out the latest though.

    @Angela –

    Run a search on my site for those terms. We discuss them often. Most rappers don’t cover the WTO and other large factions of world trade because they are complex issues. Sixteen bars doesn’t really do it justice, and it won’t be accessible to the average listener. A couple folks on the fringes can do it, but it won’t get mainstream airplay like homegrown problems will.

    And WTO/IMF/World bank and other organizations (and the trade agreements these orgs gave rise to) are not where most of the troubles lie in America. It is one part of a larger multinational problem, and Americans feel the effects, but we wreak more havoc through those methods than anyone else.

  10. “Losing jobs” for me means losing GOOD jobs – you know, the union jobs that don’t require an advanced degree, but pay a living wage and benefits – really who cares if the job loss rate is 0% if the jobs lost are disproportionally replaced with minimum wage-no benefit shift workers at Walgreens?

    And even good jobs are not evenly replaced in the same communities that lost the jobs to begin with. For urban communities, especially, our urban centers, etc. this is a reality. It doesn’t matter if Dow builds a brand new plant 50 miles away if you can’t get there. Those urban centers are disproportionally black and latino, you know, the core audience for hip-hop? Therefore in the context of the song, it’s completely valid to talk about job losses.

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