Shadowing Practice: Dave "Hangman" Official Lyrics & Meaning | Verified - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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I think there was a lot going on in London at the time of me writing this
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and I wanted to put it into a song and say how I felt about it.
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There was a lot going on around things that I had said online.
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I wanted to address some of those, make it clear as to what I was thinking and feeling.
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So that's how it came.
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When I was younger I was charged up.
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I was mad like, So the lyrics are like about violent things and blah, blah, blah.
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As I've grown up and as I've matured with things like Hangman, I'm trying to give a viewpoint of the world and just say what I see and what I think.
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I might make a song that's ignorant from time to time, but I've got the license to be ignorant.
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You know, social media makes everyone seem really friendly until a situation happens
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and then you start to question all the people you're around.
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So that was me thinking that and feeling that and putting that into the world, you know?
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When you're actually trying to do something and when you want to say like, yo, let's go out and let's put in some work and build something for the future.
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It takes long for people to respond, but if you say that you're having a party, you can get everyone's attention instantly.
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That situation is about a model from London called Harry who'd been murdered.
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I made a tweet in response to that talking about police powers and stopping and searching and knife crime,
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which was obviously in response to something that had happened, but it was like an emotional response as to how upset it had made me.
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And life's so funny.
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I've got a message saying that the streets don't love me.
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The streets don't love you.
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If you died today, they wouldn't donate to your fucking GoFundMe.
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Obviously, it takes effort for you to go and DM an artist and say, yeah, the streets don't love you or blah, blah, blah.
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Man was talking like he was some super representative of the streets.
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If you actually died today, like you, who's just DM'd me this, I wonder what would happen in response.
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If the streets are going to come together and make sure that you get a good funeral, get a good send off.
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Are you going to be missed and loved the way that you imagine it?
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Because a lot of people have got this warped reality of the things that they stand for and represent.
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Poet and Chucky have a podcast.
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Poet is like a personality, influencer.
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Chucky is a DJ and they're the same.
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I know both of them personally.
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That's slang in the UK.
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Okay, rushed is obviously slang for attack or getting beaten up and whatever.
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My mum trying to wake me up is the only time that someone has ever rushed me.
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But it's like, not saying that anyone's invincible or untouchable.
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I'm very far from that, but I see people twisting words, putting together dumb rumors and saying things.
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I just know people that have been smoking strains of weed and it's changed them.
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I've seen people lose their drive, lose their ambition, lose their sense of humor, their hunger to do anything and just become different people.
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And the only thing that ties it all together is the things that they've been smoking.
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Back in the day or before, if you put pressure on someone, you just put pressure and then you'd hear it through people, innit?
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But nowadays it's like, if I want to do something to you, for everyone to know that something has happened, I need to film it.
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I need to send it to someone.
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It needs to go viral.
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It needs to be a bigger thing.
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If you can be a Ute and you're going out, you're going to school, college, whatever it is that you need to do,
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whether it's legal or illegal, you're doing it you have an ambition to take yourself out of where you are, you know, help your people, the people around you, then that's gangster, isn't it?
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So obviously when you get a prison sentence, they say like, oh, you've got a bird.
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My brother hasn't got like, he never got like six months.
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He got a long bird, which was an ostrich.
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So don't talk about experience.
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I say what I want and that's period.
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My team's serious.
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I still got a squad full of lifers from Dovegate to ISIS.
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Freedom is priceless.
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And I see a lot of man trying to draw me out.
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I feel the tension in the air when I walk around.
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But would you rather be the person talking or the person doing all the things that people talk about?
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I'm a huge Kanye West fan as well and this is what I think about music.
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I think that as musicians, when you're actually speaking and giving thoughts and opinions outside of your music, it's so easy for you to get drawn out,
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say things that you don't mean, say things that you do mean, but the world shouldn't know.
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The world shouldn't know everything that everyone thinks.
