Results for “brotherhood among crews”

Songs

Hollis Crew (Krush-Groove 2)

Run-DMC

An early foundational Run-DMC record built almost entirely around boasting: each MC takes a turn establishing his name, his…

braggadocio and self-mythologizing identity and naming hip-hop lineage/crew loyalty

Incarcerated Scarfaces

Raekwon

Raekwon's solo showcase from the Wu's debut group album builds a mafioso-rap world where prison-yard code and Scarface-style…

street loyalty and betrayal criminal mythology and cinema status and material excess

Shadowboxin'

Gza

A dense, boastful piece of Wu-Tang battle rap in which GZA frames lyrical dominance as martial art, layering kung-fu movie…

lyrical supremacy martial-arts discipline as metaphor brotherhood/crew loyalty

Mo Money Mo Problems

The Notorious B.I.G.

A victory-lap posse cut that doubles as a meditation on the isolation success brings. Over a buoyant, sample-driven groove,…

success and isolation envy and betrayal paranoia/surveillance

One

Ghostface Killah

This is Ghostface Killah at his most free-associative: a barrage of surreal imagery, street reportage, pop-culture references,…

street life and violence hedonism and sexual boasting urban decay and social critique

93' Till Infinity

Souls of Mischief

This is a live-recording rendition of the Oakland classic that built its reputation on effortless, unhurried braggadocio. The…

hip-hop regionalism crew loyalty hedonism and leisure

God Lives Through

A Tribe Called Quest

A high-energy posse-cut braggadocio track built around the exclamation "Oh my God" as both hook and punctuation, where Q-Tip and…

boasting and lyrical supremacy borough/regional pride crew loyalty

Spit Your Game

The Notorious B.I.G.

A posthumous posse cut built around a chanted, list-like hook that reduces street life to a sequence of imperatives: talk tough,…

bravado and reputation violence as ritual material excess

Bout It Bout It

Freddie Gibbs

A street-rap posse-cut style track built around repeated assertions of authenticity and hustle, cycling through boasts about…

loyalty and crew solidarity hustling/drug dealing paranoia and self-protection

Bring Da Ruckus

Wu‐Tang Clan

The opening track of Enter the Wu-Tang stages hip-hop as martial arts combat, with each MC treating the microphone like a weapon…

martial arts mythology as metaphor for lyrical combat collective identity vs individual bravado urban violence and street survival

The Militia

Gang Starr

A posse cut assembled around a military conceit, with Guru, Big Shug, and Freddie Foxxx trading verses that frame elite lyricism…

lyrical supremacy crew loyalty and collective retaliation violence as metaphor for skill

Dedicated

MF DOOM

This is a street elegy built around loss and survival, alternating between grim inventories of urban violence and a repeated vow…

urban violence and mortality chosen family and crew loyalty grief and emotional suppression

The Choice Is Yours

Black Sheep

A jubilant, self-introducing party track from the Native Tongues era in which Dres lays out his identity and credentials over a…

self-definition and individuality group/crew loyalty (Native Tongues) binary choice as rhetorical device

Long As You're Living

Abbey Lincoln

A direct, sermon-like piece of advice-giving set to jazz phrasing, in which the singer positions herself as a hard-won…

mortality and urgency self-improvement brotherhood and ethics

Yankee and the Brave (ep. 4)

Run the Jewels

This interlude-style track opens RTJ4 with a radio-show framing device that quickly gives way to a dense, boastful verse trading…

outlaw persona and mythmaking police violence and self-preservation brotherhood and loyalty

The Becoming

Little Brother

This is Phonte's origin-story boast track, tracing Little Brother's formation from college battle-rapping to underground…

hip-hop origin myth competitive rap battling underdog vindication

Aquemini

OutKast

"Aquemini" is Outkast's meditation on partnership, mortality, and the impossibility of easy certainty, framed by the duo's…

mortality and impermanence brotherhood/partnership authenticity vs. appearance

Batting Practice

Souls of Mischief

A posse cut built around a single extended conceit: rapping as batting practice, with each Souls of Mischief member (plus…

braggadocio competition/skill display crew unity

Spasticus Autisticus

Ian Dury

Dury, who had polio-related disability himself, wrote this as a provocation aimed squarely at the pity and condescension…

disability and stigma defiant self-naming mockery of charity and pity

Lyrics to Go

A Tribe Called Quest

A pure showcase track in which Q-Tip and Phife Dawg trade verses of boastful wordplay, with the title hook functioning less as a…

braggadocio craft and mastery of rhyme group identity and loyalty

Party and Bulls**t

The Notorious B.I.G.

