Results for “masculine status competition”

Songs

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

I'm That Type of N***a

The Pharcyde

A posse-cut style boast track from The Pharcyde's early catalog, built around a call-and-response taunt asking who's in charge,…

braggadocio masculine posturing hip-hop lineage and skill claims

409

The Beach Boys

An early Beach Boys car song that treats a Chevrolet engine like a lover and a racehorse at once, built almost entirely on chant…

car culture masculine pride and status consumerism/saving toward a goal

Rev On the Red Line

Foreigner

A straightforward car-racing anthem that uses drag-strip mechanics as a vehicle for macho self-definition. The song's pleasures…

speed and risk masculine bravado rebellion against authority

Work

Gang Starr

A boastful street-level anthem built around the double meaning of 'work' as both hustle/grind and criminal labor, delivered with…

hustler ethic street surveillance and paranoia status and reputation

56 Fury

Rodney Crowell

A rockabilly-style car song that celebrates a 1956 Plymouth Fury as an icon of speed, style, and small-town swagger from the…

Americana nostalgia masculinity and status regional pride (Texas)

Mercury Blues

Steve Miller Band

This is a cover of an old blues standard about wanting a car, dressed up as a loose, groove-driven jam. Miller keeps the…

material desire masculine status infidelity and jealousy

Break You Off

The Roots

A slow-burning seduction track built around a repeated come-on hook, in which the narrator positions himself as a superior…

seduction and desire infidelity masculine competition

Maybellene

Mos Def

This is Mos Def's rendition of Chuck Berry's rock-and-roll foundational text, recorded for the Chess Records biopic soundtrack.…

infidelity and suspicion pursuit and competition American car culture

Nasty Girl

The Notorious B.I.G.

This posthumous 'duet' track stitches archival Biggie verses with a Diddy guest turn and a Jagged Edge hook into a…

sexual conquest materialism and status posthumous branding

You're a Customer

EPMD

This is a boast track built almost entirely on the battle-rap tradition: Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith trade verses…

braggadocio authenticity vs imitation competitive rap tradition

Raw (How You Like It)

Common

A club-night brag track built around a repeated hook, this song follows a narrator moving through a party scene, scanning women,…

nightlife hedonism status and fashion signaling sexual pursuit

Ching-A-Ling

Missy Elliott

A club-floor victory lap built almost entirely from boasts and hook repetition, this track is less about narrative than about…

braggadocio female sexual agency wealth and status

Set It Off

Main Source

A posse cut built entirely on escalation, where five MCs trade increasingly violent boasts over a repeated command to 'set it…

street violence as performance masculine one-upmanship criminal bravado

Champion

The Roots

A motivational anthem built around the word "champion," stacking boasts about relentless work ethic against a chant-like hook…

perseverance self-mythologizing competition

Mo Money Mo Problems [Amended]

The Notorious B.I.G.

A victory-lap posse cut built around a mournful hook that undercuts all the boasting: success has made the narrator a target…

success and paranoia envy and betrayal status display

Fast Cars

Buzzcocks

A short, sneering punk song that uses fast cars as an emblem of empty status-seeking, environmental menace, and mechanized…

consumerism and status environmentalism/safety alienation from modern life

Righteously

Lucinda Williams

A woman lays out terms for a lover who confuses aggression with masculinity, insisting that tenderness and respect are the real…

masculinity and its performance sexual respect and reciprocity desire coexisting with frustration

The Fire

The Roots

An anthem of self-motivation built around a simple metaphor: inner drive as flame. John Legend's hook frames perseverance as an…

perseverance self-belief legacy and destiny

Represent

Weezer

A brash sports-anthem pep talk built for the 2010 World Cup, 'Represent' trades Weezer's usual self-deprecation for…

competition and pride integrity versus winning family and reputation

Motiv8

J. Cole

A satire dressed as a flex track: Cole raps a checklist of materialist and misogynist clichés straight from mainstream trap…

performative masculinity addiction as coping mechanism materialism and its emptiness

Rock and Roll Queen

Mott the Hoople

An early Mott the Hoople track built on a swaggering put-down dressed up as rock bravado, with a narrator addressing a woman he…

misogyny/double standards rock star posturing public image vs private reality

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

It's My Thing

EPMD

A crowd-hyping boast track built around EPMD's James Brown-sampled catchphrase, alternating call-and-response chants with verses…

braggadocio originality vs. biting crowd control/performance

Alpha Beta Gaga

Air

A synth-pop instrumental duo's track gets hijacked by hip-hop guest verses, turning a woozy French electronic groove into a…

status and exclusivity clubland escapism playful bravado

Steve Biko (Stir It Up)

A Tribe Called Quest

A three-MC posse cut built almost entirely from boasts, wordplay, and Queens pride, borrowing the name and instrumental cue of…

hip-hop bravado and lyrical skill group identity and borough pride fleeting social consciousness

Good Clothes

Little Brother

Little Brother turns a nostalgic riff on teenage clothes-hustling into a sharp, self-aware satire of consumerism and status…

class and scarcity status anxiety consumerism

Work It

Missy Elliott

Missy Elliott's signature single is a maximalist celebration of sexual confidence and self-invention, built on a literal sonic…

sexual agency self-invention and reinvention female solidarity and hustle

Goin' Against Your Mind

Built to Spill

Built to Spill open their 2006 album with a long, guitar-driven meditation on doubt and self-contradiction, built from a handful…

self-doubt masculinity and its expectations religious skepticism

Peaches N Cream

Snoop Dogg

A club-floor party track built almost entirely around a single visual: a woman dancing and the narrator's escalating attempt to…

nightlife and spectacle male desire and pursuit wealth and status display

Paranoid Android

Radiohead

A three-part suite that moves from claustrophobic paranoia to vindictive fantasy to a kind of exhausted, apocalyptic prayer.…

technological/social overload status anxiety and greed alienation and paranoia

Work Out

J. Cole

A club-and-bedroom track built on interpolated Vanessa Carlton hooks, where a rapper on the come-up frames casual sex and…

casual sex versus emotional attachment material success as leverage fame and status anxiety

Stronger

Kanye West Tribute Band

Built on a chopped Daft Punk hook, this track fuses a nightclub come-on with a victory lap of self-mythologizing. Kanye…

ambition and self-mythology desire and impatience status and luxury as armor

Drop It Like It's Hot

Snoop Dogg

A minimalist club track built on a single triple-word command that gets reinterpreted verse to verse, moving between seduction,…

status and wealth display sexual conquest street/gang loyalty

Full Clip

Gang Starr

Full Clip is a boastful, aggressive posse-cut-style anthem in which Guru delivers a barrage of battle-rap threats, positioning…

braggadocio and dominance authenticity vs. imitation violence as metaphor for skill

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

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

One Beer

MF DOOM

A boozy, freewheeling posse-cut of a track built on the pun of "one beer" doubling as "one beer left" and a coded jab at fake…

intoxication as metaphor for scarcity/competition hip-hop authenticity vs. imitation supervillain persona

LOVE.

Kendrick Lamar

A relatively unguarded pop-leaning track for DAMN., LOVE. sets a domestic, romantic duet (with Zacari) against the album's…

conditional vs. unconditional love fame and material status as tests of loyalty domestic intimacy amid instability

Desperados Waiting for a Train

Guy Clark

A grown narrator remembers the old oilman who raised him, tracing their bond from childhood through the man's decline and death.…

intergenerational friendship aging and mortality masculine mythmaking