The Verisimilitude of Rx Papi’s “12 Stout Street”
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- How can something be artless and artful at the same time? Am I really going to use the word "Verisimilitude"? Yes, and yes. Watch to find out how. @Rxpapi556
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SKYE THE STOUT STREET IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU oh my god he can't hear me he's stuck in the youtube thumbnail
Hey man, great analysis of this song! I wanted to take the time and write out a thoughtful response to what you feel is the worst line in the song and tie it in to some of the points you made in the American Terrorist analysis. I actually think that the sequence of lines at 45:02 are the cornerstone of the entire song, and furthermore tie in what he's saying here in to the rest of his work. I don't know how familiar you are with Papi's other songs, but a common theme in many of his songs is how his life of crime has influenced the relationships he's had with other people and vice versa, creating a cycle of lies and betrayal with his family and friends over things he's done in the streets.
There's another song of his called "Cousin Tito", which ABSOLUTELY deserves an analysis like this one. In it, he recalls his complicated history with his cousin tito, who is a character who is repeatedly brought up in many of papi's songs. Tito is the first person, as far as I can tell from his catalogue, that papi respected and idolized. Of course being without a father there's a clear vacuum for a male role-model, which papi absolutely filled in with tito. There are some lines in that song that go
"Baby cuz told me, "Pap, you the one"
He'll never turn his back on me and run
I got it on me, n****, I ain't going for nothin'"
Being "the one" here refers to a feeling of power that can only be obtained by the previously downtrodden. In this case, not only does Papi receive a feeling of "control" from being dangerous like he mentions earlier in 12 stout street, but gun running as a youth is his first sense of actual community. I'm no philosophy student so please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think you can analyze this the though lens of nietzschean slave morality vs master morality. Rxk Nephew and Rx Papi both do flex quite a lot, and although you can attribute that to the materialist culture of rap music, I think the way those two do it (but especially papi), comes from a deep place of trauma. I think you can view the rejection of religion, especially Christian religion, as a means of trying to overcome a pre-determined lot in life. Both Nephew and Papi rap about their rejection of religion in their discographies, especially with regards to questioning things they were taught in their youth. You could make the point that the rejection of christianity, on both a literal and theological level, is a rejection of "victim mentality" (I wish i had a better term that wasn't so loaded with political implications.)
Jesus is the ultimate martyr. Both of these rappers reject the church on the literal level (praying for things to be better, hoping community will prevail in a crime-ridden area) and the theological level. (Rejection of victimhood as the ultimate good, instead focusing on "positive" indicators of strength, like sneakers, Audis, bitches etc.) So when Papi raps on 12 stout street about feeling impoverished, feeling like a victim to forces outside of his control, and then contrasts those elements with his feelings of power, safety, and security he gained through shooting guns and robbing, you really start to see how things that seem so alien to the "white, gamer audience" you described suddenly become so appealing.
At 44:40, you mention the line about how "bitches used to laugh and call me a bum" wasn't an actual flashback to a literal event, but rather a flashback to a feeling of powerlessness. I think that example of being laughed at and not taken seriously is exactly what he's describing throughout this whole song, with his mother not taking him seriously when he brings up his issues with her. Papi doesn't receive much positive feedback from his maternal figure, so instead he freudianly tries to seek it out with other women, hoping that he can gain validation from these women. Instead he's laughed at, and without any type of external validation, he finds his solace with his gang. I think that sequence of lines is so important, going from "All the women I know don't take me seriously" -> "My friends taught me how to be a man (by shooting)" -> "Now I've made it". The implication there is that now he will receive an actual sense of validation, be it from women or otherwise, by achieving the masculine archetype, the "master" as Neitzsche would describe it as. Now he doesn't have to be the "noble sufferer", and can seek to chart out his own path.
That is until things get actually violent and now he has to be responsible. You're right in catching his passive tone when talking about actual shootings. His very active tone about "being the one" gets really passive as soon as he has to do it for real. The theme of this entire song is how he wishes he didn't have to make the choices he did. How he wishes that he could just play games and shit. But he can't end up like his father, dead on the concrete at the feet of another man. So he has to live up to the status of being dangerous to fuck with, and now people in his life end up dead and he can't cope.
