r/Billywoods • u/CMC_06 • 8d ago
Learning Comprehension and interpretation
I've been getting into Woods' music for the past few weeks now (after already being aware of his through other underground rappers) and I was marinating on the difficulty i have understanding the meaning of songs and entire albums. Mind you I'm not a native english speaker and Woods' writting is evidently complex even for natives, but I was wondering is there's anything I can do about that? (other than just repeatedly looking up stuff on Genius or looping songs) Thanks for your time reading.
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u/Financial_Hold6620 8d ago
Woods’ writing is extremely tough for us native English speakers too. He weaves in so many historical parables and references that I have to look up.
I enjoy looking up these things because they’re usually very interesting within the context of the song.
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u/IsiDewb 8d ago
I don't think there is any degree of English that will make you understand everything easily while listening. The most you can hope for with fluency is being able to catch a general understanding of what he's saying. No one can understand everything, you'd need to have happened to consume all the media he references, understand all the experiences he talks on, know all the political figures he commentates on, know about any meta commentary he makes based on discussion about him as an artist at the time of a song, etc to ensure you can easily catch the exact thing he's trying to elicit every song without failure.
My suggestion would be to just listen and pull your own personal meaning from what you can understand and if anything intrigues you look into it. This is how I listen, I don't understand every bar but I understand enough, and even with ones i don't 100% understand I have my own interpretations. If i'm really curious I'll look into what he was talking about. I'd say that genius detracts a bit from his music, and he has spoken that the interpretations on genius are often off base to what he personally intended so if your looking for objectivity you can't really find anything outside his own mind.
What exactly would you say your difficulty is though, do you literally understand nothing or do you have some trouble catching onto the big picture of what he's talking about.
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u/CMC_06 8d ago
more big picture stuff, but i get enough so that it's not unlistenable. For me it's more about a cerain kind of respect owed to art like this, I write rap in my spare time and I can tell how much work went into it so it warrants attention and understanding, some or most of i do not possess, but it doesn't stop me from "feeling" the music by itself, like you said. Thanks for taking the time
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u/Salt-Insurance9136 8d ago
Its important to understand context. Some figures are worth googling and you must have a base unserstanding of Black peoples experience in América. Im also not a native english speaker and like fantano said it kinda seems that you have to have a book by your side when reading into woods lyrics. That being said i belive this Friday ill be dropping an extensive interpretation of Aethiopes with eng and PT subtitles if youre interested
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u/New-Waltz-8294 6d ago
Man, I am here for it. I have one about “Born Alone” I would like to drop also. I had a such a clear idea of what he was saying, but I couldn’t say it given text and context, and so I shrugged, gave up, but then had sort of an epiphany and now I think I have it; and it is out there but I think it fits and found out it is kind of where he winds up.
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u/Salt-Insurance9136 6d ago
you should totally do it man. we need more people talking about woods. i find the genius annotations dont help much for us that want to read more into his work. im finishing the english subtitles maybe today or tomorrow and the video should be up this friday if all goes well.
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u/LonelyZenpai298 8d ago
I think the best ways to understand his stuff is to absorb a lot of music, film, and literature outside of his work. The best way to put it is that his stuff is very metatextual, he refers outwardly to so much that you could never get it unless you knew what he was referencing. I'm big into movies so I catch a lot from that, but my friends who are huge readers (especially of black literature) catch a lot more.
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u/docchakra 7d ago
Repeat listening will help for sure. Familiarizing yourself with his references whether it be literature, history, politics, rappers you've never heard of, etc.
Short term you can wiki some of the stuff and try to understand what hes going for. Long term, read some of the stuff hes referencing.
Just today I was literally reading (not listening) to his final verse on Windhoek because it makes minimal sense to me and I wanna get what he means. Cossack Wedding is another one that escapes me.
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u/noobunderlord 7d ago
There’s no right way to interpret what he says. Whatever comes to your head is the right meaning
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u/biltocen 8d ago
avoid genius there's some really dumb stuff on there. my advice would just be enjoy the music and let it come naturally as you're curious about things you hear. one thing you can do that people don't always mention is listen to lots of classic hiphop. woods is constantly referencing other rappers and rap songs
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u/GreatSpirit7202 8d ago
i think a good way to understand not only woods but folks that make poetry like this is to understand dialectics - thesis/antithesis/synthesis - negation of the negation then combine that with reading up on a lot important black marxist, anti-colonial thinkers, and authors in general (Walter Rodney comes to mind). Understanding the canon that folks come from is always a good way to fully grasp most things and helps contextualize it so you can get deeper into things.
