Hi, I’m LEX the Lexicon Artist, and this is Alter Ego: Explained.
For every song I’m going to start with a one-line sentence that explains what the song is about. All except Question. Because Question is about NOTHING.
Question is not an opening track, nor is it an opening skit. It’s somewhere in between.
I will admit that as much as I like being funny, I’m not very good at comedy. I am also not very good at coming up with a skit-based framing device for a concept album. Trust me, as a rapper I’m obligated to give it a try eventually. But it’ll have to be another day.
And so Question was born. It’s kind of an easy, slow, yet bizarre intro to the album. In fact, its working title was simply “Intro”. Question doesn’t hit on any themes. It doesn’t have a narrative structure. Despite the line “high concept got me in the higher echelon”, it isn’t even a conceptual song. That line is there ironically, because although the rest of the album is highly conceptual, Question is functionally just a lyrical flex. All it does is ask one simple question: “Do you feel me yet?” which is then followed by a slurry of hashtag rap brags about why you should be.
As is probably obvious to those who have been following me long enough, Question is a nod to and reprise of “L.E.X.” I’ve always maintained that even though I find it funny and fun to perform, and even though it continues to resonate with listeners and grab people’s attention at live shows, I am not that proud of some of the writing in L.E.X. To current me, it’s crude and a bit tasteless. But if people like it, there has to be some merit to it. So I decided to give it a do-over. There are references to “L.E.X.” everywhere:
“Best ass in the bay, pita chips” / “the fellas say I got the best ass in the bay / got it eating pita chips”
“Wetter flow than hentai, tentacles” “got me fucked up like hentai tentacles”
“Not a no, not a yes, quite possibly” “not a no, not a yes, to some extent”
The crude ridiculousness of “L.E.X.” is also present in lines like “crushing auto-thots like I’m mf megatron”.
But not everything can be a retread, so there’s some new gold in here too. One of my favorite lines is:
“I’m barred out like Japanese genitals. Your bars SUCC, meme man, no vegetals.”
I wanted to incorporate my taste in memes to some extent, and somehow I thought to rhyme genitals with vegetals… hence referencing Meme Man, his hatred of vegetals, and the non-sequitur SUCC. I like that the bar has a non-sequitur feel to it too. It also has a retroactive meaning. Bars with no vegetals are like bars with no nutritional value. Empty calories. Aka trash bars.
Another bar I enjoyed writing was “I’ve been smoking all the L’s, Light Yagami”. I thought that was pretty good wordplay sewn into an anime reference. If that’s not nerdcore I don’t know what is.
I acknowledge that essentially “re-doing” “L.E.X.” can be seen as either totally unnecessary and superfluous, or super fucking awesome. So yeah, you either love it or hate it. No big deal. Even if you hate it, it’s so short you’ll be onto the next one in no time. Or it might start growing on you, who knows?
I want to thank Cecil, my audio engineer on this album, for reproducing part of this beat. It was an old beat I purchased years ago from Unlearn the World, and the stems I received were incomplete. So thank you for making it usable for the track!
And thus concludes this Alter Ego: Explained. One last thing: I know my name is long, but I’m LEX the Lexicon Artist, not just Lexicon. Please, promoters, try to get it right? Maybe?
LEX the Lexicon Artist combines Internet culture, fandom, punk ethos, and shock humor (not the mean kind) to create an over-the-top explosion of nerdy, dirty, funny raps.
Soul-searching hip-hop from this Florida rapper, with lyrics that dig deep and take an unflinching look at life’s questions. Bandcamp New & Notable May 1, 2023
I needed to be delighted by something this year. Maybe you did too? Mr. Darklord stepped up to the plate to create a little sparkle in the stream of the world's sludge. STD is a very, very bad man. NOT! Most definitely not. escapementdog