The song I think is at it's core about coping with hopelessness. It isn't just a sad song about how hard it is growing up in the hood or whatever, which I think is how you interpreted it. Those three lines that you think are terrible are what makes it. He rejects being put down and made victim, by economics, by the derogatory words of his mother, by the women in his life that didn't support him, by other gang members, by the school system etc. But despite all this, the people in his life that he aspires too (namely his father, cousin tito, and his friends in his gang) end up dead. I just want to leave some lines from "cousin tito" to wrap this all up.
"I don't sell crack to rap about it
And, n****, I don't do it for my health
I do it 'cause I don't really know nothing else
Know how many times they told me I'ma fail?
All alone, I be calling for help
They say my cousin Tito killed himself
But I know damn well he ain't killed himself"
also think these lines from "A Man Apart" illustrate some of my points here:
"Seen Tito in my dreams like a day ago
He said, "No matter what, cuz, just play your role"
Shit fucked me up, I woke up sweatin' bad
Looked in the mirror, all I saw was my dad
I blinked and BK was behind my back
I blinked one time and everything went black
I opened my eyes, I'm bloody as shit
This the second time this shit happen again
Got me lookin' for cuz like "Where he went?"
Can't find pops, he gone inna wind
This shit ain't right, somebody playin' with my head
Seen Auntie-boo at the end of my bed
Been eleven years since she been dead
But every day, that shit still fuck with my head
She had cancer, layin' in that hospital bed
Her last request was "Can you hold my hand?"
I be goin' through problems you will never understand
'Cause I never even reached out for her hand"
here are my thoughts about the last part of the song:
stood on the block w dreams of an audi (he sold drugs dreaming of owning a luxury car)/
had a nightmare sleeping in my audi (timeskip to now where he has the car he worked for, he slept in his car for an undisclosed reason here it seems)/
nigga caught me lacking n pulled me out it/ big ass pistol to my mouthpiece, and it happened in front of 12 stout street (as he slept, he had a nightmare of himself being in front of the house and being pulled out of his car and robbed at gunpoint)
i think it might be alluding to him ending up like his father
That was my thought, too
also the dream of an audi turned out to not actually make him feel better, it turned into a nightmare
AVAA! I hope in your personal time you do listen to this album in full, It's only about 19 minutes or so regardless, but the smooth shifts between the tragedies of his life and the playful humor he uses to cope with it and guard his vulnerabilities really make it something special. I can't express how happy I am to get a MIKE, an Rxk Nephew, and an Rx Papi review all within this past month. All of them really define what I think of as the cutting edge of hiphop right now. While humor and tragedy have always been present in hiphop, it feels like the pot has been stirred up and resettled with a new and distinct variety that pulls every hiphop cultural touchstone from the past decade. Emo rap, mumble rap, and heavy, fiscuous, ethereal production all culminating in these modern renditions full of the same qualities that songs like I Can't Go to Sleep brought to a generation before us.
Also wanted to add, I think the latter half of the song that feels out-of-place and the culmination of the song with the vague lines about his nightmare might be serving a larger theme. I think 12 Stout Street embodies powerlessness in his mind. Rapping about toating guns and not to mess with him is very quickly pulled back to trauma as, even in the present day, with all his attempts to establish agency, he is still terrified of becoming powerless again. His audi is, to him, a marker of how he pulled himself out of the mud, but he's still sleeping in his car. He's still powerless in the face of a gun, and in his nightmares, he's still the same boy on 12 Stout Street
chefs kiss 🤌🏿
I love these deep-dives into specific songs, especially when the artist touches on so many topics. So much to discuss, and I'm always amazed at how consistently you can draw comparisons that I never could've. Keep 'em coming Skye! 🗣
The last bit about the Audi is first him imagining owning an Audi while living at 12th stout street, followed by a time skip until he actually has one. He is sleeping in his car while he has a dream about being carjacked and shot, and in the dream it happens in front of the same place his father was killed. He is worries he will end up the same way his father did.
Skye you are so real for shouting out the guys, girls, and enbys. AVAA
AVAA! a few thoughts:
- “this shit’d take a bitch years to know”. I always interpreted this as meaning it would take the mom years to understand everything she put him through emotionally and for him to list to he all the crimes he committed to feed/cloth himself.
- as other people have mentioned, there’s likely a time skip between the two “audi” lines; first, when he’s hustling and dreaming about owning an audi, then when he actually owns one and may or may not be sleeping in it
- i love how “and pulled me out it” in the last few lines could refer to the audi or the nightmare. sometimes i envision him having a nightmare in his car and being awoken by someone hauling him out and putting a gun to his mouth.
