Knox Hill - Clout Cobain | Benzino Diss (Initial Thoughts / Lyrical Breakdown)

How we got here

Well, this came outta nowhere!
Here I am, having a day off work, working on some translations for my other blog, and after a couple of hours my mind starts drifting and I end up checking if there's any new YouTube videos or anyone commenting back to me on anything, and see that Knox is having a surprise video premiere in 15 minutes!

Took me about 5min to get that it's his original song, a Benzino diss, because Benzino went after his fellow reactors yesterday. 

In case you're not familiar with the drama, here's what I know:
- Eminem and Benzino have had beef for decades now, those dudes just REALLY don't like each other
- Benzino's daughter, rapper Coi Leray isn't in very good terms with her father, but in a recent song, she had bars where she sided with Benzino over Eminem
- Eminem wrote a song where he dissed Coi Leray and Benzino, called Doomsday Pt. 2. He specifically used some bars that refer directly to Coi Leray's bars, so I know he's heard it. It wasn't a diss track per se, though, it just had some dissing on it
- Benzino didn't like this and released an Eminem diss track called Rap Elvis
- Cliff Beats is a hiphop ghostwriter with a reaction channel on YouTube, and he pointed out how the writing on Rap Elvis is much better than Benzino's writing usually is and suspected that he may have used a ghostwriter = have someone else write the song for him, he suspected a battle rapper named Cassidy
- the hiphop community didn't like this idea, because you're supposed to write your own diss tracks alone, it's a competition on who is a better lyricist and can write sicker burns about the other, and the community typically enjoys this because it produces amazing hiphop music as a sort of side product of those two guys hating on each other and seeing who's better
- Benzino admitted that he went into a studio with a bunch of his rapper friends and they wrote the diss track together (he said they gave him lines and even entire verses to work with) and that it shouldn't matter because he rapped it and released it, so it's his song
- Cassidy said he wasn't involved in this
- we still don't know who's involved in this, who wrote the song
- Benzino tried to copyright strike Cliff's channel
- Knox didn't like this, because that's Cliff's livelihood, and the reactor community sticks together, and wrote this diss track

Initial thoughts

First time listening, I didn't have that many thoughts, I was focused on trying to catch the bars and not paying so much attention to how the song sounded like... I liked it when he suddenly switched to Spanish, though! It's my favorite language (among my native Finnish, of course) and if you're fluent in both, why not go after him in two languages :D 

When I saw that Knox attached the lyrics into a pinned comment, I decided to write this blog post. I love breaking down his lyrics, but I can't catch all the bars, and since I have the day/night off work, I also got the time and the energy to break down some bars.

Lyrical breakdown / more thoughts

The title of the song is a reference to the late grunge rock band Nirvana's vocalist, Kurt Cobain, RIP. He used a lot of drugs (mainly heroin) and died of a suicide. Idk if that's relevant.

Why’d you have to go after reactors?

Stating loud and clear why we're here. Knox is inserting himself into this NOT because he's a huge Eminem fanboy and a fellow white rapper, but because Benzino isn't following the rules of the game. He can diss Eminem all he wants, use ghostwriters and give himself a bad name because of it all he wants, but going after the reactor community because you don't like what they're saying about you or your songs is something where Knox has had enough of your BS and you're gonna hear about him.

See me I’ma “go pro”

Zino got that coke flow

GoPro is a company, they make cameras. I tried googling what's their connection to cocaine or Coca-Cola, and found out you can make a makeshift floating camera thingie using an empty Coke bottle. So, Knox is "pro", he's good at this rap stuff, and Zino=Benzino is someone who just dabbles with it.
"Coke flow" could also be describing the kind of rap flow Zino has, but I don't know what that means.
I googled and Benzino has done cocaine in the past, so he's also got the cocaine flowing into his life, and into his nose.

Leechin for a promo

You hire/higher

But you solo/so-low?

