Oprah clapped along with the crowd as Donda West beamed, watching her son sing to him.
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The original album version of “Hey Mama” that Kanye put on Late Registration in 2005 would have made this list somewhere in the middle. When Kanye premiered the song in front of his mom on Oprah it was cute.
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He’s still the Broad Street Bully-he'll literally decapitate anyone who threatens to hurt the two most important women in his life-but more importantly he's a loving son and grandson, in the same verse rapping “ What can I do but bow down and give offerings / For the lady with the softest skin / Keep picturin' Grams tuckin' me in.” He comes to understand the extreme loneliness of loss: “ Cuz I'm knowin I can't make it alone / You told me not to buy you a new house because in Heaven's your home.” Him coming to grips with her insistence that there's no sense in him buying her a new home (" And as hurt as I was, I had to smile witcha") is heartbreaking.įor Beanie, the song is a testament to how far he’d go to protect his mother and grandmother, and just how much he adores them. Scarface comes to accept death as a part of life and grapples with believing in God. “I'm never gon' forget that, look in your eyes, when you told me that my grandfather died / It was like nothing had happened, and I'm knowin that you miss him / But to accept death, is just the side of a good Christian.” Sampling The Dramatics' “It Ain’t Rainin' (On Nobody’s House But Mine)” made this song infectious, but Scarface’s verse is debatably one of the most emotional of all time: In the end, though, Sandi and Drake always end up in each other’s arms. Drake isn’t afraid to talk about how ugly those got, mentioning multiple times how his mom has threatened and tried to run away from home. Her poor smoking and spending habits fueled their arguments. Before Drake’s rap career blew up, he faced the challenges of caring for Sandi while she fought (and still continues to fight) rheumatoid arthritis. But Drake doesn’t have to rap about raping his mom or telling her he'll never go to her funeral for listeners to understand that he and Sandi have a loving, yet complicated relationship. Eminem is obviously the first rapper that comes to mind when we think mommy issues, and Logic has also rapped about how his mother choked him and called him a n*gger as a child. “And your back hurt and your neck hurt / And you smoking heavy / And I sit next to you and I lecture you / Because those are deadly / And then you ash it and we argue / About spending money on bullshit / And you tell me I’m just like my father / My one button, you push it / Now it's, "Fuck you, I hate you, I'll move out in a heartbeat!" / And I leave out and you call me, you tell me that you sorry / You love me and I love you.”ĭrake may be one of the few rappers with a Mama Song like “Look What You’ve Done,” but he’s not alone. “December 4th” is great, but ultimately loses points because while his mom is certainly very present, the song is really about Jay and his own accomplishments. Jay has several other songs centered around his mama, including “I Made It” (2006) and “Blueprint (Momma loves me)” (2001), though none as immediately recognizable and notable as this Black Album standout. While a mother’s voice is often included as a voicemail in an outro, Jay’s mother Gloria Carter gets to speak between each of the verses on “December 4th.” Carter gives her own perspective and voices her feelings as she tells us how Shawn was the only one of her four children who didn’t give her any pain when he was born, how she knew he was special, and when she bought him the boombox that changed his life. Jay gets props for giving his mom the most vocals in a Mama Song ever. We’ve combed through every mother-loving hip-hop song out there to highlight the best of the best.