1 hour on stout street is crazy lets go, gud and papi killed it
Was just watching the nephew video and thought "omg I wish he did a video on 12 stout street" and I see this... YES
I feel like him referring to his birth as „coming out of his moms pussy“ also adds to the theme of how he did not have a good relationship with his mother, in a way he kinda just came out of his mothers body without there being a good bond between the two or maternal love. It wasn’t a moment of joy but it just happened , which he why he, in way, distanced himself from the birth in that line by using such vulgar wordings
AVAA - I think you would enjoy "Unsubscribe Me & Don't Buy My Music" by Nephew, IMO it's kinda like an angrier American Tterroristt. Keep doing your thing, watching your videos has opened my mind up to a lot of things that I would have never thought about.
AVAA - When he says “This shit takes a bitch years to know” Hes referring to unveiling his darkest secrets ans traumas with his partner based on years of trust
While I was listening to this song after this video. I kept thinking about the psychoanalytic implications (of what very little I know of psychoanalysis from the very little Lacan and Freud I have read), I see the last lines as alluding to 12 Stout Street as this locus of trauma. He was kicked out, abused, and marginalized by his own mother and now finds himself in his dreams about to die outside of the house of where he felt the least safe and least secure. That this home will be the death of him because of his upbringing. Im just spitballing though. AVAA
Cannot wait please do an entire series on RXK songs
the "Neo or Jet Li" line isn't departure from the songs themes just cause it's bragging about being hard and violent.
It is bragging but it also displays it as tragic point about what that life made him, about what he had to become.
And it's not the first line in the song to bring that up, "We don't stay safe, we stay dangerous" is also a tragic line, but also putting yourself forward as a dangerous hardened person. At least that's what it sounds like, especially when "dangerous" is rhymed with "gang and shit" from two lines over in the same rhyme scheme.
AVAusually
Hello professor big fan of your videos I have a request of an artist that is so underanalyzed and overlooked I personally believe will be missed as one of the great poetic writers of our time. Mac Millers album swimming released a month before his passing truly deserves a philosophical analysis, it comes from the same vein as Bachowski and Eliot. His passing is also a very important aspect to the music making a listen before knowing of his death and after completing different listens, showing the multilayered complexity of the work. Thank you very much ❤️
well you definitely gotta do Early Age Death by RXKNephew as well
Thank you for your time and analysis professor skye. I appreciate the ability you have to make me think harder about the music we surround ourself with!
Professor Skye, I think you should talk about "A Man Apart (Intervention)" by Rx Papi next. It covers Papi's relationship with the rest of the his family members, including his Dad, aunt, and grandma. It is heartbreaking as well but masterful
Thank you so much for covering these artists, I’d love to see more videos like these 🗣️
i love that you’re covering already released music ♥️ please do more
yooo i asked for you to do pap on the last vid and you did, legendary. i will stay subbed!
First Neph now Pap. Nice to see
Awesome video as always, Doc!! A deeper look into the “Before Neo or Jet Li/I was The One” line could bring us to believe that Papi is fighting himself, much like Jet Li in his movie “The One”. Neo also had to fight to unlock himself in The Matrix, his power to overcome came after he was dead and defeated by Agent Smith (inner evil, the system forcing deadly situations like drug selling, robberies etc) It’s not a bragging line but an introspective line to say “I survived alot of trauma and I’m recognizing the power in that survival.” Just my two cents- love these deep dives!!
You need to listen to the song Early Age Death by RXK Nephew. It's so far one of the closest interpretations of what a Panic Attack feels like.
Thank you for breaking this song down. this song resonates with my childhood and hearing you break it down like this gives me a little bit more closure. I will gladly sub to this channel
I just watched your video of rxk nephew and I was about to ask you to listen to this song. Little did I know you were dropping it in 40 minutes
Skye is in his bag rn
AVAA! Loving these deep dives love American terroristt and 12 stout street. You should do more whenever you stumble across songs that you think are worth the deep dive, especially if they aren’t talked about enough
Thank you for showing the house, this song has been like a sound track to me. Seeing the house was like the “yeah” that’s why it locks with me. Also the empathy of being there with/for his mom is connected to his dehumanizing he puts out from betrayal. At least that’s how I relate/feel for the way he talks.
Youre a goat for doing these
Omg I’ve wanted this video for over a year now
AVAA
I remember listening to this song as a trend on Tik tok, weirdly it was of the only songs in which u don’t want to bang your head into a wall after hearing for the thousandth time. Knew there was something special about it and you quantified it perfectly!!
