Decoded (53 page)

18.
This is the sort of dramatic touch that you might see in a movie and think it’s over the top, but this kind of thing really did happen, literally in the case of a famous gangster named Rich Porter. There was a high level of threat in the drug game, a high degree of ruthlessness and brutality, and, at its worst, it could reach this level, where your moms is getting your body parts in the mail.

19.
I’m not talking strictly romantically here—I’m talking about all the women who were in the game with me, who transported drugs and money, opened towns, and made connects.

20.
This line resolves one of the central contradictions in my thinking about my life. I always felt like I kept my eyes a little bit more wide open than other people around me did—not that I was smarter, but that I saw some things very clearly. I wasn’t blind to the damage that I was causing myself and other people when I was in the game. I wasn’t deluded about the fact that my motivations went beyond satisfying my basic material needs—that I also loved the excitement and the status of that life. I’ll never say that, in the end, I got into the game because I wanted it; it was the
life I chose
. On the other hand, I chose it in part because I didn’t have a lot of other choices. I was born into a community that this country was trying to make disappear; was born at a time when drugs and guns were everywhere and jobs and education were much harder to find. In that sense, it was a life that chose me, a life I never would’ve pursued if I’d been born in different circumstances. But ultimately, the point of this song is that I don’t blame anyone, I’m just trying to explain myself, tell you why I’m this way. It’s my story, and I’m willing to own it.

HISTORY / FEATURING CEE-LO

Back to Lyrics

1.
I wrote this song after President Obama won the 2008 presidential election and performed it at one of the inaugural balls. It’s a song like “I Know” and some other songs I’ve done, in that it’s a sustained metaphor that I never break. It’s a song that talks about victory and success and history in the largest, communal sense, but it does it, like most of my songs, through metaphors and deeply personal storytelling. It’s a song that came out of the same ambition I had when I started: to use the specific stories of my life and the world I grew up in to tell the broadest story possible about what it means to be alive.

2.
This is a song that metaphorically turns the concepts of Victory, Defeat, Death, Success, and History into personalities—the first four are women, the last an unborn child.

3.
The song is autobiographical: Victory for me was being an artist, making my living as a rapper. But it was elusive: for years I couldn’t get a record deal.

4.
In the metaphor, if I made love with Victory, the woman, we’d make History, the child; in real life, if I could become an artist, I’d have a chance to leave behind a legacy.

5.
Here, Defeat, my mistress, is the most painful kind of failure, the near miss. That’s why Defeat is Victory’s sister, they’re close to each other, but also entirely different. That’s how it felt to me—I felt so close to my dream, but fell just short.

6.
I was already in the routine: I was working hard for Victory and when I failed, I had to find the strength to start the pursuit again.

7.
At the end of the first verse, I’m living with Defeat, which meant I was still hustling in the streets. I didn’t talk to other people about my dreams, I kept them to myself. But that didn’t make me any less desperate for them to come true.

8.
I’ve taken another step away, beyond Defeat, Victory’s sister. Now I’m just like
FUCK IT,
living like a G, flirting with my new girl, Death.

9.
A double-entendre: I was proactive, “headed to the street,”; but like a kid with acne who needs Proactiv, the skin medication, I couldn’t face my old girl, Victory. So the line combines the boldness of a kid taking his fate into his hands, with the sense of shame that same kid has—“I couldn’t face she”—for turning his back on his true dream.

10.
Another new relationship enters: Success. This is what happens after the kid starts hustling. He finds “success,” money, girls, a reputation, a nice car. But it’s a cheap relationship and he knows it.

11.
The two references to “V” point to the two competing ideas of happiness: one is about Victory, a prize that no one else has touched; the other is about having enough money to get a V, a car that I could afford from “burning down the block.”

12.
Way back when I recorded “Streets Is Watching” I first made the point that if you let yourself get robbed, you’re as good as dead—when people see you’re soft, they’re coming in for the kill anyway.

13.
Success—meaning winning on the block as a hustler—and Death and me are like three lovers.

14.
Once I achieved the life of an artist, I never let it go.

15.
The “stutter” is the baby, History, repeating itself. Victory is not just a matter of coming out with one hit, it’s about trying to build a true legacy.

16.
The body of work you create is like the future of your past—it’s the thing that tells people who you were, even after you’re gone.

17.
This is something we all think about sometimes. How will we be remembered? In this song, I’m talking about creating a legacy that will speak for me after I’m gone, that will tell my story after I’m dead.

18.
My last will and testimony is the work I’ve done. It’s imperfect, but there’s no truer statement of who I am. The reason this book is ultimately about my lyrics, instead of being a typical autobiograpy, is that my creative work is my truest legacy, for better or worse.

19.
This song, at its most basic, is about a hustler becoming a rapper. But I performed it at President Obama’s inauguration, and it worked there, too. Beyond the specifics of my story, it’s about a desire to get past defeat, to even get past the kind of success that leaves you feeling empty. It’s about not compromising your ultimate ambition, no matter how distant the dream might seem. Electing a black man named Barack Obama President in the same country that elected George W. Bush—twice!—is as far-fetched as a hustler from Marcy performing at that President’s inauguration. But it happened.