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Rap Meanings


Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal Lecter Meanings

Jack the Ripper:

Oi mate, pass the liquor! It's Jack the Ripper!

(Jack the Ripper makes his introduction, beginning with a stereotypical Cockney phrase "Oi, mate!" and asks for a drink, "Jack the Ripper", a cocktail named after himself.)

Jack the rapper, following you way before the dawn of Twitter!

("Jack the rapper" is a play on the name "Jack the Ripper". When you follow someone on Twitter, you'll get updates when they post a new tweet, so Jack compares this to how he followed his victims before killing them. Twitter, obviously, was not around in the 19th century, but Jack says that he followed people before it became a normalized thing on the internet. It could also reference a rap song about Twitter written by Dan Bull, the actor who played Jack.)

I'm a human trigger warning, through the night until the morning.

(Trigger warnings are warnings that are given before a traumatic memory occurs. In this case, Jack says that when you see him, his figure will warn you that something very extreme, much like his killings, is about to happen. Jack would kill his victims at night, so he's also saying that he'll trigger you throughout the night until you aren't able to be triggered anymore, meaning, once you're dead.)

When the light shines upon my crimes, you find it sick, appalling!

(Jack the Ripper kills his victims at night, ergo, the gruesome corpses of his victims would be discovered by morning, or "when the light shines". According to Jack, it would be so gruesome that Lecter, a person who eats other people, would find it disgusting. Jack can even be heard retching, or about to vomit, in this line.)

An infamous notorious delinquent,

(Jack is gloating that he is a delinquent, or a criminal, that has gained a lot of notoriety for his crimes.)

There's little more gory a thing than living in Victorian England.

(During the Victorian era, it was quite the scary time with Jack terrorizing the streets. In this line, he is bragging that nothing could compare with his serial killing style.)

This is horrorcore. Beware if you're a common whore,

(Horrorcore is a genre of music that is meant to be rather eerie and use sharp and echoey sounds to enhance the sense of horror. Many of Jack's victims were prostitutes and could be labeled as whores, so he warns them that he will attack you if you are one.)

Or at late night you may find me knocking on your door!

(Jack was believed to strike brothels in the overnight hours, where he may have knocked on doors to draw his victims out. Because of this, he says that if he knows where a prostitute is, he would come and try to get them to answer.)

Not keen to leave until I'm knee-deep in blood and gore!

(Jack the Ripper used to tear apart his victims bodies, thus receiving his name, and in this process he would create blood and gore. He claims he won't depart from the scene of his crime until his victim had been mutilated a sufficient amount.)

Your grieving family on their knees, weeping, scrubbing floors!

(Continuing the last line, Jack describes the actions of the families of those he killed where they are crying while cleaning the floor of all of the mess left by the gruesome murder.)

The police need a lead. They dunno what they're looking for!

(Whilst Jack the Ripper was at large, many police tried to track his identity, but failed, leaving his identity unknown. This is also wordplay meaning that the police were unaware of the threat they were up against.)

My raps are like the way I eat my meat: bloody raw!

(The "From Hell" letter received by George Lusk, leader of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, came with a small box, in which Lusk discovered a half of a human kidney. The writer, presumably Jack the Ripper, claimed to have fried and eaten the other half. The word "bloody", being both a swear word and modifier in Britain, emphasizes how "raw", or brutal, Jack's raps are.)

Hannibal Lecter:

Jack, you're a classic megalomaniac.

(A megalomaniac is one who is obsessed with themselves and their own power and importance. Dr. Lecter is a talented psychoanalyst and often uses this in his dealings with opponents. In The Silence of the Lambs, his conversations often become cruelly incisive, such as his first meeting with Clarice Starling where he correctly guesses at a childhood trauma that drives her. He uses that incisiveness to gain the upper hand in any debate. He does the same here—diagnosing his opponent with a personality disorder in order to throw him off balance. Lecter implies that because of his ego and weak know-how of battle rapping, Jack's off to a poor start; he's supposed to attack his opponent while also building himself up, not just the latter.)

You haven't mentioned me once in your entire battle rap!

(Jack's first verse didn't diss or even talk about Lecter once as it only included Jack's boasts about his fears, which he is pointing out here. This also references the style Dan Bull usually takes in his rap songs, where the character he raps as boasts about themselves in similar ways.)

Pity your verse wasn't worth the trip in the jacket.

(In order to keep him restrained, Lecter is forced to wear a straitjacket and muzzle when being moved. Here, Lecter says that Jack's verse was so bad it wasn't worth coming to the battle ground, which he did in the straitjacket.)

Quit jacking off on the track and put the lotion in the basket!