"you cant empathize with a video game character" somebody needs to play firewatch
Coming back a couple days later just to say this:
I want to hear your analysis of Agony- Yung Lean.
A Swedish rapper who caught brief fame in 2014 through a meme (hurt) and he's been in so much turmoil since. A true artist in my opinion. I think this song truly encapsulates a lot of the aftermath meme rap. I love it. I think if you watch a couple videos of what he was going through when he made this song you'll be able to talk for hours.
I think I remember you saying your love for Swedish culture, and yung Gud who produced this papi song came up with yung lean. In a way if it weren't for yung lean there wouldn't be an rx papi. That's a stretch but it's amazing to think about.
would love to see what he has to say on sadboys and drain gang as a whole
he's done a crest review @@sonice9020
Excellent video. Love your work.
you're actually covering the goat I love you professor skye. so real for this.
AVAA ❤️💯 23 mins in and a pleasure to listen to someone breakdown such an overlooked song (art + merit wise)
AVAA - I discovered this song about a year ago with my friend and we loved it so much that we made a playlist based on it (thuggin on the bloc). My favorite parts of the song were always the “I was with face shot my first gun” and “we dont stay safe we stay dangerous”. I really liked the first one because having a name and a certain moment made the song feel a lot more genuine. The second one was interesting because it functions as a rebellious statement but also when paired with the line about wanting to play games and not need to participate in crime, it highlights the influence of societal pressures and how tough and dangerous his environment is. I also think describing people as them is fine in this context because pap is influenced by his fathers death and not a need for revenge, which might be what he’s saying.
AVAA - I personally interpreted the shift from not rhyming to talking about how "he was the one" alluding to the perceived necessity for boys and young men to need to appear strong. I wholeheartedly think that the song is meant to connect to the youth, mainly young men in environments that are not supportive, and in those situations you feel as though you must put up a front to appear strong otherwise you would be taken advantage of, either robbed or bullied or anything of that sort. I grew up extremely advantaged, yet I was still able to connect to this line as if it was showing that I had erected a facade of strength when I really was not that. Great video though
waiting for more videos about music I like, I feel like I'm learning some new words in english and learning actually useful knowledge in general
dig the format. taking the time to digest whole songs in a long format. I think many rap songs are so packed with meaning that they need more than a few sentences in an album review
idk if you’ve done these before, but since you’re having better algorithm luck with “older” songs, maybe try to cover some of the Soundcloud era masterpieces. Lil Peep’s “come over when you’re sober” (pt 1 and 2), XXXTentacion’s “17”, Playboi Carti’s “Playboi Carti (self titled)”, etc. I’ve only seen this video of yours and the American Tterroristt video. I watched all of both and they were pretty insightful, i think you’d do good work with some Gen Z classics.
AVAA! Just found your channel and really like the subjects you cover and the way you handle covering them.
More Rxk!!! He's the goat and I appreciate you talking about him
AVAA you've inspired me to read another great novel
I think the "that shit takes a bitch years to know" line refers to the length of time it would take to explain his emotions and actions to another person. He has problems forming genuine connections with others.
Man you are real af for breaking this down
i was really hoping to see this video pop up after i saw the last one
I was waiting for this. View from 🇵🇱
I think youre definitely right that a book will make you empathize more than most other mediums, but I would still argue that video games do it well. Similarly to books, depending on the skill of the writer, not everything you play will have the same weight. Not many games have done this, but I still believe it can be done. An example I can think of is Disco Elysium. I would type AVAA but this is my first video, but I will watch more!
you still typed it!
thank you
this made me really overthink what I like what I like, why I do what I do
AVAA i recommend syrup talk by lucki one the most saddest and realest rap songs about drug addiction i ever heard. Keep up the good work i enjoy your videos very much
MY MAN YOUR BREAKDOWN IS AWESOME BUT TBH PAPI WAS PROBABLY DRUNK OFF HENNESSY AND ON SLOT OF PERCS AND IT WAS MOST LIKELY A FREESTYLE
That doesn’t change anything about what he said
No way its all freestyle ur bugging
@@tylerfraser13 fr
This was my fave song at one point
Gud is a top 10 active producer
good video, a bunch of interesting points made
AVAA what i get from " this sh!t take a b*tch years to know " is him saying his mom doesn't truly understand the impact of his childhood. I don't believe he is using b*tch as a disrespectful term, more so as a replacement for her/anyone/person. it would literally take years for anyone to understand how he feels based on the events leading up.
you gotta listen to therapy session
AVAA the information about how reading books has a greater connection to characters made me want to read more.
