| Note from Joe Berhan: You can definitely make a glossary out of these street words, but just keep in mind that they | ||
| do not all have one universal definition and can mean different things in different contexts and to different people/ | ||
| regions (ex: "shorty" meaning a youth [usually male] in the context of Deck's verse on CREAM and Nas' One Love, | ||
| but meaning a grown woman in most contexts, or god/son being mostly specific to the NY area). | ||
| Slang Term | Example | Definition |
| Acs | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | short for Acura cars |
| B | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | what you call someone whose name you don't know |
| beast | "Memory Lane" | police |
| Big Willie style | "The World is Yours" | like a pimp or one who has clout |
| bluntheads | "Memory Lane" | Dope smokers |
| blunts | "Tearz" | cigar wrappers used to roll weed |
| boom | "C.R.E.A.M." | one of dozens of different slang terms for weed |
| Caucus Mountains | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | I think it's a reference to something either in the Bible of Koran |
| Chrome | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | gun |
| cocina | "Black Star" | kitchen" in Spanish, that may have been placed there as a gesture of the unity between the black and Hispanic communities |
| dead Presidents | "The World is Yours" | cash bills |
| Deep type flow | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | good rhyme flow |
| Eight plus one | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | 9 (millimeter handgun) |
| Flow off | "C.R.E.A.M." | to keep moving and not stay in any one place for too long, which you definitely have to do when you're a drug dealer |
| fly | "C.R.E.A.M." | nice looking or just good in general |
| Gates | "C.R.E.A.M." | places where drugs are sold, such as crack houses and weedspots |
| Gats | "C.R.E.A.M." | slang for guns, I think that comes from the old Gatling guns |
| get it ripped | "Tearz" | that usually does mean ripped off |
| gods | "Tearz" | The gods is 5% terminology, but has also become street terminology to the point that he's not necessarily talking about other 5 Percenters |
| hectic | "C.R.E.A.M." | in ghetto dialect "hectic" is used to mean a lot of different things, so it may have deeper layers of meaning to people of the ghettos than to the rest of America |
| hit skins | "Tearz" | hitting skins is having sex |
| Jakes | "C.R.E.A.M." | cops, I think that comes from the TV show 'Jake and the Fatman' |
| Jim Kelly | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | the black kung-fu actor from the 70s |
| keys | "C.R.E.A.M." | Kilos of crack cocaine |
| Khadija | "Black Star" | the Prophet, Mohammed's wife |
| Kicking rhymes | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | rapping |
| Lampin | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | chilling or just hanging out |
| licking off | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | short for licking off shots, which is street slang for shooting |
| liver (pronounced to rhyme w/ "fiver") | "Memory Lane" | one who has the most "juice" or power |
| Livin' large | "The World is Yours" | having money and power/respect |
| Low Goose | "C.R.E.A.M." | a cheap or handed-down Goose brand winter coat |
| Macs | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | Mac-10 or 11 handguns, and many are plated with nickel |
| Mantis rapture | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | might be a metaphor for the patience and underestimated dangerousness of the praying mantis insect, especially considering the reference to the centipede later) |
| mega | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | extremely |
| Money | "Tearz" | Money is how you refer to any male whose name you don't know |
| Mugs | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | heads, and to "flood mugs" means to do so with bullets |
| Naema | "Black Star" | Jazz legend, John Coltrane wrote songs about her |
| O.P.P. | "Tearz" | O.P.P. means Other People's Property, a term used specifically for promiscuity |
| Old Earth | "C.R.E.A.M." | mother, I think that comes from 5% Nation of Islam teachings |
| represent | "The World is Yours" | slang for doing good in any capacity--it's infinite degrees of usage equal but approximately opposite in meaning to "hectic" (Inspectah Deck's ending to CREAM) |
| Rocking the gold tooth | "C.R.E.A.M." | wearing gold fronts that fit around the teeth, a common sight in many ghettos |
| sess | "C.R.E.A.M." | sensimaian, just another term for weed |
| Shaolin | "C.R.E.A.M." | Shaolin is what the Wu renamed Staten Island (where they're primarily from) after the Shaolin temple where the Wu-Tang Clan trained and fought in the kung-fu movies. |
| This is part of a mid-90s underground movement to raise awareness among minorities of their pre-American ancestry by renaming places after ancient Eastern civilizations, | ||
| Queens being Kuwait and New Jersey being New Jerusalem, etc, with the added social commentary of these being places long ravaged by war to remind us of the wars going on | ||
| in our own 2nd class communities here in America. | ||
| shelter | "Tearz" | Shelter is literally homeless shelter |
| shorty | "C.R.E.A.M." | (as used in this song) does mean young kid, but if you hear it in other contexts it is more widely used to mean female |
| sick-ass | "C.R.E.A.M." | a degree of ruthlessness |
| Spades | "The World is Yours" | a card game particularly popular in the African-American community |
| spiked bat | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | a baseball bat with metal spikes all around it designed to inflict injury |
| Spit | "The World is Yours" | a card game particularly popular in the African-American community |
| splattered | "Tearz" | splattered means shot |
| stymied | "Tearz" | stymied in its literal definition to describe being high |
| syke | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | not, to the contrary |
| Tech nine | "C.R.E.A.M." | type of gun |
| Techs | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | Tech-9 handguns |
| the God | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | meaning himself as a black man with the 5% Nation's teaching that the black man is Allah manifested on earth |
| Timberlands | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | popular brand of boots and winter wear |
| Tims | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | popular brand of boots and winter wear |
| trife | "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" | short for trifling |
| whammy | "Tearz" |
"Like a whammy, he pressed his luck" is referring to an early 80s game show called 'Press Your Luck.' Players answered questions to win "spins" and with these spins they could win prizes and such by pressing a button to stop a light as it light lit up various areas of a board. A "whammy" was a section of the board similar to the "bankrupt" section of Wheel of Fortune; so if the person pressed the button when this was lit, that was bad news. |