Magic Stick by Lil' Kim feat. 50 Cent (2003)

Lil' Kim and 50 Cent, both at the peak of their commercial powers in 2003, traded verses about a "magic stick" and took the result to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The metaphor is never dropped and never explained, because it does not need to be. It is a duet in the sense that a tennis rally is a duet: competitive, rhythmic and entirely about the stick.

The song's reputation rests on how completely it commits. Some innuendo tracks have one dirty line and a lot of filler; this one is the metaphor from the first bar to the last, over a slinky, minimal beat that leaves room for every syllable. It was released without a video, which was unusual for a single that big, reportedly because the two artists could not agree on the shoot, and it reached number two on radio and word of mouth alone, which is how most magic tricks travel.

Its afterlife arrived two years later, when 50 Cent took the same idea to number one for nine weeks as Candy Shop, with the ownership transferred and the "stick" rebranded as a "lollipop". Magic Stick remains the proof that a metaphor can carry a single to number two with no video and no word, and Kim's verse remains the one people quote, usually too loudly.