Method Man

“Mammy wanna ride and play the Bonnie to my Clyde

If anybody try to kill me (Kill Bill), it'll probably be the bride

Like all jokes aside, I'm serious with mine

and now I'm on this grind like Method Man in his prime”

- A-YO - Redman and Method Man

The process of choosing what lyrics to close read was probably more challenging than actually close reading. I was trying to find a song that had interesting lyrics, that weren’t all about how amazing the rapper was and how the girls all loved him. Unfortunately, in most current rap music, that is the focus of every song and it is hard to find one that doesn’t talk about it. It has become part of the rapping culture to talk like this. There are rappers out there who chose to censor themselves or talk about things other than themselves and women, but they are few and in between.

This specific lyric is from one of Method Man’s verses in A-YO by Redman and Method Man. Despite the fact that it still talks about him and women, I chose it because I found it very interesting how he included so many different references to describe it. In the first line he says “play the Bonnie to my Clyde,” referring to the outlaw couple who were fiercely loyal to each other and robbed and killed people across America. By using this reference, Method Man makes it clear to the audience that he has a woman who is fiercely loyal to him.

In the next line, he references Kill Bill, the Quentin Tarantino film in which the bride is a former assassin. It is very interesting how easily Method Man entwines references into his lyrics. Bonnie and Clyde is a very well known historical couple that must people would be aware of. However, to properly understand the Kill Bill lyric, the listener has to have watched the movie. He has certain expectations of his listeners to understand the references he is making.

In the last line, Method Man speaks of himself in the third person. He compares himself to how great he is in his prime. “On his grind” is a phrase that he expects the listener to be familiar with. I took this as meaning on his work grind, meaning that he is working very hard. However, someone else might read it a different way. It is impossible to say all the listeners have the same realm of reference. In the first line, he refers to a woman as “Mammy”. Now it is clear to me and probably anyone reading this post that this means a woman, not his mother. However, if someone was placed with absolutely no knowledge of the rap world or any colloquial sayings and simply read this without any past reference or idea, they would not now this.

I chose this song because I think Method Man did a good job of making his lyrics interesting. He put a lot more effort into making it creative and interesting than other rappers have done. However, there are still a lot of expectations that he has for his listener to understand.