No Soy Sauce

You ever feel so much hate towards someone who you dedicated three months of your life to concocting a scheme that ended with their death and you vanishing to an island where the water is clear and the pygmies run free?  That feeling is called vengeance.

As an adolescent I frequented the YMCA, particularly the after school program.  One day an older after school participant (about 3 years older than me) thought it would be funny to throw an orange at me.  As it hit me in the back I turned around only to see him cowardly running into the program director’s office to use it as a safe haven (the program director would have done anything for this kid, so he knew it was his story against mine).  I called his bluff, though, and followed him into the director’s office, where he proceeded to grin at his “cleverness”.  I, being the savvy 12-year-old that I was, set a trap and voiced “If you ever do that again, I’ll fight you.”  The director looked shocked, because she knew I’d never do such a thing (I was an angel), so it was obvious this kid did something to truly upset me.  Then I told the kid “I bet you won’t do it again”, knowing he’d do it again.  He was clearly unaware that I was playing the same game he was (using the program director), because a couple of days later he threw another piece of fruit at me and ran to the program director’s office.  I calmly walked into the director’s office, told her “I told him”, and proceeded to pound this kids face until the director’s couch had blood on it.

You see, revenge is all about setting a tone. I couldn’t be a target for fruit on a daily basis.  That day at the YMCA, that high schooler got his ass kicked by a 12-year-old, a bloody nose, and a suspension from the program because he made the director look like a fool.  Revenge is a dish best served with No Soy Sauce.

Today, you’ll get MR. NSS’ 10 favorite hip hop “revenge songs”.  All of the following songs qualify because they involved a well-thought out plan backed up with the execution of the plan.  Whether the plan was to result in death, embarrassment, or to solely hurt someone’s feelings, these songs got it done.  I wish one of these songs was playing while I was beating that kid’s a** at the YMCA.

(Editor’s Note:  Only songs with videos are hyperlinked except for Queen’s “Death On Two Legs” because everyone should be educated on that group to some degree.)

Honorable Mentions

Beyonce, Irreplaceable - I’m convinced Jigga wrote this song.  At least the hook.

Alanis Morissette, You Oughta Know – Seriously, you oughta know.  Great revenge song.

Queen, Death On Two Legs – Yes, Mr. NSS is a Queen fan.  I suggest you become one too, starting with this song.

Vanessa Williams, Betcha Never – There’s something about a good-looking woman singing a revenge song.  I actually feel bad for whoever inspired this song (It was written by Babyface) because Vanessa got at them. 

10.  Ice Cube – No Vaseline

Ouch! This is for the Pulp Fiction red rubber ball, got a gimp in the closet, type of revenge.  Cube was the only member of N.W.A. that left by himself.  That probably took a lot more balls than it sounds like.

9. DMX - X Is Coming

The amount of hate someone would need in their bloodstream to perform the acts mentioned by Dark Man X is equal to Stewie Griffin’s hate towards his mother.  This revenge song is for the person that played Grand Theft Auto just to kill people, only to see how many cops they could kill once all Police “wanted” stars were completely lit up.  I’m not going to go over the lyrics in this song, it kind of scares me to type them and read them aloud.  I’ll put it like this, I remember buying this CD from Blockbuster video after school.  When I got home I called my homeboy Dewayne, told him to come listen and spaz out with me.  I was so excited.  Then this song came on.  Even as an impressionable youth, who wished Scarface never died so I could meet him, when I heard X give his thoughts on the “revengees” daughter I stopped the song and asked Dewayne “did he really just say that?”  Then we discussed how psycho this man must actually be to claim some sh*t like that on his debut album.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, find out for your damn self  ’cause I’m not going to jail for someone misinterpreting a quote as my own words.  I heard they like bloggers for more than their words, in prison.

8.  Mobb Deep – Eye For An Eye

“As time goes by, an eye for an eye, we in this together son, your beef is mine…”  This song is perfect for any movie scene that involves a car full of goons loading and cocking guns on their way to kick in the door on their enemy.  I need someone to digitally remaster The Godfather and add this song to the scene where Sonny drives up to the toll and gets wet up.  The hospital scene in Carlito’s Way when Al Pacino takes the bullets out of Sean Penn’s gun too, that would be awesome.

