The Most GENIUS Number Bars in Rap History

Dissect

Cole Cuchna

Music, Arts, Society & Culture

4.9 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From Rakim to Kendrick Lamar, this is the story of hip-hop’s obsession with numbers. Dissect's Cole Cuchna breaks down the evolution of “number bars” - a lyrical tradition where rappers use math, numeric sequences, and wordplay to showcase technical skill and encode hidden meaning. Beginning with Rakim’s groundbreaking verse on “My Melody” (1986) - a quatrain built around groups of seven that secretly mirrors his own 21-letter name - we trace how MCs have used numbers as both a mathematical signature and a symbolic device for decades. From Melle Mel’s divine 7-count in “Superrappin” to Jay-Z’s “22 Twos”, Biggie’s “Ten Crack Commandments,” and Mos Def’s “Mathematics,” numbers became an essential part of hip hop tradition and lyricism. By the 2000s, artists like Lupe Fiasco, J. Cole, JID, Vince Staples, and Kendrick Lamar transformed number schemes into complex storytelling tools. We unpack everything from Lupe’s hidden 3–2–1 countdown on Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky” to Kendrick’s quantum-level equations on “Nosetalgia.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In 1986, 18-year-old Raq Kim wrapped one of the most influential verses in hip-hop history.
0:05.6	I take seven MCs pull them in a line and add seven more brothers who think they can rhyme.
0:11.4	Well, it'll take seven more before I go for mine.
0:14.2	Now that's 21 MCs ate up at the same time.
0:17.4	Rakim lines up three groups of seven MCs across three bars, then annihilates them all with
0:22.6	the 21 MC punchline in bar four. But what most people miss is that the math actually doubles
0:28.1	as a musical signature. Rakim's government name is William Michael Griffin, three names, seven
0:34.0	letters each, 21 in all. One for each MC he destroys.
0:38.3	Rakim's now iconic Quatrain kickstarted a hip-hop staple,
0:42.3	using numbers as a lyrical device to showcase an MC's mastery of language.
0:46.3	Fast forward nearly four decades later, and you have rappers like Malice doing stuff like this.
0:52.3	Go get a Glock 27 fit snug in the waistline.
0:56.5	Both sticks came with the drum.
0:58.4	I was five, six shoulder with a chip.
1:01.0	Mousin'n't know.
1:01.3	Malice tells his true crime origin story in the streets of Virginia Beach,
1:04.9	weaving in a string of numbers.
1:06.6	A Glock 27, his 5'6 height,
1:08.8	powerlifting 2.2 pounds or a kilo of cocaine, and more.
1:13.0	8 bars in the verse contain a number.
1:14.9	And when you extract each digit from the first 7 bars, you get 2-7-56-22-129.
1:24.1	Add these numbers up and you get 48.
	...

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