("Jacking off" is a vulgar play on Jack the Ripper's name. It's a reference to masturbation, in which Lecter is asking him to stop beating off onto to the music—self-aggrandizement is also sometimes referred to as "jacking off", as it's just another form of pleasing one's self: a reference to his megalomania. Lotion is referenced as well because it is often used to make masturbation easier, but it is also a reference to a scene from The Silence of the Lambs in which the serial killer Buffalo Bill would trap his victims in a hole and give them lotion to rub on their body to make their skin loose in preparation for him to cut it off of them. Once they were done, he would lower a basket attached to a rope into the hole, telling them to "put the lotion in the basket", which is how he would retrieve it.)

And catch what the iller serial killer can deliver!

(Lecter says that Jack can't comprehend the raps that Lecter is delivering since he is the iller, or more evil, serial killer.)

Rhymes finer than the chianti I would pair with your liver!

(In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter says when talking about a census taker, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." Chianti is a fine wine he would normally drink alongside consuming his victims. After he says this line, he makes his iconic slurping sound from the aforementioned scene.)

But the thought of your putrid flesh makes me want to shiver

(Contrary to his prior statement, Lecter remarks he would rather not eat Jack, as he is most likely dirty and unsanitary, and the thought of eating him disgusts Lecter.)

'Cause your British body's covered in more piss than kitty litter!

(Domesticated house cats go to the bathroom in trays of cat litter, so naturally, there is often a lot of urine involved. Lecter says that during Victorian times people were dirty due to lack of toilets and proper showers, so Jack is covered in the urine that is thrown in the dirty streets of 19th century England. One theory suggests that Jack's corpse is still lying somewhere in the London sewer.)

You stabbed women when they wouldn't give you attention

(Jack more than likely killed the prostitutes because he didn't like what they did. However, Lecter is making his own reasoning for Jack's murders, stating that he is too ugly to enjoy them and he only killed them because they refused to allow him services.)

Like a Penny Dreadful version of O. J. Simpson!

(The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial in which former professional football star O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder after the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, on June 1994. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history, and Simpson was acquitted after it lasted more than eight months. This is also a meaning to the fact that Simpson played for the Buffalo Bills, which share their name with the serial killer Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, for a period of time. Penny Dreadful is a television series that takes place in Victorian England which dives into the origin of famous killers and monsters. Lecter combines the two and saying that Jack is like a dreadful version of Simpson. Penny Dreadfuls are also the name given to cheap serial pulp novels sold in England during the nineteenth century for a shilling, which were usually reprints or rewrites of other stories. Lecter claims that Jack the Ripper's murders are like cheap rewrites of O. J. Simpson's.)

But these days your nickname is all that's even known,

(In modern times, almost nothing is known about Jack besides the nickname given to him.)

And you didn't even come up with that shit on your own!

(The nickname "Jack the Ripper" was first used in a letter, which came to be known as the "Dear Boss" letter, written by who claimed to be the murderer. However, the letter is widely believed to have not been written by the murderer, but instead by a journalist who wanted to gather more interest in the story. Lecter claims that this is the case, and the nickname was thought of by a journalist rather than by the Ripper himself.)

Jack the Ripper:

I'm real! You'll find me making vacancies in brothels,

(Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes, which means that there would be less of them in brothels, or whore houses. He also makes a pun on the word "real" and remarks that unlike Lecter, he actually existed in reality while simultaneously asserting his authenticity as an artist and person.)

While you only exist inside the pages of a novel!

(Hannibal Lecter comes from the Thomas Harris' Hannibal series, which consists of Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising.)

You were kept for ages in a hovel,

(A hovel is a small, unclean dwelling. Jack talks about the squalor that Lecter was kept in while in police custody.)

Contained within a cage behind a locked door while I never got caught,

(After capture, Lecter was kept in a cell for life before he escaped, whereas Jack was never caught nor identified.)

So who's the superior serial killer, Doctor Lecter?

(The fact that Jack was never caught, yet Lecter was, should stand to reason that Jack is the superior serial killer, and as a result of this, Jack questions Lecter, as to him, it should be obvious who's superior.)

I'm still wanted; you're forgotten. People these days are watching Dexter!

(Even now, scientists and researchers are still trying to unravel the identity of Jack the Ripper. Jack claims that the public doesn't care about Hannibal Lecter anymore because the public has moved on to watching a more modern serial killer, such as Dexter Morgan from the popular television series Dexter. Another possible explanation is that both Jack and Dexter were not caught, as opposed to Lecter. This is also a diss towards the TV show Hannibal—Jack implies that people still don't care about Lecter, even in a modern adaption of his story.)

So God protect ya from the Hell I've spread upon us!

(In one of the alleged letters from Jack the Ripper, he writes at the top "From Hell". From Hell is also the title of a graphic novel and a movie based on the letter; a fictional account of a detective finding out the true identity of Jack the Ripper.)

I'm terrorizing London; fuck the 7/7 bombers!

