The rapping part from Joe Public’s “Live and Learn”
We should recognize Peak Blackness not as a single moment,but a combination of many other Acts of Blackness (Now THAT’s a “local African diaspora community theater group” name for that ass!)
Take one-hit wonders Joe Public and their 1991 magnum opus “Live and Learn”. The song is so ingrained in the Black community that you’re almost guaranteed to hear it crammed into a throwback drive time radio mix, usually somewhere between Chubb Rock’s “Treat’em Right” and Guy’s “Groove Me”.
While the tune itself is a delightful piece of New Jack Swing and contains a positive message about...uh, living and learning, the breakdown rap break out is the crown jewel. Lead singer/bassist Kevin Scott absolutely BLACKS OUT (pun intended) and drops the hardest bars you will ever experience in this lifetime. Below, the entire verse in full:
“Large, if large is how ya living
Why you're living large, are you taking what is given?
To you, in the form of true experience
'Cause if you're not, your whole life could be spent
Doing time for a crime you say you didn't even do
The only fool that you're fooing is the fool that is you
Didn't even turn around to check and see if your bridge is
Burning, I guess it's true that what they say
That without living there's no learning
Mary, Mary, Mary, it's quite contrary
Yo, how did you earn your dough?
You didn't finish school you ain't got not job
But to the human eye it's pretty simple
You always talking about what you want is respect
But never thinking about the little boy you neglect
Spending his formative years in a living hell
Not realizing one day he'd end up in jail
Now on the other hand, there's Dan, my man
Who planned a scam and I'll be damned
It was the ultimate film flam
He was saying that it was easy as pie
But little, did Dan know he was about to die?”
DID. DAN. KNOW. HE. WAS. ABOUT. TO. DIE?
...I know, when you see it written down, it’s a little TOO real.
It would be one thing if these lyrics were delivered simply, but Ol’ Kev raps them with a ferocity that would make Flocka use his inside voice and make Meek Mill go, “HOL UP WAIT A MINUTE, THAT GUY IS RAPPING HARD AS FUCK” and then Nicki shushes him because they’re at like an award show or something.
Just listen to the delivery! He says “Flim Flam” so passionately I actually got mad at whomever was responsible for organizing said flim flam. The actual enunciation goes from “words in English” to “shotgun blasts, delivered via mouth”. It’s like he bodyslams you at the end of each word. FI-IM FL-AM! Whoo!!!!
(Bonus: These lyrics are a great excerpt of that whole entry-level conscious fake deep ‘90s rhyme style that old dudes on Twitter swear is better than current rap even though the guys they champion all ended up dropping consciousness to either jump on the gangster rap wave or use that goofy-ass“miggedy-miggedy mack is wiggedy wiggedy wack” style that Das EFX unleashed on the world.)
Thank you, Joe Public. You are Peak Blackness.
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