Fun Math With Foxy Brown!

http://www.epinions.com/content_4156465284

Well, since a teacher in the DC area got fired cause (s)he wrote a math test to his 10 year olds that involved crack, jail, guns, pimps and hoes, I wondered why the hell anyone would risk a good job to pull a practical joke on 10 year olds. In other words, what the hell was the guy/gal thinking?

Then I thought, maybe he is one of those "math-letes" who actually understood Foxy Brown's verse on "Affirmative Action" (off of Nas's second album "It Was Written..."), specifically the last 9 or so lines:

"Keys is one and two-fifth, so how we flip
Thirty-two grams raw, chop it in half, get sixteen, double it times three
We got forty-eight, which mean a whole lot of cream
Divide the profit by four, subtract it by eight
We back to sixteen, now add the other two that 'Mega bringin through
So let's see, if we flip this other key
Then that's more for me, mad coke and mad leak
Plus a five hundred, cut in half is two-fifty
Now triple that times three, we got three quarters of another key"

As you can see, no one exactly knows what's going on. Maybe the teacher thought that rap music would make the children connect to math better. Whatever. I am now going to attempt by far my most nerdiest feat ever: explaining Foxy's mathematics.

First, let's get a few concepts/definitions down:

Key: (n) A kilogram; 1000 grams; 2.2 pounds, usually referring to narcotics. Alternate spelling: "ki".
Flip: (v) To sell goods or property, esp. stolen or hot.
Cream: (n) Short for "Cash Rules Everything Around Me". Used as another term for money. See Wu-Tang Clan
Coke: (n) Slang for cocaine.
Leak: (n) Slang for PCP.
Mega: (n) Short for ex-Firm member Cormega.
Cheddar: (n) Used as another term for money.
Mad: (adj) an adjective used to enhance a noun in the way "crazy" is used instead of "really", "extremely", or "lots of".

Ok, now that we got that straight, lets move on and break it down.

"Keys is one and two-fifth, so how we flip"
Already we are all confused. I am probably mostly wrong, so correct me in the comments section. But here goes: I'm assuming that by "Keys is one and two-fifth" means she has 1 & 2/5 of a key. This is 1400 grams, or 1.4 kilograms. "So how we flip" is asking, "how do we sell this to maximize profits?".

"Thirty-two grams raw, chop it in half, get sixteen, double it times three"
This is when all logic is thrown out the window. 32 grams is 0.032 kilograms. For whatever reason, this is cut in 1/2 (16 grams or 0.016 kilograms) and then tripled by 3 (48 grams or 0.048 kilograms).

"We got forty-eight, which mean a whole lot of cream"
Foxy states the obvious, first comfirming our calculations, and then informing us that selling this 48 grams will produce lots of money.

"Divide the profit by four, subtract it by eight"
The profit is divided by four, probably since The Firm had, at the time, 4 members: Nas, AZ, Cormega and Foxy. I'm assuming that those 48 grams have been sold, and we don't know at what price. However, ill estimate (with help from various websites) that the price was 70 dollars per gram ($3360). For whatever reason, 8 is subtracted, and I'm assuming it's 8 dollars which leaves us with with 3352.

"We back to sixteen, now add the other two that 'Mega bringin through"
Huh? How'd she get "back to 16"? I think the 1/2 of 32 is the "back" part, but I have no clue how she got there. Ill assume she just got 16 grams, and Cormega brought 2 more. Which leaves us with 18 grams (0.018 kilograms).

"So let's see, if we flip this other key
Then that's more for me, mad coke and mad leak"
Then she states that another ki (1000 grams)is sold. Then she says there's more for her, and I'm assuming she means money. Then she states that there is a lot of PCP and coke in the area.

"Plus a five hundred, cut in half is two-fifty
Now triple that times three, we got three quarters of another key"
Okay, then she receives 500 grams (1/2 a key). Then it is halved, to 250 grams (1/4 of a key). Then it is multipled by 3, meaning 750 grams (3/4 of a key).

In the end, we know The Firm collected 3216 grams of coke by adding 1400+750+1000+18+48=3216. This is 3.216 kilograms, or around 3 & 1/5 of a key. They sold 1048 grams, since 1000+48=1048. Multiply it by $70 and we get $73360. If they sold all 3216 grams, they would have $225120.

So, in that confusing 9 lines and crazy mathematical equations, we came to the conclusion that all that bitch was saying was that they sold crack and got lots of money off of it. I can see why people like the Big Tymers' simplistic raps now.