Oh no bout to blow

If you describe a person "a leech", you're saying they're parasites, they suck money or whatever off of other people. In this case, Knox is saying Benzino's sucking for some promo, some clout, but also, he's "leechin'" other people onto the diss track he released.
(Also, he sucks in general. Lol.)
And, so Benz here hired a bunch of guys to write his song for him, because he sucks and can't do it himself, and still claims he did it "solo"=alone, because he rapped it alone and released it under only his name.
Knox has pointed out the doubles for us, hire/higher, and solo/so low.
High, like high on drugs.
And Zino has been acting like he's all "high and mighty", like he's more important than others, in the sense that he's been in the rap game for a long time, and therefore should be well aware on the rules of a diss - you don't bring other people in to write it with you. But suddenly he's above that, those rules don't apply to him? Pfft...
And as a result, he's figuratively sinking low, he's behaving badly. How he's acting "blows", it sucks.
Also, cocaine is called "blow".

Only lines you making is the ones 

That’s goin up your nose 

Whoah 

Lines, as in cocaine lines, going up Zino's nose,
but also, the lines/bars of a song, or the lines/arguments of one's speech.

I know that you’re fakin

And you struggle for them O’s

Keep on hatin can’t get famous

So you pay em 

But you “short” 

I'm not sure what Knox means with "struggling for them O's"... The sound "O"? Idk.
Knox didn't struggle for them O-sounds btw, nice whatever-it's-called-when-a-rapper-uses-the-same-sounds-a-lot-in-bars: go, pro, coke, flow, promo, solo/so low, oh no, blow.
Hmm... maybe Zino's struggling for all of these? Haha.
Oh, and zeros! Struggling to get zeros after the other numbers on your bank account, struggling for money!
Zino wanted some of that fame, so he paid a bunch of dudes to write a diss track for him.
If someone's "short" on cash, it means they don't have enough of it to buy something.
Benzino's 160cm, he's about my height, a bit shorter actually. Short for a man.

I know I’m “white” come get a snort

Knox is Caucasian, he's white.
Cocaine is white and Benzino does cocaine.
Le white Knox is inviting le black Benz to do some le white coke.
This is also referring to how Benzino has time and time again tried to make Eminem look like a racist culture vulture. And because Em is not, this just makes Benzino look racist and backward himself, for going after Em.
And how Benzino keeps "snorting at" white rappers in general.

Shit I could write you a retort

Bet you would bite it then record

I know you like to be enforced/in force 

Wtf is a "retort", hold up, let me find this new word... The dictionary I like to use says that in Finnish it means the following: "sivallus, retortti, tiuskaisu, kipakka vastaus, repliikki, heitto". Some of these are synonyms of each other, but "sivallus" is, like, a strike with something sharp and fast, like a sword or a whip, leaving a mark. "Retortti" is this certain kind of flask they use in chemistry, I did not know that word before now. And the rest mean pretty much the same as the "strike", but this time it's a verbal one, the cut it leaves is figurative instead of literal. "Repliikki" can also mean a line, in like a play or a movie, a sentence or set of sentences someone says. "Heitto" means "a throw", in this context like a burn/roast, you know, a joke you "throw" in someone's expense. "It was just a joke, man!" roughly translates to "Se nyt oli vaa sellane heitto!" This concludes our Finnish lesson today, now back to the song at hand:
Knox is saying he could write this kind of burn/joke and say that about Benzino and he bets Benzino would respond to that. This sentence kinda confuses me, because isn't a diss track kind of a "retort"? Just longer?
Maybe that's what Knox means. A "retort" is fast and it hurts, a diss track is several minutes long and hurts. Knox bets that even if he wrote a very short, one sentence thing about Zino, Zino'd still jump on the opportunity and go into the studio with a bunch of guys again.
Idk if the chemical flask called retort is used on making cocaine, but if it is, then these bars are even funnier.
I don't even want to tell you what I googled regarding "I know you like to be enforced"... But all my search results were porn sites, mentioning Benzino and "feet". I didn't type in anything about feet... Nor did I click any of the results, I bet my eyes couldn't handle anything to do with porn, Benzino and feet... But I think Knox knows something about Benzino's personal preferences that I don't, because I'm too new to this genre and haven't seen the same news and interview clips Knox has...
I also googled "Benzino army" and "Benzino police" since that's what I think when someone says "in force" and I found out that Eminem's song Like Toy Soldiers is related to an old beef they had... And that Benzino has been arrested a bunch of times.

