Meaning of “Litty (Freestyle)” by Joyner Lucas

The song “Litty (Freestyle)” is Joyner Lucas’s response to the “Lucky You (Freestlye)” diss released a short time prior by rapper Tory Lanez. In that song, Lanez strongly attacked Lucas.

 Verse 1

The first verse comes straight off with an insult as Joyner states that Lanez is an “R&B” rapper. He is basically insinuating he doesn’t possess street credibility, which is essential to having a good reputation in the rap industry. Then he compares Lanez to PaRappa the Rapper, which is a videogame character and again not one to be taken seriously.

Joyner then lets Tory know that whereas he may have had some commercial success as a rapper, he is still not up to his level. Joyner then brings Trippie Redd directly into the mix and compares him and Lanez to Ren and Stimpy, which similar to PaRappa are again cartoon characters.  Lucas then goes on to lay a barrage of insults which, in addition to centering around Lanez lack of A-list status in the rap industry, start to get more personal. For example, he insinuates he is a drug addict. He also says Lanez is too small to be physically “dangerous” and had cosmetic surgery on his hairline.

Chorus

The chorus of the Litty freestyle questions why Tory Lanez initiated the beef in the first place.  Then it goes on to once again reiterate Joyner’s lyrical superiority, stating not only that he was already a better lyricist as a child then Lanez is currently but also vehemently asserting that he is ever ready to engage him in a rap battle, no matter what time of the year it may be, even if it’s on Tory Lanez “birthday”.  The chorus concludes by reintroducing the idea that Tory made a mistake by starting the quarrel and as a result he’s now going to “need first aid”.

Verse 2

Joyner begins the second verse by exalting himself and stating how crazy he is, with mental instability being generally seen as a positive under popular-rap ideology.  Then he once again brings in a comparison of his rivals to cartoon characters and also questions their sense of fashion.  He then goes on to make a number of direct comparisons and contrasts between he and Lanez, all of which paint Joyner as the better artist.  The lyrics then take on a more dangerous tone as Lucas starts to brag about owning a gun and his willingness to use it in relation to this beef.  However he soon reverts back to more-colorful criticisms of Tory, focusing on his inferior rapping skills and the fact he sounds better as a singer than a rapper.  Afterwards Joyner once again disses Tory’s physical appearance by saying that he had to get his “teeth done”.  Then he makes some type of weird, sexually-based, indecipherable statement concerning Trippie Redd and currently-incarcerated rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine.

Outro

Joyner concludes the entire track on a lighter note by stating now that he has officially responded to Tory Lanez diss, the two of them should collaborate and make a song together.