Last May, Logic released a new album entitled Everybody. He was born in Rockville, Maryland to an African-american father who was suffering from a cocaine addiction and a white mother who suffered from alcoholism. From the start, Logic (or Sir Robert Bryson Hall II as his legal name) was at a disadvantage. Drug use heavily affected him as he was a child watching his brothers produce and distribute crack cocaine to addicts on the block and even sell to their own father.
By the time Logic was in high school, he knew how to manufacture and produce crack cocaine. He started smoking and drinking when he was 13 years old and while he could quit using marijuana and alcohol, he still battled a long term relationship with cigarettes even dedicating a song, "Nikki," on his album Under Pressure. Since the release of the album in 2014, he has since pledged to quit smoking cigarettes as well.
The amount of shit that he has gone through, fuels a lot of his songs. One of my favorite songs by him is Everybody. The entire album is incredible however, Everybody always stuck out to me. The overall message of the song is that everybody is human. Regardless of their race, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. And if we started treating people with that in mind, we would be a lot better off as a society. A lot of popular rappers right now rap about women (usually not called "women" in the songs), sex, and drugs and it has no substance. While they might be catchy and fun to dance to, at the end of the day they don't really have a deeper meaning. Meanwhile, Logic raps about the discrimination and racism he experiences everyday and not being excepted by black or white people.
One of the first lines in Everybody is
Seems like everybody nowadays Hollywood
Oh it's like that now?
He's talked previously about other artists just wanting the glitz and glamour while he can see through their transparency. While that's not necessarily poetic, I think it shows his authentication or "realness," if you will.
One of my favorite lines is
Hell of a long way from equal is how they treat us
Body builder with the mind of a fetus
Turn on the television and see the vision they feed us
If that isn't poetry, I don't know what is. The meaning behind this could be interpreted in different ways. To me it's talking about firstly the inequality that is still so blatantly shown every day. He's basically saying that there's still a lot of time to come before we will find that all races are equal. He then goes into the next line, "Body builder with the mind of a fetus." Again this could be interpreted in different ways. To me, Logic was talking about the systemic injustice in our society. Being a "body builder" could relate to someone in law enforcement who is misusing their power because they have the "mind of a fetus" and cannot comprehend that others should not be treated based upon the pigment of their skin.
This has been an extreme issue in our society right now so to me, that's what those lines meant. Logic has talked about those lines and described his thought with them as being about the government and higher powers having leverage over everyone and mostly being motivated by greed and money.
Another section I really like is
In my blood is the slave and the master
It's like the devil playing spades with the pastor
But he was born with the white privilege
Man what the f*ck is that
White people told me as a child, as a little boy, playing with his toys
I should be ashamed to be black
And some black people look ashamed when I rap
Like my great granddaddy didn't take a whip to the back
The first line about having the blood of a slave and a master refers to the fact that he is mixed. He raps later in the song as well about not being accepted by the blacks or the whites because he didn't fit into their preconceived thoughts of who he should be. He's basically saying "Screw you, I'm going to be whatever I want to be." Logic talks about this in an interview saying that white people made him feel ashamed. Growing up he would ask his grandparents if he could sleep at their house saying he could stay in the guest room or on the floor but they always had an excuse as to why he couldn't. He says that he later realized that was because he's black.
This is poetry because he audience is to anyone who tried to screw him over or judged him based upon his skin color. It's also poetry because it has more than a surface level meaning. I only talked about a couple of lines however, you could go in depth with so many more of them.
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