Murder To Excellence By Kanye West And Jay Z: Song Analysis
Murder to Excellence, a song performed by Kanye West and Jay Z describes the life of the rappers. It reveals the struggles that not only they face, but their community as well. The song, as well as being a reflection on the rappers is also about the sufferings that have plagued the African American community, particularly in the city of Chicago (Metrolyrics, n.d). It rasies and highlights the issues that the community faces.
The song speaks of specific issues like death, education, life expectancy, violence, crime within that particular community as well lack of rise in social class (metrolyrics, n.d.). The song is from the singer’s point of view. When talking about death, the songs first reference is “Too much enemy fire to catch a friendly,
strays from the same shade nigga, we on the same team” (metrolyrics, n.d.). This exposes the fact that there is “black on black crime”(metrolyrics, n.d) even though it can be assumed they are after things like racial equality and better standard of living. It also refers to Chicago as the “murder capital” (metrolyrics, n.d.) and reinforces this by stating “41 souls murdered in fifty hours” (metrolyrics, n.d.) The Hook of the song being “Paper reads murder, black-on-black murder” (metrolyics, n.d) also emphasizes this issue. While death and violence is talked about throughout the song, it ties in with fact of short life expectancy of the people in that community as well as a struggle to survive (metrolyrics, n.d). The short life expectancy is shown as “and they say by 21 I was supposed to die” (metrolyrics, n.d) and the struggle to survive was referred to as “crabs in a barrel… your gonna end up pulling niggas that look just like you” (metrolyrics, n.d).
When comparing the points made in The Promise by C.W. Mills to the song lyrics, it is clear that there are individual troubles (C.W. Mills, pg14) shown by the singers and public issues (C.W. Mills, pg14) that have been emphasised by the singers. An example of the personal trouble would be in the second verse where it says “cause I can still hear his mama cry, know the whole family traumatized” (metrolyrics, n.d.). An example of the public issue would be at the end of the second verse where it says “314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago” (metrolyrics, n.d.) Here it is clear that although one family maybe grieving the loss of someone, when reflecting against society, numerous other families are doing the same. Another comparison of this personal and public issue is shown in the third and fourth verse. The third showing how the singer feels like he’s a minority in this industry, use the metaphor of dominos to show this (metrolyrics, n.d). The song definitely speaks more on a public level than personal as it has constant references to past and current issues with society (edchange, 2012). When comparing it to The Promise, it shows that the community that they’re apart of stands at the lower end of the spectrum. Even though history has seen this community get stronger (edchange, 2012) and become accepted, there is still a social stigma within this community.
The song speaks of specific issues like death, education, life expectancy, violence, crime within that particular community as well lack of rise in social class (metrolyrics, n.d.). The song is from the singer’s point of view. When talking about death, the songs first reference is “Too much enemy fire to catch a friendly,
strays from the same shade nigga, we on the same team” (metrolyrics, n.d.). This exposes the fact that there is “black on black crime”(metrolyrics, n.d) even though it can be assumed they are after things like racial equality and better standard of living. It also refers to Chicago as the “murder capital” (metrolyrics, n.d.) and reinforces this by stating “41 souls murdered in fifty hours” (metrolyrics, n.d.) The Hook of the song being “Paper reads murder, black-on-black murder” (metrolyics, n.d) also emphasizes this issue. While death and violence is talked about throughout the song, it ties in with fact of short life expectancy of the people in that community as well as a struggle to survive (metrolyrics, n.d). The short life expectancy is shown as “and they say by 21 I was supposed to die” (metrolyrics, n.d) and the struggle to survive was referred to as “crabs in a barrel… your gonna end up pulling niggas that look just like you” (metrolyrics, n.d).
When comparing the points made in The Promise by C.W. Mills to the song lyrics, it is clear that there are individual troubles (C.W. Mills, pg14) shown by the singers and public issues (C.W. Mills, pg14) that have been emphasised by the singers. An example of the personal trouble would be in the second verse where it says “cause I can still hear his mama cry, know the whole family traumatized” (metrolyrics, n.d.). An example of the public issue would be at the end of the second verse where it says “314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago” (metrolyrics, n.d.) Here it is clear that although one family maybe grieving the loss of someone, when reflecting against society, numerous other families are doing the same. Another comparison of this personal and public issue is shown in the third and fourth verse. The third showing how the singer feels like he’s a minority in this industry, use the metaphor of dominos to show this (metrolyrics, n.d). The song definitely speaks more on a public level than personal as it has constant references to past and current issues with society (edchange, 2012). When comparing it to The Promise, it shows that the community that they’re apart of stands at the lower end of the spectrum. Even though history has seen this community get stronger (edchange, 2012) and become accepted, there is still a social stigma within this community.