7.  Mase ft. Black Rob, The Lox, and DMX – 24 Hours To Live

I think three out of the five New York boroughs would be destroyed if each rapper on this song carried out his plan.  Leave it to DMX to put it all in perspective, too:

“I know exactly where I’m going, but I’ma send you there first, and with that sh*t that I be doing, I’ma send you there worst…”

For whatever reason, each rapper in this song took the time to off someone in their verse.  They may be responsible for some murders that haven’t been solved yet.

6.  Eminem – Stan

Only Eminem could come up with a way to kill one of his fans in a song.  You can tell Em’ put thought into this one too, because the fan kills himself instead of Em’ doing the killing (as opposed to the many times he has killed his Mother and ex-Wife with his own hands).  This song was a good way for him to tell certain fans to check themselves, though.

5.  Justin Timberlake – Cry Me A River

I know.  I despise Timberlake, but Timbaland made this song hot.  Add that to the a fake Britney Spears in the video and  some lyrics with a “f*ck you” undertone and it’s a smash hit!

“Now there’s just no chance, for you and me, there’ll never be
And don’t it make you sad about it…
…Girl I refuse, you must have me confused
With some other guy
Your bridges were burned, and now it’s your turn
To cry, cry me a river”

This song makes me want to break into my ex-girlfriend’s house, athletically and gracefully jump all over her furniture, hide in her closet, and watch her shower.

4.  50 Cent – Many Men

NSS Nation, you know how I feel about “Mr. Half -a- Dollar”.  I can’t stand him.  However, when homeboy said “P*ssy n*ggas put money on my head, gon’ and get your refund motherf*cker I ain’t dead…” to start his first verse, I had to give him props for going that hard.  If you’re going to seek revenge on someone for shooting you that line is EXACTLY what you should say right before you shoot them back.  Then he ended it with “Now it’s clear that I’m here for a real reason, ’cause he got hit, like I got hit, but he ain’t f*cking breathing”.  50 got that off.

3.  James Brown – The Big Payback

James Brown can dig rapping and he can dig scrapping, but he can’t dig backstabbing.  This is a great song to smash sh*t too.  This is exactly what you want playing when you set your bosses office on fire after he or she denied your request for a raise.  Any song that involves screaming lyrics like, “PAYBACK!”, “REVENGE!”, “I’M MAAADDD!” in sequence was made to do no less than a quarter of a million dollars worth of damage to someone’s personal property.  Also, the song is over seven minutes long.  Perfect for a scenario when you want to leave the scene but let the “revengee” know what happened.  Picture your boss walking into his or her office to find their family pictures smashed, they’re bonsai tree set on fire and James Brown screaming at them  “I DON’T KNOW KARATE, BUT I KNOW CAARAAZZYYYY!!”

2.  Nas – I Gave You Power

MR. NSS loves this song.  Besides repping for the inanimate objects of the world, Nas paints a perfect picture of the life-cycle of a gun in the ‘hood.  I don’t feel that my explanation and analysis of this song will do its meaning any justice, so here are the lyrics.  If you’ve never heard this song, buy it, download it from iTunes, steal it, do whatever you have to do to listen to this song.  Here’s the first verse:

I seen some cold nights and bloody days.
They grab me and bullets spray
They use me wrong so I sing this song ’til this day
My body is cold steel for real
I was made to kill, that’s why they keep me concealed
Under car seats they sneak me in clubs
Been in the hands of mad thugs
They feed me when they load me with mad slugs
Seventeen precisely, one in my head
They call me Desert Eagle, semi-auto with lead
I’m seven inches four pounds, been through so many towns
Ohio to Little Rock to Canarsie, livin harshly
Beat up and battered, they pull me out
I watch as n*ggas scattered, makin me kill
But what I feel it never mattered
When I’m empty I’m quiet, findin myself fiendin to be fired
A broken safety, niggaz place me in shelves
under beds, so I beg for my next owner to be a thoroughbred
Keep me full up with hollow heads…

The tale of revenge in this song is told after Nas (as the gun) is fed up with his current “owner” and comes up with a scheme: “…the next time the beef is on I’ll make myself jam, right in my owner’s hands”  Like any great story-teller, this song ends with unfortunate, but realistic irony (teaser!).

1. Biggie – Somebody’s Got To Die

In my Top Ten Rap Stories post I went into enormous detail about why this song was my number one, all time favorite, rap song story.  For those same reasons, it’s an excellent number one revenge song story, as well.

Shout outs to Elcira D., David H., @THEREALNOTTY, and Alcides S. (Ay!) for getting the correct WHOSAIDIT?! yesterday.  “Nuff said.