You helped me love philosophy and education again. Thank you
exceptionally AVAA!
this guy rocks
"Cry about it like a bitch, sometimes I do
Pop Percocet's to help deal with my mood" - Rx Papi
amazing vid man keep it up
No one better than RX PAPI
very good vid
31:05 i interpreted this as if he ever finds a girl, or “bitch” as he refers them to, it would take years for him to explain the levels of his trauma and life experience etc. but i’m not sure
as a rochester native, keep it up
🐶 💩 records. Pap so hard. Neph too. You gotta do Boldy and Veeze next. Love from Philly
What?
@@ey3z4yahe said.
"Dawgshit records (rx papi label) rx papi and rxk nephew are hard.
Check out veeze ( rapper) and boldy james ( rapper)
Understand now ?
I think "they killed my dad" means "my dad is dead". How you gon do that (abandon me) knowing my dad is dead? You're supposed to be my mom and my dad (you're supposed to take his place)
agreed
Great video
❤❤❤
So hype for this
“that shit take a bitch years to know” meaning it would take a girlfriend of his years to get this vulnerable information on why he is the way he is but instead he’s telling us the information in the song
9:10 I am a big fan of rappers who subvert rapping conventions like this to create "artless" almost spoken word verses. Some of my favorite examples are Kasher Quon, Hook, and Woahkespasse from Quebec (for a fancophone example)
AVAA skye “that shit take a bitch years to know” i always thought of this line as him saying for him to tell a girl (girlfriend, mistress whatever) all the stuff he’s been through it would take years for her to understand
Drug Free by ODB is another song it made me think of. I always wanted to do a mix of drug free without the guest verses.
This was great
AVAA another great one
Solace by earl sweatshirt would be interesting to see you break apart
I recommend the song Melinda’s son by him
You NEED to cover rx papis therapy session. It’s like his American terrorist
You should sometimes review some old french rap like le rat luciano or those kind of artists i never really know what they’re saying
avaa - cool that u went to visit
Listen to “a man apart (intervention)” by Papi
do cousin tito next 💯
I think "that shit takes a 'bitch' years to know" means its takes a 'regular' person really long ass time to figure out why his mom moved how she did or its so confusing to figure out why that 'its a bitch' of why they lived like that
and it happened in front of 12th stout street :(
i haven't watched enough of the video to know whether this gets addressed, but it seems like you might have missed that he does often put rhymes in those bars ending in the same word, just more than one word before the end of the bar. "room in the morning/shoes in the morning", "games and shit/gang and shit"
31:04 its still from the perspective of the mom
ur a really good youtuber
I think that the they is referring to either rival gang members or just the streets. They also might be police or society. “I’m holding it down”. The it usually means a situation or a job kind of. I’m holding it down is usually used to say “I’m handling this situation or I’m providing for this situation.” Kind of like putting bread on the table no matter what awful situation is happening. I’m half sleep so maybe it could be better explained but that’s as much as I got right now
Edit: Also I don’t think he’s removing agency from his “Robberies turning into shooters”. I think what he’s saying is that the minor crimes he did eventually escalated into a much larger more serious crimes.
18:32 Book vs Movie Dune is a great example of this. Book Dune is brilliant and would be completely unwatchable as a straight copy. Movie Dune rearranges the tension to make it work.
This song remind of Squidnice - Trap by my Lonely 12th Stout Street more Melancholy with the beat but trap by my lonely more darker beat with a careless cause he’ll say something about doing drugs and then say he gone kill his dad when he see him
U gotta do rx papi cousin tito
I think he missed the point of the “I was the one” line, I don’t think he is bragging, I think he was saying he shot his first gun and felt power for the first time, he was the sad scared angry kid who has all these thing happening TO him and now he’s the agent of the happening, HEs the one shooting the gun and he the feeling of power is “revealing” to him that he is the one. He’s the killer now, he inflicts the misery now, not just reviving the misery. This follows with the next line “momma ain’t see but the streets did, said I wouldn’t be shit, the streets made me shit” that the life relying on his mother, that left him sad and hurt, didn’t see the power that was in him, but the streets saw the power within him, and she didn’t think he’d be someone but the streets made him some one, made him the “one”. This plays with the world “shit” being positive and negotiate.
That Hbomber video was super good and this video is good too.
Gonna do a response video on my spam channel.