Imitation 4: (80's) Grandmaster Flash, White Lines

grandmaster flash 1983:

Ticket to ride, white line highway
Tell all your friends, they can go my way
Pay your toll, sell your soul
Pound for pound costs more than gold
The longer you stay, the more you pay
My white lines go a long way
Either up your nose or through your vein
With nothin to gain except killin’ your brain

 

This rap is about 80's crack and cocaine epidemic, "Up your nose", cocaine and "through your vein", crack. Grandmaster flash is talking to young people, especially those in the inner city where the epidemic was very profound, simply not to do the drugs. He is saying how it is expensive, the longer you do it the more harm you do to your body and its overall not worth it. In the early eighties Reagan announced the war on drugs. The drug kingpins from central and south America were making and transporting cocaine and crack into the U.S. Crack became such an epidemic, in New York city especially, because it was cheaper and more potent than cocaine. This really affected places like the projects and became a major concern for the cities. In Grandmaster flash's critique of the drug problem he uses literary elements like simile, internal rhyme, the rap isn't very complex it is basic rhyme and there is no hidden meaning in what Grandmaster Flash is saying. The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDD, although there is internal rhyme as well.