An essential text on politics and life!...

When the allotted space "ain't enough"... I'll explain...

Jan 14, 2022

Hello, Ari here, writing you amidst an absolutely packed news week, including the first sedition charges in the insurrection probe. (You can see my MSNBC coverage of that here.)

Today, though, let’s dip into a fascinating text about life, growth and politics, of sorts, in my new essay for you below…

Upending the Rules

We all face parameters. You can bring originality to just about anything, but you usually have to work within the parameters, format and certain expectations of a situation… whether it’s a job or a dinner party.

That’s true in fields of communication and creativity, too. I’ve always been curious about how those parameters work.

A lawyer can “push” some limits in oral argument, with humor or a reference, but only so far. An artist can rebel against their chosen format, but most work squarely within it. So novelists may write out all kinds of wild, creative stuff, but most stick to the format of the novel—a few hundred pages of text. Many musicians love disruption—burning guitars on stage, challenging elites—but most stick to the format of a song that runs a few minutes.

Ray Charles performing in 1962. His choruses, even in the 60s, were very similar to pop songs’ today. c/o REPORTERS ASSOCIES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

In hip hop, a verse is usually 16 “bars,” (16 counts of four). Rap keeps changing, but that endures… just like pop evolves, but for over 80 years, most songs still use a chorus.

Which brings us to the song “Sixteen,” by Rick Ross and the insightful André 3000, who sings the chorus “When 16 ain’t enough…”

They revere rap, but declare 16 bars is too limiting for what they have to share (“like a cage”).

So the whole framework is meta, for listeners who get it, and the artists mean it: The verses go past 16 bars; the song runs eight minutes. That’s “death” for radio or streaming; kind of like how Bob Dylan bucked radio’s conventions by writing Hurricane to run eight minutes. (It happens, but rarely.)

Innocence

So what does Andre have to say that takes so long?

Let’s break it down.. (I recommend you listen along, it’s worth it)...

Summer '88, or was it '89?
Or was it winter-time / Ah, nevermind
I'm in my room, booming
Drawing LL Cool J album covers / with Crayolas on construction paper
I'm trying to f--- my neighbor / I'm tryna hook my waves up
I'm tryna pull my grades up / to get them saddle lace ups
Before Lil Marc was Jacob / before them girls wore makeup
Before my voice would break up / before we'd tour them shake clubs
Before my mama wake up / before my crumbs would cake up
Before they tell me, they ‘love me’ / and we'll never break up
Before the time she makes love to someone / that I thought, was my homeboy
But boy, was I wrong, now
I don't budge, don't want much / just a roof and a porch
and a Porsche! / and a horse! and unfortunately
But of course, an assortment of torches that scorches the skin, when they enter
Intruders / whose tutors did a lousy job…

Andre starts at the beginning. He recounts the innocence of childhood—drawing with crayons, working for good grades.

Then he sprinkles in the tug of adolescence: he wants to sleep with his neighbor, he needs the grades so he can get his parents to buy him shoes to impress other people (“saddle lace ups”).

Andre 3000 in 2004. c/o Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc

Soon he turns his phrasing to past tense and the innocence lost to adulthood; defining this as a special period “before” he’d see how life works. A time before women wore makeup, before puberty (“voice would break up”), before strip clubs, before the money (“crumbs would cake up”), before broken hearts and disloyalty. Each of those experiences can end the prelapsarian phase of youth.

So reflecting on it, what does Andre want now?

“Simple things,” he insists, like just a home (“roof and porch”). But he admits his own contradictions within the same bar:

Well, he also wants a fancy Porsche, and an even more luxurious hobby: to own a horse (which is also the logo of the Porsche), and, unfortunately, he needs a bunch of guns (“torches”) with powerful bullets (scorching “the skin, when they enter intruders”). Why would those intruders try to rob a rich man like him? Because of a lousy education system. In fact, he has more to say about that, so let’s dive back into this long verse:

How's he God, if he lets Lucifer let loose on us?
That noose on us won't loosen up, but loose enough to juice us up
Make us think we do so much, and ‘Do it BIG’
Like ‘They don't let us win,’ I can't pretend
But I do admit / it feel good when the hood pseudo-celebrate
Hence, why every time we dine we eat until our belly ache
Then go grab the finest wine and drink it
Like we know which grape and which region it came from
As if we can name 'em / hint hint, it ain't, um, Welch's
Hell just fell three thousand more degrees cooler
Ya'll can't measure my worth
But when you try / you'll need a ruler made by all the Greek gods
Because, the odds have always been stacked against me, when back's against the wall
I feel right at home, y'all sitting right at home
All Kelly green with envy / while I'm jelly beans descending…

Andre’s told us about losing innocence, now he’s looking at the world with eyes wide open: Questioning God’s existence when there’s so much evil (an ancient theological question); questioning supposed racial progress (modern racism is just a looser “noose”); questioning the hallmarks of success.

He squeezes several meanings out of the word juice:

A system that “juices up” people to crave a few dollars;
the literal grape juice of wine; and…
an obscure third entendre for 2Pac, who starred in the movie Juice, and was consumed by a feud with rapper Notorious B.I.G. (He nods to both of them in the consecutive lines, “Juice us up” and “Do it BIG.”)

The *Juice* movie poster, with 2pac in the foreground.

