What It Is

(album: The Beautiful Mixtape Vol. 2: The Struggle Continues - 2005)

[Mos Def/Yasiin Bey:]
The way I feel
Sometime it's just hard to sit still
Life is too passionate, life is too real
Sometime I gotta chill, mellow back, blow a smoke
Smile on my face but it's really no joke
You feel it in the street the people breathe without hope
They going through the motion
They dimming down the focus
The focus get clear then the light turn sharp
And the eyes get teary
The mind grow weary
I speak it so clearly sometime ya'll don't hear me
I'll push it through a bass note maybe ya'll will feel me
I feel it in my bones and I'm so wide awake
I'm hardly ever sleep, my flow forever deep
When there's volumes of scriptures for volumes of beats
My presence speaks volumes before I say a word
I'm everywhere: penthouse, pavement or curb
Cradle to the grave tall cathedral or a shelf
Universal ghetto life holler black and know it well
Quiet storm, vital form
Pen push the right across
Line is a vital force
High, low or right across
Sure as a lion's roar
Voice is a siren
Then swing 'round, ring out, bring down a tyrant
Chop a small axe and knock a giant lopsided
The world is so DANGEROUS there's no need for frighting
Niggas try to hide like the struggle won't find them
And the sun bust through the cloud to clearly to remind them
It's everywhere: penthouse, pavement to curb
Cradle to the grave tall cathedral or a shelf
Universal ghetto life holler black and know it well
What it is? You know, New York
What it is? Chi-Town, get down
What it is? Dirty south, work it out
The west you are now rocking with the best
(What it is?) Mos Def, and Kweli Black Star
(What it is?) Keep shining, perfect diamond, under pressure
(What it is?) True and living, got to give 'em, rythmn, blackness

[Talib Kweli:]
It's the accurate assassin shit
The tool that you get blasted with
It's blacker than when the lights go off after disaster hits
Drop in with it faster but I've mastered it
You crash your whip
Pass it in my lane cause my materials are hazardous (Whoa)
These ain't just punchlines: I'll slap the shit out you
You try to disrespect the style my people blacking out to
This the, manual how to allow true
Skill to flow out you
So you the one that everybody bow to
Money get off your knees, that ain't what I mean
Cutting clean when I murder emcees the blood run inbetween
The gutters so what I utter obscene like Butterbean
Mean like Cinda Williams tight like the Flatbush Brothers in another scene
I'm mo' betta, the flow wetter than an orgasm
The word seize ya 'til ya rolling on the floor with all sorts of spams
I'm off the chain, off the hook, fuck it, off the wagon
Get emcees mad like Jewish people when they saw The Passion
This that Black Star shit, the Pharaoh with the Cuban cigar
My people locked behind them so I spit bars
Black music, you could ease back relax to it
Pull out gats to it and clap to it
Blow out a back to it
Roll a bag or two or three to it
Blow a tree to it
It's that crack but we added a little poetry to it
Lean back like a smack user, the rap Zab Judah
Get you high without the side effects of your average juicer
What it is? Kweli, like ODB I'm for the kids
You know Black Star, Black Star (What it is?!)
Shining like eight lights we bright
This the cut give you a slice of life, think twice
What it is? Mos Def, and Kweli
The honorable and introduced properly
(What it is?!) Black Star never burn out
When we crash the party the whole ghetto turn out

[DJ Clark Kent:]
[?]... alright here I go
Yeah, Brooklyn's finest the God's favorite DJ
BK DJ Clark Kent, ya heard me?
And I'm shouting out to my man, my man, my man
One of the nicest ever, one of the nicest to do it
BK emcee Talib Kweli man
With that new shit, man, I'm with you let's ride...
You my nig-Yo Talib, for real, man, I really real
Your album dude? (Alright) Whoa
And not for nothing man I could've got on that album
With some of that shit I had, man [*laughter*]