Lady London stopped by the Genius office to break down her song “Is You Krazy?” The charismatic MC proves she’s not only a true student of hip-hop, but also one of one in today’s rap game. On today’s episode of Verified, Lady London dives into the militant way she structures her bars, the inspiration behind her style, financial wisdom, and more.
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00:00When I see things on my timeline, I address it.
00:02You know?
00:03I just be like, bitch, just be a mess.
00:04Are you crazy?
00:05Like you pop all this, but are you fucking crazy?
00:07Do you know what you got going on?
00:08If the shoe applies, motherfucking buy that shit in every color.
00:11Lace it up, wear it.
00:12Bitch, if that's you, that's you.
00:20Bar work is extremely important.
00:22I think whenever I structure rhymes, I'm always very militant about the science behind hip-hop.
00:27Like I'm a true scholar of hip-hop.
00:29So I count multi-syllabic structures, I count the syllables in each thing.
00:33I think about the influx in my voice, I think about different cadences.
00:36Somebody once told me, make sure your opening line catches everybody.
00:40Make sure the first thing that you say out your mouth is something that makes people stay
00:43for the rest of the time.
00:44When I think about writing, I always be like, I gotta write in captions.
00:47I gotta write in a way that if you take this individual line, you can use it under your
00:51picture, regardless.
00:52So that'll be trying to be caption of the year, girl, when I write.
00:59One putting that shit on is also like the way in which you carry something.
01:08Like somebody could wear the exact same thing as you and they don't carry it the same way.
01:13Probably I would say like some of my favorite go-to looks is just anything vintage or archived.
01:17Like a vintage Dior set or something like vintage Chanel 2003.
01:22I always strived to look like I was pulled straight from a 90's video set.
01:26It was a different type of ethereal beauty back then that I think.
01:29Somewhere along the lines kind of got misplaced and just like overkill glamour.
01:33Simplicity, sometimes less really is more.
01:36So it's so funny, we went back and forth in the studio about this, whether I should
01:49say I'm a beat to a Jay-Z or I'm a B to a Jay-Z.
01:52It really, however you interpret it, can be a double entendre depending on if you looking
01:57at both ways.
01:58But Jay-Z dominates every beat that he's on and I do feel like it's like not a challenge
02:03for him.
02:04It's just not something, it's not a feat.
02:05I'm a beat to a Jay-Z, meaning it's nothing to me, it's nothing.
02:09But also a B to a Jay-Z, I'm his compliment, I'm anybody's, you know, whatever.
02:14And a B was supposed to be, it's supposed to be a kind of a triple entendre because the
02:16B was Beyonce in a billion.
02:18Triple entendre and don't even ask me how.
02:30We had already written the hook, so it ended with like, is you crazy?
02:33Just a double down.
02:34Like, are you mad?
02:35Like, are you, you lost your mind?
02:36I guess that's some like super Jamaican shit to ask, but like, are you mad?
02:39Like, are you crazy?
02:40Like I hear the dumb shit you say, I watch how you think that you're somebody that you're
02:44really not.
02:45But literally you must've bumped your head.
02:46I think that was like the whole format of it.
02:48Like I just wanted to come in swinging.
02:49There's this thing we have in rap culture.
02:54Some people call it certain things.
02:56I call it a forced rhyme scheme.
02:58It doesn't actually rhyme exact.
03:00It's like a forced rhyme.
03:01It just depends on the tonality in which you use.
03:03So, caught me the rolly, caught me the wraith.
03:05And when you see me, you copy and paste.
03:07It's like, it don't exactly rhyme, but you feel the tonality of it.
03:11Even like a T-Pain would say something like, somewhere in Wisconsin.
03:15And it's like, we all know it's Wisconsin.
03:16And we caught that it was that, but it's like, it rhymed with the mansion line.
03:20So, I think in music, we just find different ways to make it fun and engaging.
03:25I'm in your save.
03:26I'm all in your page.
03:27Bookmark folders.
03:28Shit that you named.
03:29I'm speaking about how Instagram really is.
03:31Like a lot of women who don't like you or have an issue with you, you're actually like
03:36one of their moods.
03:37Like I always say, I'm on your mood board.
03:39Like I'm on your style board.
03:40I'm on your inspiration board.
03:41I'm in your save.
03:42I'm all in your page.
03:43Like you, you stay on my page.
