Lil Wayne’s coronation as a trustworthy heroin brand aside, it’s the recently released Tha Carter IV preview single “6’7” that’s had most people slinging “dope” (apologies)—in particular the line “Real Gs move in silence like lasagna,” which is the sort of lyric that immediately leaps out not only for its clever wordplay, but for working the word “lasagna” into a hip-hop song. However, while people like rapper Joe Budden (“silly, but really dope”) to BET producer Carl Chery (“pretty dope”) have already sung its praises, it seems not everyone’s into it: It makes Questlove feel old, for example, while various hip-hop blogs and commenters have deemed it a “dope idea, poor execution”—chiefly because, as some have argued, the “G” in “lasagna” isn’t really silent.
Billboard’s Mariel Concepcion delved deep into Lasagnagate (h/t to The Hairpin), even asking folks to stop pretending to work and testify like MTV’s Jayson Rodriguez, who says, “A cursory listen and the line comes off clever. But then if you slow down and think about how the 'g' and the 'n' connect, you realize they work in conjunction to make the pronunciation of the word come together so it takes the sting out of the line.” (Rodriguez does concede, “The sentiment, though, remains.”) And that’s true, as the “G” does change the way that last syllable hits, otherwise it would just sound like “la-sa-na,” instead of like this. But still, that doesn’t mean Lil Wayne is wrong, as there’s clearly no “G” sound in the word’s pronunciation—so he should get off on a technicality here.
Of course, that still doesn’t absolve him from that glaring lack of a preposition: Shouldn’t it be “Real Gs move in silence like in lasagna”? After all, lasagna certainly doesn't move in silence; were it to become ambulatory, in fact, it would make all sorts of squishy noodle noises. So where’s the Internet Pedantry Police on this one?