FruitOfTheVale
Superstar
The hell is insightful about anything you just said about that bar? It's a classic bar, but it's a nikka rapping about rapping. It's not deep. It's not thought provoking. Miss me with that.
I'm well aware of the Quotables section of The Source mag; why you keep bringing that up is a mystery to me. The word "quotable" existed before the Source magazine. People recited impactful lyrics before the Source magazine.
You came in here and corrected me when I said OP was asking for memorable lines. So I've corrected you and informed you OP asked for universally known quotables. You're the one trying to move goal posts by deciding what the meaning of quotables is while also ignoring the universally known part. Talking about a line being from a movie as if that has any bearing on whether it's universally known and quoted. As far as your Vanilla Ice statement, you're making everyone's point. Judging a rapper based on how many of their lines are quotable is a stupid criteria.
I brought up those Nas bars originally and it was not in terms of being quotable, it was about rhyming technique and writing lines that build on each other. Kendrick used to be better at this (section 80 era) but recently his verses got a lot of filler lines where he repeats himself for the sake of flowing. Take his Holy Key verse for example:
Everything I touch may disintegrate into dust (uh huh)
Everything I trust may dishonor me in disgust (come on)
Everything is everything, affidavits and wedding rings
Out for blood on my higher horse, I report what it was
I don't wear crosses no more, Yeshua's coming back
I ain't scared of losses no more, I see life in that
I don't resonate with the concept of love and hate
Cause your perspective is less effective and rather fake
The universe and the heavens work in my DNA
Kendrick said "fukk Mother Earth," that's PSA
The land of the wicked, the foundation of Lucifer's spirit
Walking zombies and spellcatchers, I pray for forgiveness
Uncle Bobby and Paul June is lost again
The underworld and the fourth dimension, my family's in
The big money, the fast cars, my life produced
The blocks I connected while re-building this Rubix cube
So what you look up to?
Fame and fortune, bytches, Porsches, sources with designer thing
Brand endorsement joining forces with sorcerers signing me
Law enforcement their forces, tortures us with violent speed
fukk your boss's employment my joy is to see all you bleed
Who knew Royce's with choices of color my desire need
Crab and Oyster with gorgeous abortions, I require thee
Flesh and poison the point is the reason, you won't die in peace
Open door for my boy, now they eating, we say, finally
I destroy and divorce what you eating, don't you hire me
Tape recording my voices and tweak it, let's play hide and seek
War distortion and forfeit this evening, you should try at least
I'm restoring the portrait of feasting, nikka, I am beast
I don't like to sleep, I'm up like coyote, I might OD
Hair like ODB, I'm off a higher need
Khaled is valid, I been looking for inspiration
But when you the only king, you the only one in the matrix
In the bolded 8 bars he managed to say "I've got a lot of money and that's why my fans look up to me, I hate my corporate handlers but I don't mind all this money I got either
damn I got a lot of money!"nikka coulda said that shyt in 2 just by dropping the hotep babble
shyt is wordy af for no fukkin reason.
You didn't post shyt.
is blasphemious
over Nas and Life is good
still to this day









A lot of New York rappers did songs that just amounted to them talking shyt but what made it dope was how they talked their shyt. Kendrick ain't particularly great at coming up with witty lines which is why he relies so heavily on the conceptual and topical verses. Even within a topical/conceptual verse there is a lot of room for wittiness but most of the time his lyrics are chalk full of forced turns of phrase that might rhyme and continue the flow but still sound jarring.
Even though you sort of get what he's trying to say (he's not caving into label politics just to get a bag) it still comes off as an awkward line that is not slick at all.
wtf does that even mean