Biggie's debut single is a snapshot of Brooklyn nightlife rendered with documentary precision: the party is inseparable from the…

street life as routine violence normalized within leisure masculinity and reputation

Celebrate

Common

A party track built around a repeated chant of togetherness and excess, where Common trades his usual introspection for…

celebration and excess loyalty among friends upward mobility

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

Donny Hathaway

Donny Hathaway's reading of this well-worn hymn-like standard turns a simple parable of brotherly duty into a gospel testimony,…

brotherhood and communal responsibility burden and endurance spiritual faith as sustaining force

Rainbow Connection

Willie Nelson

A cover of the Muppet Movie standard, rendered here by Willie Nelson as an unhurried, weathered meditation on faith and longing…

longing for meaning faith versus doubt the pull of the unseen

Affirmative Action

Nas

This is a mafioso-rap posse cut in which Nas, alongside his Firm collaborators, trades the political/street-prophet voice he's…

organized crime as fantasy/roleplay materialism and status display loyalty and betrayal within a crew

Junkhead

Alice in Chains

Junkhead is a first-person monologue delivered from inside addiction, voiced with unsettling contentment rather than confession…

addiction as identity self-justification and denial alienation from mainstream values

Quality Control

Jurassic 5

A posse cut in which six MCs take turns asserting their technical superiority over the microphone, with no narrative beyond the…

lyrical dexterity old-school authenticity vs. commercialism group unity and crew pride

Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

The Velvet Underground

A closing-track litany that names a small cast of the dispossessed—people with literally nothing left to their name—and turns…

poverty and dispossession resignation found community among outcasts

We the People....

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest opens their comeback album with a song that fuses street-level survival talk with a chorus that mimics the…

racism and xenophobia economic precarity media distortion

Buddy

De La Soul

"Buddy" is a posse-cut party track from De La Soul's debut, built around an extended and deliberately silly sexual code word…

sexual innuendo through wordplay collective male bravado playful group identity

Third of May / Ōdaigahara

Fleet Foxes

A sprawling, suite-like meditation on friendship, fracture, and reconciliation within Fleet Foxes, built around the real-life…

reconciliation after estrangement time and memory collective identity vs. individual selfhood

Step to My Girl

Souls of Mischief

A posse-cut brag track built around a single scenario: other men hitting on the narrators' girlfriends, and each rapper…

jealousy and possessiveness masculine status competition hypervigilance/insecurity masked as confidence

All My Friends

Broken Social Scene

A brief, hazy track that sketches a kind of collective burnout among musicians and lovers who have turned intimacy into product.…

artistic disillusionment the commodification of love songs exhaustion and urgency

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

Loretta Lynn

A gospel-tinged novelty hymn that turns a folk saying into a meditation on the human fear of death, even among the faithful.…

fear of death faith versus human nature salvation

Award Tour

A Tribe Called Quest

A victory-lap travelogue disguised as a posse cut, where the pleasure of touring the world with a hip-hop crew becomes the whole…

hip-hop craft and lineage global travel and touring life authenticity vs. imitation

Light of the Stable

Emmylou Harris

This is a straightforward Nativity carol built around simple exhortation and refrain, casting the singer as one voice among a…

nativity/birth of Christ communal worship guidance and light

Lay Down

Mott the Hoople

A hymn-like anthem built almost entirely on repetition, this track uses communal imagery and quasi-religious language to plead…

communal solidarity surrender vs. resistance spiritual searching

'39

Queen

Written by Brian May, '39 is a folk-tinged science-fiction ballad about a crew who leave Earth on a voyage and return to find,…

time and relativity exploration and departure loss and separation

Ce Matin-Là

Air

"Ce Matin-Là" ("That Morning") is a hazy instrumental interlude on Moon Safari, built from woodwind-like synth tones and a…

memory nostalgia morning/liminal time

Matty Groves

Fairport Convention

This is the Fairport Convention electric-folk arrangement of the ancient English/Scottish ballad about adultery, betrayal, and…

class inequality adultery and its consequences honor and vengeance