Hip Hop

(album: Black On Both Sides - 1999)

You say "one for the treble, two for the time"
Come on, y'all, let's rock this!
You say "one for the treble, two for the time"
Come on!
Speech is my hammer, bang the world into shape
Now let it fall, (huh!)

My restlessness is my nemesis
It's hard to really chill and sit still, committed to page
I write a rhyme, sometimes won't finish for days
Scrutinize my literature from the large to the miniature
I mathematically add-minister, subtract the wack
Selector, wheel it back, I'm feeling that
From the core to the perimeter black
You know the motto, stay fluid even in staccato (Mos Def)
Full blooded, full throttle
Breathe deep inside the drum hollow... There's the hum
Young man, where you from? Brooklyn number one!
Native son, speaking in the native tongue
I got my eyes on tomorrow (there it is)
While you still trying to find where it is
I'm on the Ave where it lives and dies, violently but silently
Shine so vibrantly that eyes squint to catch a glimpse
Embrace the bass with my dark ink fingertips
Used to speak the King's En-ga-lish
But caught a rash on my lips, so now my chat just like dis
Long range from the base-line (swish)
Move like an apparition, low to the ground with ammunition
(Chi-chi-pow) Move from the gate, voice cued
On your tape, putting food on your plate
Many crews can relate, who choosing your fate (yo)
We went from picking cotton
To chain gang line chopping, to be-bopping, to hip-hopping
Blues people got the blue chip stock option
Invisible man, got the whole world watching
(Where ya at?) I'm high, low, east, west, all over your map
I'm getting big props, with this thing called hip-hop
Where you can either get paid or get shot
When your product in stock, the fair-weather friends flock
When your chart position drop, then the phone calls
Chill for a minute, let's see who else hot, snatch your shelf spot
Don't gas yourself, akh'
The industry just a better built cell block
A long way from the shell tops
And the bells that L rocked (rock, rock, rock, rock...)

The more emotion I put into it, the harder I rock

Hip-hop is prosecution evidence
An out of court settlement, ad space for liquor
Sick without benefits (hungh!) Luxury tenements
Choking the skyline, it's low life getting tree-top high
It is a back water remedy
Bitter and tender memory, a class E felony
Facing the death penalty (hungh!)
Stimulant and sedative, original repetitive
Violently competitive, a school unaccredited
The break beats you get broken with on time and inappropriate
Hip-hop went from selling crack to smoking it
Medicine for loneliness remind me of Thelonius and Dizzy
Propers to B-Boys getting busy
The war-time snap shot, the working man's jack-pot
A two dollar snack box sold beneath the crack spot
Olympic sponsor of the black Glock
Gold medalist in the back shot
From the sovereign state of the have-nots
Where farmers have trouble with cash crops (woo)
It's all-city like Phase 2
Hip-hop will simply amaze you, praise you, pay you
Do whatever you say do, but, black, it can't save you