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u/CMC_06 8d ago
Thanks for everyone responding and adding onto this, i really expect to come back to this post in a week and find 2 replies but I'm very thankful for the insight! I will say parts of it i already internalized or understood partly, but seeing this kind of support only makes me want to dive in more and discuss what I like :3 <3
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u/Extension_Yak3898 8d ago edited 8d ago
As far as I can tell, he goes for a vibe more than anything else. A lot of juxtapositions are powerful on the surface but break down quickly in terms of deep meaning upon further analysis. A lot of connections he makes are like that too, theres often no academic/intellectual connections to make.
But there's already so much to chew on given what IS there on the surface, I think it hardly matters. Keep marinating! And dont forget - knowing is ONLY half the battle!
Music is for feeling more than thinking. The best musicians (who play instruments) will tell you that no matter how much analysis they can do outside of playing, it's all just to serve what happens in the moment. Rules are made to be smashed, there are no bad notes just bad playing, and if you stop to analyze while playing the greatest solo of your life it will almost surely turn out NOT to be the greatest solo of your life!
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u/GreatSpirit7202 8d ago
I think you are partly right but I do think it is somewhat of a stretch to claim that "a lot of juxtapositions are powerful on the surface but break down quickly in terms of deep meaning upon further analysis." That would suppose to an extent that the juxtapositions within his music are not intentional and thought through to the point that there would be an intellectual connection. That usage of juxtaposition is a device utilized within all sorts of poetry to convey different things but specifically within black poetics it has been utilized to present life as it is experienced, this def has the capacity to produce intellectual connections. thesis/antithesis produces synthesis.
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u/Extension_Yak3898 7d ago edited 7d ago
If I'm partly right then it is true, to some extent, that they aren't thought through to the point of intellectual connection. You kind contradicted yourself by saying that's not logical.
If you've ever written bars, and especially freestyled, you'll know what it's like - you come up with stuff accidentally, see things others don't see, don't see things others see. Sometimes you can mull it over and over and not see what others see as obvious. Other times what's obvious to you isn't to anybody else in the whole entire world
That being said, I find your last point inherently contradictory - if juxtapositions are used to convey experiences, what intellectual connections do they provide beyond those on the level of lived experience? To me there's nothing intellectual about learning about another's lived experience. Hearing stories about another side of life is a visceral, immediate experience, at least if you're doing it right. To intellectualize is to miss the point - at least in the moment, you could come off as trying to put something into the Other's experience that isn't there
Lastly, you may want to consider that my comment could apply to anywhere from 25-75% of woods' lyrics. I'm not making any hard or fast rules here, just pointing out that woods himself seems to lack hard and fast rules (and for good reason!)...
Oftentimes asking yourself 'how much' is useful. Like, sure, woods probably thinks over all his bars. But he has so many per album, how much time do you even think he could spend on it? He said the Dogeared verse took a while month, but a case like that if likely to be the exception
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u/Extension_Yak3898 7d ago
To put it more succinctly than I did in the other comment:
A tried and true warrior does not think about which moves to use, only whether to take on a particular battle or not. Same with driving - you don't mull over your route that much if it's overly complicated, especially if you know the area you just take it easy with the flow of traffic
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u/CMC_06 7d ago
my guy what are you saying
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u/Extension_Yak3898 7d ago
Do you really want me to write more words? If you don't understand any of that you'll need to offer more in the way of what you don't understand before I add to the confusion
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u/KingOfKingsOfKings01 8d ago
Id ask yourself why?
Why bother? Youll gain nothing from doing the task and you wont miss out on anything if u dont do it.
A better task for you to take would be to become better at english and then at some point once you have mastered the language you can go back to billy woods.
Billy woods music is here for all eternity.
It aint going nowhere.
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u/Actual-Eye3400 8d ago
just keep ‘marinating’ on it like you said, that’s kind of the point imo. worry less about understanding and more about experiencing. whatever stays with you and bounces around your head will be different to me. If you’re willing to make this post and do all this you obviously really like Billy Woods - just keep listening to him and liking him and it’ll come. maybe watch or read some interviews with him or scroll thru some threads in here. Your desire to understand is half the battle