Decoded- The Master

by Da CogNegro

Welcome to the second edition of Decoded. Inspired by Rap Genius, Decoded is a feature that breaks down the written and/or recorded work of DS Williams . In this edition, we will tackle the third verse of The Master. Written in 2011, The Master is actually one of the four hidden tracks on DS Will's first album Strength in Letters.
The first two verses take aim at dispelling the stereotypes, misnomers, and myths of people of color that were created and perpetuated by the powers that be. DS aggressively details the harsh conditions of the inner city down to scientific experiments that were conducted on unassuming African Americans. However, the third verse takes an interesting turn as it details a series of hoaxes and  perceived truths that were once viewed as factual events and beliefs. Often times, listeners have been perplexed by the references within the verse...until now! In this day of "Fake News" and "Alternative Facts" DS's The Master is more relevant than ever! -CgN




The third verse  begins at the 2:03 mark though I recommend you listen to the song in its' entirety to understand the full scope and narrative!

(Verse 3)
We all live on a world that is really flat
While the planet is supported on a turtle's back
Watching Rain Follows Plow on California Island
Giants found in Cardiff got the natives "wildin"
Spontaneous Generation taught without a fault
While Cottingley Fairies flying in Capone's vault
Heard They found a man over down in Piltdown
War Of Worlds tale got a familiar sound
Diaries of Hitler....Hughes Biography...
Intelligence that was measured with mere Pherenolgy
It's never odd to me, truth comes in many shades
Or maybe that's the intentions whenever it is made
Fabrications that's calculated leading  astray
The Headlines that's deceptive are printed everyday
The Devil's strongest act lies in his greates tirck
Is convincing the world that he doesn't exist

And now it's time for breakdown!

 

We all live on the world that is really flat

While the planet is supported on a turtle's back

The Flat Earth model is an archaic conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth theory, including Greece, civilizations of the Near East, India and China.

The World Turtle  is a mytheme of a giant turtle supporting or containing the world. The mytheme, occurs in Chinese mythology and the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas

Watching Rain Follows Plow on California Island

Giants found in Cardiff got the natives "wilding"

Rain Follows Plow is the conventional name for a now-discredited theory of climatology that was popular throughout the American West and Australia during the late 19th century.The basic premise of the theory was that human habitation and agriculture effected a permanent change in the climate.

The Island of California refers to a long-held Spanish misconception, dating from the 16th century, that California was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island separated from the continent by a strait now known as the Gulf of California. One of the most famous cartographic errors in history, it was illustrated on many maps during the 17th and 18th centuries, despite contradictory evidence from various explorers. The legend was initially infused with the idea that California was a paradise, like the Garden of Eden or Atlantis.

The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous hoaxes in United States history. It was a 10-foot-tall "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York.The giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument at a Methodist revival meeting about Genesis 6:4 stating that there were giants who once lived on Earth.

"Spontaneous Generation Taught Without a fault

While Cottingley Fairies flying in Capone's vault"

Spontaneous generation  is an obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms. Typically, the idea was that certain forms such as fleas could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh. The theory was debunked by the experiments of Louis Pasteur during the 19th century    

The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England.
The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as he interpreted the photographs as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Though many believed that the photos were authentic,  both Doyle and Griffiths admitted that the photographs were faked, using cardboard cutouts of fairies copied from a popular children's book. 

The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults is an infamous two-hour live American television special that was broadcast on April 21, 1986.Hosted by TV personality Geraldo Rivera, the special centered on the opening of a secret vault in the Lexington Hotel once owned by noted crime lord Al Capone, which turned out to be empty except for debris. 

"Heard they found man over down in Piltdown

The War Of Worlds tale has a familiar sound"

The Piltdown Man was a hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human.In 1912, the amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between ape and man after finding a section of a human-like skull in gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex. Nevertheless, exposed in 1953 as a forgery. It was found to have consisted of the altered mandible and some teeth of an orangutan deliberately combined with the cranium of a fully developed, though small-brained, modern human.

The War of the Worlds is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on Sunday, October 30, 1938.Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds . It became famous for allegedly causing mass panic and hysteria.

"Diaries of Hitler,Hughes Biography.

Intelligence that was measured with mere Phrenology"

The Hitler Diaries were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983.The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks by the West German news magazine Stern, which sold serialisation rights to several news organisations. One of the publications involved was The Sunday Times, who asked their independent director, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, to authenticate the diaries; he did so, pronouncing them genuine. Kujau  spent time in prison for his parts in the fraud, and several newspaper editors lost their jobs. 

Clifford Michael Irving is an American novelist and investigative reporter. He is best known for an "autobiography" allegedly written as told to him by billionaire recluse Howard Hughes. The fictional work was to have been published in 1972. After Hughes denounced him and sued the publisher, McGraw-Hill, Irving and his collaborators confessed to the hoax. He was sentenced to  2 ¹⁄₂ years in prison, of which he served 17 months.

Phrenology is a pseudomedicine primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. Although both of those ideas have a basis in reality,Phrenology is now regarded as an obsolete combination of primitive anatomy and moral philosophy

"The Devil's strongest act lies in his greatest trick

Is convincing the world that he doesn't exist"

This line is quite similar to the one used  by Roger "Verbal" Kint, played by Kevin Spacey in ,The Usual Suspects. Within the song, DS is stating that the powers that be have convinced the masses that there are no entities responsible for the misleading of the populace.

(Credit To Wikipedia For  Descriptions of Each Reference)