Work REMIX
Song Meaning

“Work REMIX” by A$AP Ferg is a braggadocio posse cut in which “put in work” means both hustling for money and carrying out violence on rivals. The hook, “Put in work, put ’em in the dirt,” ties the two meanings together, and each guest verse extends that idea from their own turf.

The meaning

The central idea of the song is that “work” is a double word: it covers the hustle that makes money and the violence that protects it. The hook, “Put in work, put in work / Put in work, put ’em in the dirt,” never separates the two. Ferg’s opening verse moves between flexing (“Coogi down to the socks like I’m Biggie Poppa”) and threats (“Run up in the building, semi gon’ squirt”), so the cash and the killing arrive as one package of status.

The obvious rival reading is that this is only a party record about money and women, with the violence as cartoon punctuation. The lyrics do carry plenty of that tone: the twerk commands, the pimp bragging, the jokes about Cheerios and Kinko’s. But the shooting lines are not isolated. Ferg’s verse ends with “Trinidad maniac with an all-gold hearse,” French Montana says “He shot me, so I had to do it,” and ScHoolboy Q threatens to “Spray his ass in front of the church.” Posturing is the genre’s habit, but the repetition across five rappers makes violence the song’s main subject, with the luxury as the proof that the work paid off.

Each guest narrows that theme to a different place. French Montana frames it as retaliation and street credibility, answering an “Illuminati?” question with “I’m from the streets” and telling listeners to “pray for the weak.” Trinidad James moves the same idea to the Caribbean diaspora: “12-years-old with guns in hand,” shouts to Trinidad and Jamaica, and a closing complaint that “no green card in this struggle” means immigration gives nothing, so he grinds for himself. His “work” is partly immigrant labor, a sense the hook is built to hold.

ScHoolboy Q and A$AP Rocky bring the cost into view. Q opens with “A lot of niggas died, should’ve been from Hoover Street,” and Rocky follows with “A lot of homies cried / Due to crimes, homicide.” Both mention the grief right beside the bragging, which keeps the song from being pure celebration. The lines read less as regret than as a statement of what the lifestyle has already taken from them, offered as a credential.

Taken together, the verses make “work” the song’s way of saying that the money and the bodies come from the same place. The remix gathers the A$AP crew with outside guests from New York, Montana, Atlanta and Compton, and each one defines work in terms of his own block. What it adds up to is a shared code in which showing off wealth and being willing to kill are the same claim of earned respect, and the closing line, “Loaded Lux, put in work,” sets the two side by side one last time.

Last updated 2026-10-13 · Request a fresh look at this song