Andre is not judging the people who spend money to “flex” some success, he’s exposing a capitalist system that gets people excited to feast on crumbs.

So he can empathize with the feeling and call out the trick: “it feel good when the hood pseudo-celebrate.” And he relates: He counts himself among those doing ‘something fancy’ that he barely understands, doing it merely because it’s fancy.

So we buy “the finest wine” with no idea “which grape and which region it came from”—we don’t even know what we’re paying for! (We only know it’s better than Welch's grape juice, typically a kid’s drink). This is adult activity, yet notice how it echoes Andre the child, who just wanted those fancy shoes to impress other people.

We’re in the mature phase of his life/verse now… but have we matured at all? (Damn.)

Then Andre broadens “worth” beyond literal money. His “can’t” be measured, not by mortal people, you’d need a God’s ruler—or a ruler’s ruler, since Gods rule over all (“you'll need a ruler made by all the Greek gods”).

That worth is even higher because he overcame long odds (“stacked” against him, a play on his nickname Andre “three stacks,” for 3000). Meanwhile, gods are in the sky… like the jelly beans that grew the magic bean stalk, which is green like those envious of Andre (“Kellygreen with envy/ while I'm jelly beans descending”). He packs a lot in!

A Policy Rebuttal

Now to the verse’s conclusion:

…I'm jelly beans descending
into the palm of a child, looks up at mama and smile
With such a devilish grin / like "Where the hell have you been"
She yelling that ‘Selling's a sin!,’ Well, so is telling young men
That ‘selling is a sin,’ if you don't offer new ways to win
A dolphin gon’ shake his fin, regardless if he gets in
Or out of water, most important thing for him is to swim
And Flipper didn't hold his nose, so why shall I hold my tongue?
I miss the days of old when one could hold his gal on his arm
And I set off these alarms, when camera's snap snap snap snap
Return fire, pa-pa-pa, pa, pa-pa, pa, pa, pa
They'll learn why, mere privacy, so essential
They won't make no laws, I break their laws til they see out our window
I take the fall / to make them all / treat human kind more gentle
Forsake them all, I hate them all, don't like em, don't pretend to
Yea something tells me / ‘We ain't in Kansas anymore’
All that shit that used to be cool / ain't cool anymore
All the women we were pursuing / now they want more
And they deserve it all / don't settle for what ain't yours

Multiple meanings here: Andre says he can be the proverbial jellybean in a child’s palm—his music reaches and inspires the youth. (True. I’m one of literally millions of people who listened to Andre as a child, and had my mind expanded.)

Or it’s also drugs; jellybean is slang for crack (even the DEA knows that). The child’s “devilish grin” leads Mom to admonish, “Selling’s a sin!”

Notice how we are in the next phase of adulthood now—Andre impacting the next generation, a Mom raising her child—the kids have grown up, but now they must deal with kids again. (This sequencing is a bit like the “All the world’s a stage” monologue in “As You Like It,” which goes from infancy to the end of one’s life.)

As for drugs, Andre again goes from the personal to the systemic: Selling is a sin, he agrees, but so is society merely declaring that while denying other options to poor, young people in drug-addled communities:

So is telling young men that ‘selling’s a sin,’ if you don't offer new ways to win

Civil rights leaders and progressives have pressed this point for decades, that America must offer more than harsh drug penalties to poor communities.

Andre turns this to a parable of survival—swim to stay afloat; and dolphins will do what’s natural “in or out of water” (in or out of the drug game); and for good measure, if the famous dolphin Flipper gets to communicate with humans, why can’t Andre? (“Why shall I hold my tongue?”).

People also snort cocaine through the nose, so Andre casually ties that into this allegory about Flipper talking with his rostrum—“Flipper didn’t hold his nose,” which is what America is asking people to do (stop using illegal drugs).

By the end, Andre casts himself as a fallen prophet on behalf of humanity:

“I take the fall, to make them all treat human kind more gentle.”

That’s why earlier I called his whole framework prelapsarian—Humankind’s fall from The Garden of Eden—because Andre links the personal loss of innocence in adulthood to that theology.

Then, it’s not a stretch from Eden to the “The Wizard of Oz,” and the contrast between a mystical realm and actual reality (“Kansas”).

Adam and Eve from Dutch painter Hendrick Goltzius, ca. 1600

So what has Andre learned?

“All that sh*t that used to be cool / ain’t cool anymore.”

That probably includes the boyhood interests that began the verse—shoes and album covers—as well as the desires of an immature adulthood—Porsches and fine wine.

As for those women he was “pursuing,” the immature quest for sex, in the second bar, is now supplanted by a much fuller aspiration. He imagines a partner who “deserves it all,” and he prizes that hope over “settling.”

Since this is Andre, though, even that insight is burnished with a full-circle double entendre.

Yes, don’t “settle” for less, but also, don’t “settle for what ain’t yours”—like his ex who slept with his friend, a wound he still carries (“She makes love to someone that I thought was my homeboy, but boy, was I wrong”).

Andre led us on a journey through aging, parenting, sin, capitalism, drugs and much more. In the end, it’s the heart and relationships that matter most. It was a long trip, so he surely proved 16 ain’t enough. And I think it was worth it.

P.S. What’s line in this song spoke most to you or your life? Tell me in the comments, and I’ll respond to some per usual….

Ari Melber