Flight 187

Album: Before I Self Destruct (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is an iTunes only bonus track from 50 Cent's fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct.
  • "187" is police code for murder, and the term entered the rap lexicon in the early '90s among West Coast gangsta rappers looking for an another way to express the crime.
  • Some fans interpreted the comparison in this song of Jay-Z to sitcom character Steve Urkel as a dis. However 50 explained to MTV News that the lyric was just an observation. "It was the glasses," 50 explained. "They saw the glasses. I didn't Photoshop glasses on him. I think Jay is really conscious of his actual moves. He does those things to make a statement in different ways to create clarity that he doesn't have to be the way people want him to be. He can do what he wants. But [I wrote the song] out of the perspective of me mentioning things I thought were interesting."
  • Fif noted to MTV News that everyone gravitated toward the Jay-Z lyric despite also mentioning Britney Spears and even members of his own musical family on the song. He said: "I even wrote, 'Em made me a star and Dre is taking a long time to mix my records. I gotta talk to Jimmy [Iovine] about it.' I wrote about Britney Spears. I said a lot of interesting things on the record, but they focus on Jay because his album is releasing. Of course, with those marketing dollars being spent, he's the focus. The new XXL, there's about 40 pages of Jay-Z on there. That boy is serious when it comes to his [Blueprint 3 album] layout. When it comes time for him to have companies market and promote him as a brand, he does a great job."

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