I ain’t carin/Karen what you sharin/Sharon

And ya little white couple, wh*re 

This is a thing I found the other day when someone said something about Benzino and the LGBTQ+ community and this piqued my interest so I did some googling. 1) There were rumors about him dating a trans woman. He said they haven't, she said they have. Not that interesting, neither were too hostile about it, it's just he said, she said. And liking transwomen does not make a man gay, FYI to everyone. Transwomen are women. 2) Benzino went through a rough patch in his life and was sleeping in his male friend's hotel room, in the same bed, but facing the other way (one person's head was in one end of the bed, the other one's in the other end). There were rumors about him being gay, to which he responded "Shout out to the gay community. You're ok, but I'm not one of you" or something along those lines. Ok. But then people kept teasing him about it, because people be dumb and childish sometimes and he blurted "if we were a white couple, you wouldn't be saying this", which obviously just made it worse, because he's implying the people are saying this to him and his "friend" not because they're homophobic and immature, but because they're racist. And that him and his "friend" are indeed boyfriends, a couple.
I know they're not. If he says he's straight I believe him. But after that blurt, I can see why people keep bringing it up and teasing him about it. If he'd be more chill about it and stop doing all this other nonsense like putting up copyright claims, I bet other people would be more chill about it as well and not tease him about it. And I see the humor in it, given the full context. The funny part is not that he's "gay", at least to me it isn't, it's that he's so butthurt about it.

Knox is implying Benz shared more than just a room and a bed with the man. That he wanted to pay someone to write a diss track, didn't have enough money, let his friend hit it for some cash, then paid the dudes to write the song. (And no, I don't think Knox ACTUALLY thinks this either, he's just joking about it. And it is a funny scenario.)
Also, Karens and Sharons are those meme white ladies, who care "a little" too much about something and always want to speak to the manager. I work a customer service job, I've encountered some Karens in my life...

Now if I May, Dave oops I mean Ray 

I’ve got the Sauce

I mean the Source

Come read this 

"Now, if I may..." is an expression, I think that's pretty obvious...
David "Dave" Mays and Raymond "Benzino" Scott are the founders of a magazine called The Source that they later lost. And people read magazines.
Saying "I've got the sauce" means you have talent.
I wondered why is Sauce spelled with a capital letter, and apparently that's an old diss track Eminem has made of Zino.

I got an issue d*ck

How many mics - 5 mics recorded for your diss

Your views was falling off a Cliff

So you tried to cancel him?

Sh*t

Magazines have issues, like, each piece of work of that magazine (coming out daily/weekly/monthly/whatever) is called "an issue" of the magazine.
If a person has an issue with someone, they have a problem with them, they're coming after them because of something. Knox has an issue with Zino, for being a dick.
Benzino's magazine was doing album reviews, measured in 0-5 microphones or mics. He has admitted that he didn't allow the reporter to give Eminem's album a 5-mic review back in the 2000s, when they had another beef going on. Which I think is very unsportsmanlike of him. Give credit where credit is due and leave the beef in the diss tracks.
Also, Benzino didn't write the diss track himself, so that's why Knox is saying he had 5 mics recorded on his diss. Could also refer to how many takes the track is recorded in (but idk), it's always more impressive when you have less takes per a track, and you want to impress people, especially on a diss track.
Zino's not getting clout, his views are falling before the diss track, and now also after the diss track, partially because of Cliff Beats. But really, because Benz is being a dick. He brought this on himself.
And Benz tried to cancel Cliff, copyright claim his videos and whatnot, I don't know if he did more than that, probably yes. Wants to silence the critique. Which is not the way to go. You dug your own hole, it's wrong to drag others down with you.