03:44You bookmarking my shit, putting it in your save thing, whether that's for makeup inspiration,
03:48for clothes inspiration, for a sound that you may like, or, you know, you really want
03:52to quote my shit, but you're the hate and you just can't, can't let it out.
03:55So I'm like, you name folders after me though, babe.
03:58Like, come on.
03:59I've been in your algorithm.
04:01You got a thousand niggas.
04:02I take a thousand of them.
04:03You took a thousand pictures.
04:04I bet a thousand dollars that in a crowd of women, you ain't the baddest nothing.
04:08I always say, you not a bad bitch until you still a bad bitch in a room full of bad bitches.
04:13And that's across the board.
04:14You not a boss until you still a boss in a room full of bosses.
04:16It's about the way that you carry it.
04:19Period.
04:20Or you could be like forgettable.
04:21Sometimes I tell people like, I nothing you.
04:23I don't like you.
04:24I don't dislike you.
04:25I nothing you.
04:26You're not the baddest nothing.
04:27It's nothing.
04:28Indifference.
04:29I'm a bitch average.
04:30We ain't cut from the same cloth, same fabric.
04:32I'm cut from a cloth they don't make anymore.
04:34God broke the mold when he made me.
04:35One of one in, not just in lyricism, but just in life.
04:39Like the way my posture is, the way my poise is, the way I come into a room, the way I dominate
04:44a record, male or female.
04:46I'm cut from that.
04:47You and her got the same body, same plastic.
04:49Both of y'all going out sad.
04:51Fake tragic.
04:52So tragic.
04:53It's more of a play on words there, rather than it is like an actual this to people with
04:58plastic surgery.
04:59It's just more so like, everybody kind of looks the same.
05:01Be talking the same, doing the same things.
05:03There's no originality in the space anymore.
05:05So I think, how are you going to have your own identity in this world if you're going to
05:08be just like everybody else?
05:09So it's tragic, really.
05:10It's tragic.
05:17I actually went to Chuck E. Cheese like a couple days before I recorded this first.
05:24We had a ball.
05:25It was grown adults.
05:26We had no children with us.
05:27Just eating pizza and playing games.
05:28But I'm looking at Chuck E like, Chuck E look different now.
05:30Chuck E goes on the Olympic now.
05:32He look a little slimmer.
05:33I'm like, yeah, that look like somebody's baby father or something.
05:36So that's how it go.
05:47What's wrong with taking Uber?
05:48Let's start there.
05:49Okay?
05:50Because everybody, I be in Ubers all the time.
05:51But I'm saying, you're a force by nature.
05:53You doing all this fucking and all this whatever, and you still don't have a vehicle to your
05:57name.
05:58You don't have no mode of transportation to get around.
05:59And it's unfortunate because if you lay down with nothing and get out with nothing,
06:02that fucking sucks.
06:11Yeah, I need a screwdriver for my bracelet.
06:13I ain't even got my Cartier bracelet on today.
06:15But yeah, you need a screwdriver to actually get up out of a Cartier bracelet.
06:18For those who don't know, you can't just take it off.
06:20You need the little manufacturer screwdriver that comes with it in order to take your braces off.
06:28A pink slip is something that you receive when you get the title of a vehicle.
06:31When you have ownership of a vehicle.
06:32And again, there's nothing wrong with leasing.
06:34There's business write-offs for all types of shit you want to do.
06:36But I own all my cars, and so I don't lease it.
06:39Pussy out pink, pink slip.
06:40I got pink slips and titles for all my vehicles.
06:42And I think it's just a different caliber of elevated rap scheme.
06:50One thing they don't teach us, black and brown kids in school, is that the value of credit and how important it is.
06:57Make sure you build your credit up.
06:58Because that's what white people do.
06:59They live off of credit only.
07:01Literally.
07:02They buy everything with other people's money and they don't spend any of they own.
07:06So it's a lot of things that they teach us in the world.
07:08Like what they don't ever tell you.
07:09Like if you get a car, don't sign up for a 30% APR.
07:13Or if you got a credit card, they tell you keep your revolving credit at 30%, but the white people keep it at 8-11%.
07:19Certain things like that, that I think we should be more aware of in our communities.
07:22So that we can keep wealth within here and continue to build it.
07:25I think people find flaw in me that aren't comfortable with themselves.
07:30If you don't like me, it's something that I bring out in your spirit that's just unsettled.
07:35Tis is life though.
07:36I'm a better ally than I am an enemy anyways.