Very Special
warm, earnest, lightly playful
A straightforward late-80s love rap in which Big Daddy Kane trades his usual braggadocio for sincerity, declaring devotion to a woman through a string of soul and R&B references. It's less a narrative than a sustained romantic address, built around a sung hook that frames the relationship as fated and rare.
romantic devotion vulnerability beneath machismo soul music homage idealized monogamy self-aware image-shifting
Who's speaking
First-person direct address to a lover; the narrator is confident but presents himself as emotionally exposed, and the voice reads as sincere rather than ironic, though it winks at his own tough-guy reputation.
What happens
The song doesn't develop a plot so much as circle a single declaration of love, moving from initial infatuation and physical attraction, through assurances of exclusivity and compatibility, to a closing acknowledgment that his public persona of hardness is a performance separate from his private feelings. The final verse edges toward flirtation and consent-seeking before the song closes on a repeated vow of devotion.
How it's built
Three verses separated by a repeated sung chorus, with a brief vamped outro that strips the song down to a single repeated couplet of devotion. Each verse accumulates references to classic soul and R&B acts as a kind of shorthand vocabulary for romantic commitment, while the chorus functions as the emotional anchor, restating the same sentiment in slightly different phrasing each time.
Section by section
Opening verse
The song opens with the narrator marveling at a love he claims is unprecedented for him, quickly moving into flattery and desire. The language is hyperbolic but grounded in domestic imagery like meeting a parent, which signals intent toward commitment rather than casual pursuit.setBounds Inc.,
First chorus
“love in us is very special”
The hook simplifies the verse's references into plain statements of mutual need and destiny, giving the song its emotional center and its title phrase. Its repetition across the track turns it into the song's thesis rather than a mere refrain.
Second verse
This section builds a case for stability and exclusivity, leaning on comparisons to beverages and other lovers to argue that no substitute could compare. The tone stays playful even as the content asserts seriousness, which keeps the song from tipping into pure sentimentality.
Third verse
“pimpin' ain't easy stuff”
Here the narrator directly addresses the contradiction between his rap persona and his romantic sincerity, citing his own catchphrase as a joke he's now walking back. This moment of self-awareness is the song's most interesting turn, briefly stepping outside the love-song convention to comment on it before sliding into more explicit flirtation.
Outro
The song ends by stripping away the soul references and jokes, repeating a plain declaration of singular devotion. The simplicity functions as a kind of exhale after the denser wordplay of the verses, closing the song on unguarded sincerity.
Craft
- allusion
- The verses are threaded with references to soul and R&B figures and songs (Al Green, Keith Sweat, Barry White, Jennifer Holiday, Salt-N-Pepa's Spinderella), using shared musical history as a vocabulary for sincerity and romantic seriousness.
- simile
- Comparisons like calling himself blind to love or linking loyalty to a famous duet partner translate abstract feeling into concrete, culturally legible images.
- self-referential irony
- The narrator explicitly contrasts his rapped persona of toughness with his private romantic sincerity, acknowledging the gap between the two and defusing it with humor.
- anaphora
- The outro's repeated declaration of love functions as a closing mantra, reinforcing devotion through repetition rather than new information.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as a conscious image-expansion move: a rapper known for lyrical dexterity and tough posturing uses a love song to show range, while still working in references and wordplay that keep his skill on display. A secondary reading could see the constant soul-music namechecking as somewhat formulaic, treating love as a genre exercise rather than a specific relationship, which would make the song more about demonstrating command over romantic convention than expressing a particular feeling.
Context
This fits a common late-1980s hip-hop move where successful MCs recorded explicitly romantic tracks, often interpolating or referencing soul and quiet-storm R&B to signal sincerity, following a tradition similar to other 'ladies' jams of the era. I don't have confirmed details about this specific song's recording history or chart performance, so I'm working mainly from the lyric itself.
Listen for
- How the sung chorus shifts the song's register from rap verses into something closer to classic soul balladry
- The accumulation of soul and R&B name-drops and how they function as a kind of romantic code
- The moment where the narrator addresses his own tough-guy catchphrase directly
- Whether the playful asides in the third verse change the tone from sincere to flirtatious
- How the outro simplifies the song's language after two verses of denser wordplay
About Big Daddy Kane
Antonio Hardy, better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is an American rapper, producer and actor who began his career in 1986 as a member of the Juice Crew. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential and skilled MCs in hip-hop.
b. 1968 / United States
Full biography and catalogue