I am a frequent user of Rap Genius just for the purpose that it was intended for: decoding rap lyrics. Although I enjoy rap music, I am by no means immersed in hip hop culture, so many of the cultural references are entirely lost on me. It’s like when your crappy high school English teacher assigns you Canterbury Tales without any kind of explanatory text, as if an American teenage cheerleader or stoner is going to know what the significance of being from Bath was in the 14th century or that Bath is even a place and not just a room in one’s home. Rap Genius is the cliff notes for fairweather rap fans like myself who can barely keep up with if St. Louis counts as the Dirty South or not.

Now Rap Genius has expanded to two other realms that I love: literature and food. Here’s a glimpse of how recipes are handled, in “How to make any meatball in 5 steps” and  literature in the first chapter of The Great Gatsby.