F*Ck What You Think
defiant, agitated, contemptuous
This Main Source track is a sustained rant against fair-weather hangers-on who ignore an artist until he gets a record deal, then come crawling back for credit. Built from verses, skits, and a chorus repeated like a mantra, it treats fame as a filter that exposes who was ever genuinely loyal.
loyalty and betrayal fame and sudden social currency authenticity versus opportunism paranoia about hangers-on self-assertion/independence
Who's speaking
The primary narrator is a rapper newly successful speaking directly to former associates and detractors; the voice is first-person and largely reliable as an account of resentment, though clearly one-sided and unconcerned with the other side's perspective. A skit midway shifts to a female voice (Sha-Queen) venting about unrelated family stress, which functions as a tonal echo rather than a continuation of the same story.
What happens
The song opens with the narrator explaining why he's furious at people who dismissed him when he was broke and now want in on his success. It escalates through accusations of former friends badmouthing him, a digression into a skit about someone else's domestic exhaustion, then returns to the central complaint with sharper threats and a declaration of independence from everyone he no longer trusts, closing on a boast about forthcoming platinum success as the ultimate rebuttal.
How it's built
The track is loosely structured, alternating verses of accusation with a recurring profane refrain and interludes of spoken dialogue (skits) that break the flow rather than build a tight verse-chorus architecture. The skit in the middle is a deliberate digression, and the piece ends not with resolution but with a final verse that restates the core insult in a slightly different register, reinforcing the song's circular, grievance-driven momentum rather than a narrative arc.
Section by section
Opening verse
The narrator sets up the core grievance: people who ignored him during lean times now want credit for his success. He rejects reconciliatory gestures, framing loyalty as something earned before fame, not after.
Second verse
“my rap was wack and I was hooked on crack”
He recalls specific insults lobbed at him when he was struggling, which sharpens the betrayal from vague social snubbing into remembered, personal cruelty. This justifies the hardened, unforgiving tone that follows.
Chorus
The refrain functions as a blunt thesis statement, rejecting outside opinion and feeling entirely. Its crudeness is the point -- it refuses the diplomacy that a more measured response might offer.
Sha-Queen skit
A female voice describes being overwhelmed by family and relationship stress, unconnected to the fame narrative. It broadens the song's emotional terrain from career betrayal to generalized exhaustion with other people's demands, suggesting the album's worldview extends beyond music-industry grievance.
Paranoia verse
“supposed to be your friends, hiding behind fake grins”
The accusation becomes more conspiratorial, naming engineers and MCs as potential traitors. This widens the circle of suspicion to anyone adjacent to the group's success, not just old friends.
Closing verse
The narrator explicitly severs ties with former associates, naming group members only to tell outsiders not to approach, and ends on a boast about commercial success as the final, unanswerable rebuttal to all the doubters.
Craft
- anaphora
- Repeated insistence on dismissing other people's opinions and feelings ties the verses together and hammers the song's central stance of indifference to outside judgment.
- direct address
- The narrator speaks as if confronting specific people in real time, which gives the track an unfiltered, conversational aggression rather than a polished narrative distance.
- skit/dialogue interlude
- The inserted conversation with Sha-Queen interrupts the main rant with an unrelated complaint, functioning as a structural echo of frustration rather than plot continuation, reinforcing the mood of being pushed too far by other people's demands.
- boast as rebuttal
- The closing references to platinum success and extinct rivals turn commercial achievement into the final argument-ending move, collapsing the emotional conflict into a material scoreboard.
Reading it
The most direct reading is autobiographical venting from an artist processing the social weirdness of sudden recognition -- the song documents real irritation at the opportunism fame exposes in supposed friends. A secondary reading treats the track as a persona piece within early-90s hip-hop's broader performance of toughness and self-reliance, where declaring independence from everyone functions as a genre convention and credibility marker as much as sincere autobiography. Both readings can coexist; the skit's unrelated content suggests the album is also interested in general themes of being pushed past one's limit, not just music-industry betrayal specifically.
Context
Main Source emerged from Queens in the late 1980s and became known for sharp, sample-heavy production (notably via Large Professor) alongside blunt, conversational lyricism typical of early-90s East Coast hip-hop. This track fits a common genre pattern of the era: the 'success exposes fake friends' narrative, often delivered with raw language and skit interludes used as texture between verses rather than plot devices. I don't have reliable specific biographical details tying this song to a documented real-life incident, so the reading above treats it as representative genre expression rather than confirmed autobiography.
Listen for
- the shift in vocal tone between the accusatory verses and the unrelated Sha-Queen skit
- how the profane refrain is used almost as punctuation rather than a melodic hook
- the specific remembered insults in the second verse that function as the song's emotional evidence
- the way the closing verse name-checks group members only to draw a boundary around trust
- the final boast about platinum success used as the song's concluding argument
About Main Source
Main Source is an American East Coast hip-hop group formed in Queens, New York, in 1989. The group was founded by DJs and producers K-Cut and Sir Scratch, alongside rapper and producer Large Professor.
1989 - 1994 / Canada
Full biography and catalogue