(During the time, the Jack the Ripper murders shocked all of London due to their brutal nature. The July 7, 2005 (or 7/7) London bombings were a series of suicidal attacks in central London. Jack says he terrorized London more than a series of suicidal bombings ever did. As he says this, Jack also holds up the "V-sign" or the "Two-Fingered Salute," which is the UK equivalent of giving someone the middle finger. This can be interpreted as an insult to Lecter and/or to the 7/7 bombers themselves.)

Hannibal Lecter:

No, no, Jack, you were doing fine,

(This line is the same one Lecter told Clarice Starling when he said she was doing fine talking to him politely until she rushed into asking him a question about Buffalo Bill. Lecter says that Jack was doing fine with his raps and that there wasn't a problem up to that point.)

Before your ham-fisted attempt at a terrorist line!

(Carrying on from the previous line, Lecter says Jack ruined his rapping by adding in a terrorist line, which Lecter felt Jack presented poorly in an attempt to seem edgy. The word "ham-fisted" was also used by Lecter to describe Clarice Starling's transition to her interrogation in the movie.)

How typical of Jack the Ripper to chase a headline.

(Jack's murders were widely covered within British newspapers. Lecter is suggesting that Jack only commits the murders in order to make newspaper headlines, hence the term "chasing headlines". He is also accusing him of simply using the massive headline of the 7/7 bombings to be controversial.)

Pick Ray Liotta's brain and ask him how I get mine.

(In Hannibal, Ray Liotta plays a Justice Department official whom Dr. Lecter captures and scalps, proceeding to sauté his brain. Picking someone's brain means to ask someone for information, making a pun on how Lecter picked at Liotta's brain and that Jack should ask the now dead Liotta how Lecter gets his headlines, basically telling Jack that it is obvious he gets coverage in the news because he is such a notorious serial killer, whereas Jack just follows whatever's popular in an attempt to get where Lecter is.)

I'm the bon vivant of violence, a licensed psychiatrist,

(Lecter has a degree in psychology and the culinary arts, where he used the psychology degree to practice as a psychologist before he was captured. Bon vivant describes someone who is a "good liver", or good at living. This is possibly a play on words because Lecter consumes human liver.)

Who dines on highest society to the sound of violins!

(Lecter's victims before capture were composed primarily of higher class citizens like library curators and orchestra performers. He also feasts on their body parts as classical music plays in the background.)

Don't get me wrong. I'd roast both your balls on my hibachi,

(A hibachi is a traditional Japanese heating device or grill used for cooking meat and fish. Lecter uses this expensive equipment to roast victim's body parts into fancy cuisines. He might also be implying that he admires his bravery for molesting women on several occasions in a major city like London (where police work would have been rife), as brave people are described as having 'big balls'. Even so, he could still attack Jack and make a meal out of his testicles if he wanted to.)

But for a serial killer, you're as tasteless as a bowl of Kashi!

(Kashi is a company that makes healthy granola-like cereal, which has a bland and tasteless flavor in comparison to the fancy dinners Lecter usually has. It may also be a play on words, as the word "cereal" (which Kashi sells) has the same pronunciation of "serial" (Jack and Lecter are serial killers). Lecter is calling Jack boring, dull, and nothing special, also adding that Jack's killing is tasteless since he only kills prostitutes.)

You prey on a prostitute and play with her body.

(Jack was known for the killings and mutilations of at least five prostitutes. He also raped these bodies after he killed them.)

I don't mind that you're naughty, Jack. I hate that you're sloppy!

(In the movie The Silence of The Lambs, when Lecter first discusses serial killer Buffalo Bill with Clarice Starling, he gleefully says, "What a naughty boy he is!" Another reference to this line may be when Starling is leaving, she notices the criminal in the room next to Lecter's, Miggs, is masturbating as she exits, and he throws his semen at her. Lecter, who found this disgusting, called Starling back to apologize for Miggs' rudeness and helped her advance one step in the case. Later, it was found out that Lecter whispered things to Miggs that caused him to kill himself, showing that he didn't like someone naughty who acted sloppy. Lecter doesn't mind that Jack kills women to rape them, but he sees his methods as inferior and messy. Lecter has obsessive-compulsive tendencies and he lauds cleanliness.)

Barney, take me back to solitary confinement

(Barney Matthews was the head Orderly at the Baltimore State Mental Hospital, where Lecter was being held in solitary confinement. As Barney is the one who brought him from his cell to battle Jack, Lecter tells Barney to bring him back to his cell, the reason for which he explains in the next line.)

'Cause this dirty little lamb has just been silenced.

(Lecter's most popular movie is arguably The Silence of the Lambs, in which one subplot involves Detective Starling confiding in Dr. Lecter about her dreams of lambs screaming. In the final scene, after the Buffalo Bill case is solved, Lecter asks her if the lambs have stopped screaming. He is calling Jack the lamb who has been silenced, meaning that Jack won't be able to give a retort. This takes back to the previous line in which Dr. Lecter claims to want to leave, considering there is no reason to rap battle someone who is silent.)


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