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the hangman, our surge about the times that I had man, and brought the fan together like when Tommy got the black hand.
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Boy, I can't even explain too much if you haven't watched Peaky Blinders, because you might, it will be a spoiler.
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Tommy Shelby is a character from a TV show called the Peaky Blinders.
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When you see the black hand, it all makes sense, isn't it?
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all your broskies and your affiliates and all the man that you were standing in the pictures with.
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They ain't visiting because they ain't got a thing to give.
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I'm a hypocrite, but that line between stopping it and living it and sitting in the thick of it.
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You would think I told my boy to come party in South
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because this year I said we need to touch bigger fish.
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Too many youths are dying and I'm sick of it.
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Everyone takes everything you say so literally, but you're a rapper so you got the responsibility to put your message across.
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So I was trying to find the balance between actually being real to yourself
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and not stopping yourself from saying the things that you want to say
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because of an image that you're trying to give off and the better person you're trying to be, but also informing the people and the youth as to what's positive.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Dave "Hangman" Official Lyrics & Meaning”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: blah, streets, obviously, response. This video has 75 sentences and 1108 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:01. The speaker talks at a natural 158 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hangman noun | /ˈhæŋˌmæn/ | An executioner responsible for hanging criminals. |
| sling noun | /ˈslɪŋ/ | An instrument for throwing stones or other missiles, consisting of a short strap with two strings fastened to its ends, or with a string fastened to one end… |
| ambition noun | /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/ | Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's… |
| ignorant adjective | /ˈɪɡ.nə.ɹənt/ | Unknowledgeable or uneducated; characterized by ignorance. |
| hypocrite noun | /ˈhɪ.pə.kɹɪt/ | Someone who practices hypocrisy, who pretends to hold beliefs, or whose actions are not consistent with their claimed beliefs. |
| influencer noun | /ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)/ | A person who or a thing which influences. |
| invincible adjective | /ɪnˈvɪn.sə.bəl/ | Impossible to defeat, destroy, or kill; too powerful to be defeated or overcome. |
| ostrich noun | /ˈɔs.tɹɪt͡ʃ/ | A large flightless bird of the order Struthioniformes. |
| untouchable noun | /ʌnˈtʌtʃəbəl/ | A criminal who is so well-connected that they cannot be harmed. |
| spoiler noun | /ˈspɔɪ.lɚ/ | One who spoils; a plunderer; a pillager; a robber; a despoiler. |
| gangster noun | /ˈɡæŋ.stəː/ | A member of a criminal or street gang. |
| priceless adjective | /ˈpɹaɪslɪs/ | So precious as not to be obtainable or sold at any price. |
| warp noun | /ˈwɔːp/ | The state, quality, or condition of being physically bent or twisted out of shape. |
| viewpoint noun | /ˈvjuː.pɔɪnt/ | The position from which something is observed or considered |
| rumor noun | /ˈɹumɚ/ | A statement or claim of questionable accuracy, from no known reliable source, usually spread by word of mouth. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| come together verb | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | To assemble; to congregate; to combine. |
| draw out verb | To make (something) last for more time than is necessary; to prolong; to extend. | |
| give off verb | /ɡɪv ɒf/ | To emit; to produce and send forth; to come across in some manner. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. | |
| put together verb | To assemble, construct, build, or formulate. | |
| send off verb | /sɛnˈdɒf/ | To send; to dispatch. |
| walk around verb | To walk with no planned destination; to meander. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- The streets don't love you.
- I say what I want and that's period.
- When you see the black hand, it all makes sense, isn't it?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been smoking · they've been smoking |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If you died today, they wouldn't donate |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've grown · has ever rushed · I've seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was charged · been murdered · be missed |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 41 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/, musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: influencer /ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)/, invincible /ɪnˈvɪn.sə.bəl/, untouchable /ʌnˈtʌtʃəbəl/, affiliate /əˈfɪl.i.eɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like hangman, sling, ambition.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.