A close reading
HUMBLE.
by Kendrick LamarDAMN. (2017)
600 words · 191 distinct · 67 lines · 2:57
The lead
×5
one line comes back
“be humble (hol' up, hol' up)”
The text
67 lines
Nobody pray for me
It been that day for me
Way (yeah, yeah!)
Ayy, I remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances
Finesse a nigga with some counterfeits, but now I'm countin' this
Parmesan where my accountant lives; in fact, I'm downin' this
Read from the LRCLIB text. Another transcription would change the count a little; the shape would hold.
I. The hook
One line keeps coming back.
“be humble (hol' up, hol' up)”
times, word for word
It lands at lines 24, 28, 32, 56 and 60. 33% of the lines repeat one already sung, and 37% belong to lines sung three times or more.
II. The clock
2:57 of song, 600 words.
- Words a minute
- 203
- First word
- 0:02
- Longest silence
- 4 s
- from 0:52
- Busiest 15 seconds
- 86
- words
III. The vocabulary
Most-used words
20 words- 01up64
- 02hol62
- 03bitch32
- 04down26
- 05sit25
- 06lil25
- 07humble16
- 08ayy13
- 09i'm5
- 10nigga4
- 11like4
- 12funk4
- 13way3
- 14get3
- 15just3
- 16still3
- 17right3
- 18some2
- 19ass2
- 20won't2
Stopwords set aside. The bar beneath each word is its share of the most-used.
Variety
191 distinct words in 600
Used only once135 words
Longest wordcounterfeits
Average word3.52 letters
Lines that ask a question3%
IV. In the catalogue
The 186th shortest of 375 songs Kendrick Lamar has recorded.
Every mark is one of Kendrick Lamar’s 375 songs, placed by its figure. The rule is the catalogue’s median; the oxblood mark is this song.
Read the whole catalogue →Words · 600186th shortest of 375