Debt out do the math then

Check out is at half ten

Tell me what you have then

You are just a has been

Livin in the past Ben

Like I wrote before, Benzino had some financial troubles, he had debt, which is measured in numbers, which are used in math.
And half of ten is five, referring to the previous bars.
A has-been is someone who lives in the past, whose prime time is over.
Ben = Benzino

Sam Darnold

Seein ghosts

You gon dead who?

I need “confessions” in the booth 

Apparently a player of American football. Idk what he's got to do with this. He's not dead, either. Idk. I think Knox is just calling Ben "darn old"? But it seems to me like Ben has mentioned he's gonna "murder" someone in the booth, but the person he's talking about is already literally dead, and I want to know who he's said this about. Can't find it on google.
I did find, though, that Benzino's nephew tried to shoot Ben at Ben's mom's funeral, but he missed, and Ben thinks his mother's ghost saved him. So that'd explain how he's "seein ghosts".

It’s funny what that debt do

You gettin head before you blow dawg that’s a “Red Roof”

Make your bed go get a room

But one bed for two dudes?

Hmm

What'd I tell you? I told you this is what Knox is implying. Getting help for his debt by letting his friend... do whatever two adults who love each other do in the bed together. Which is sleep, obviously! ;)
Red Roof is the hotel chain they stayed at.
Idk how are blowjobs and "red roofs" connected, all the dirty meanings I could find for "red roof" involved a ginger woman and neither of these men are gingers. Maybe Knox just coined a new term, lol. Two dudes, doing a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" kinda deal about blowjobs is now called a "red roof". Got it? Ok, lets move on.
If you say to someone "you made your bed, now lay in it" you're saying whatever shit they're getting, they deserve it, they brought it upon themselves. Karma, biatch.
Also, he's giving Ben orders like he's a child who misbehaved - "go to your room, make your bed!" :D

Quit the snorin while you snooze

I know you BEN used to it

So keep whorin out for views

People snore and snooze on beds, where they sleep (previous bars).
If someone's "a snore", they're boring.
Snoozing means hitting the snooze button on your alarm clock, so you can stay in bed a little longer. To sleep, or to have sex with your boyfriend, for example.
Ben=Benzino, who "been used to" hitting the snooze button and whorin to get money for diss tracks. Redroofing with the boyfriend.
And then he's been whorin out to get views for the diss track.

You hate Em cuz of his color

You distorted out the truth

Do you hate him cuz he’s different

Or he’s a quarter of you?

Hating someone for their color, the definition of racism.
And yet, Ben keeps pushing the narrative that Em is a racist, that black people don't approve of him, he hasn't got any black friends, etc. Which is distorting the truth, black people seem to generally like him.
Idk how is Em a quarter of Benzino... I tried googling and found nothing.

Now, for the Spanish bars. I've taken one course of Spanish ~14 years ago, but listening to music, watching movies etc has kept the language somewhat fresh in my mind. I'll just use a dictionary and see where that takes me.

Dice lo que quiere 

I'm guessing it means "say what you love"... or "say what you like/want", that'd make more sense in the context.

Pero todo es una mentira

"But everything is a lie" 
He initially said he wrote the song, he's said multiple times Em's a racist, god knows what else he's lied about.

Robando la culura

Tu no eres un boricua

"Youre stealing culture" 
"You're not Puerto Rican"

Idk what Ben did to steal Puerto Rican culture and to Knox call him not Puerto Rican (Ben is half Puerto Rican), but he did something.

If you want it I’m the “one”

Benzino been-zero 

Mention Em for the dinero

Pero tu tienes cero 

"Dinero" is money. 
"Pero tu tienes cero" = "But you got zero/nothing" 
Knox's the one, the one calling Ben out, etc,
but also, it's Knox 1 - Ben 0.
"Benzino, been-zero" is making fun of his name, but also, he's referring to the previous bars about Ben being a has-been living in the past, and him not being a good rapper and apparently not good with his finances, either, since he's broke, he's got nothing.
Also, he's trying to use Em to get clout, to get money, but all he's got against Em is lies, so in that sense, he's also got nothing. No valid arguments.

Shoutout Stevie it’s good night/Knight

Shoutout Cliff for doin right

Shoutout “AR” got the sight

You move wrong

But copy, right? (copyright)

Now that Pegasus in flight

You want to peg us on these heights

But you Flawed 

You could get Nicked 

By these reactors for the lines

You already got No Life

But those Millyz on your mind

You sell-ticks (Celtics)

But drop no “dimes”

Knox is name dropping reactors like crazy:
- Stevie Knight
- Cliff Beats
- AR = Anthony Ray, I love Anthony Ray! One of my favorite rappers right now (if anyone reads my blog on the regular, they know what I mean when I say he "fits The Vibe")
- idk who are "Flawed", Nick, Millyz & Celtics, I'm sure they're reactors
- Black Pegasus
- No Life Shaq

AR also stands for Augmented Reality. You look at the world in the app through your phone screen and camera, and the app adds things there that ain't really there. It's used a lot in games.
Ben is making the wrong moves, like copyright claiming Cliff.
And he's not writing his own diss tracks, so he's "copying" them from other rappers. He also copied Cassidy's style of delivery so bad people thought Cassidy wrote the track.
Pegasus is a mythical winged horse from the Greek mythology, I'm sure all of us 90s kids have seen Hercules. Winged horses fly high.
And these reactors are high above Benzino's crap. They're fighting back, but they're fighting back fair and square, with diss tracks they wrote and videos they filmed. Honest work. Taking the high road (behaving morally when others aren't), while Ben is stooping low, being petty.
"To peg someone" is a double (knowing Knox, it's probably more, but I see two meanings). It means to "make a judgement about someone", but it's also a callback to the bars earlier about Ben being kinky (the feet stuff), and to him supposedly being gay (because pegging is a sex act where one person fucks another person in the ass with a strap-on).
But Ben cannot peg them, in either sense of the word, because he's flawed and would get nicked = they'd fool and overcharge him.
Ben's got no life of his own, that's why he's still up with this BS.
He's got "millyz" = millions of dollars in his mind, he's selling tickets...
But he's not dropping dimes, like 10s, his rap game is weak.

Seeing’ green 

But got no shine

I know who’s lurking out of sight

It must really hurt you that the best Boston

rapper’s white

sh*t

Green, like American paper money is. Euros have multiple colors, but 100€ bills are green, though.
Ben doesn't shine, he's not a diamond (good at rapping), he's dull (matte, not shiny), it's not his "time to shine", he's broke (doesn't have shiny coins), he's dumb (not too bright), etc.
I don't know who Knox is talking about at the end, who's a white rapper from Boston that's better than Ben - many of them, I'm sure. Google gives me Slaine and Qveen Herby. I like Qveen Herby, I don't know Slaine. I googled again, adding "white" into my search of "rappers Boston" and it gave me Millyz, so that's probably the guy Knox is talking about. I don't know Millyz, other than the mention on this song, twice (?), but I'm sure he's better than Ben. So is Qveen Herby.

And that was just a warm up

You know it’s bad when you’re gettin dogged on 

By a Youtube rapper bro

Nasty Knox 

See it woulda been fine if you didn’t try to censor us

Good luck “striking” this one tho with no pen/pin

Nasty Knox owned him, haha.
Striking with a copyright claim vs striking with a pen/pin.
"Putting the pin on something", like understanding something.
Also, he didn't write the diss, his own music sucks, so he's "got no pen". 

Ps. I got thinking about the title, "Clout Cobain"... He's chasing the clout, both words start with a C, but also, both Cobain and Benzino used a lot of drugs and both ended their own careers.

____________________________________

If Knox is reading this: Thanks, I had fun. You're great. ^^
If the world has gone crazy and Benzino is reading this: I just googled your name like a million times. You're welcome for the free clout.