9 Elements

(album: Kristyles - 2003)

Well my ladies and gentlemen
This is a rapsession and my name is "KRS-One!"
And when I talk about "Hip-Hop Music!", I know

One: Breaking or breakdancing
Rally b-boying, freestyle or streetdancing
Two: MC'ing or rap
Divine speech what I'm doing right now no act
Three: Grafitti art or burning bombing
Tagging, writing, now you're learning! uh!
Four: DJ'ing, we ain't playing!
[scratch] You know what I'm saying!
Five: Beatboxing
Give me a [beatboxin] Yes and we rockin'!
Six: Street fashion, looking fly
Catching the eye while them cats walk on by
Seven: Street language, our verbal communication
Our codes throughout the nation
Eight: Street knowledge, common sense
The wisdom of the elders from way back whence
Nine: Street entrepreneur realism
No job, just get up call 'em and get 'em

Here's how I'm telling it, all 9 Elements
We stand in love, no we're never failing it
Intelligent? No doubt
Hip-Hop? We're not selling it out, we're just letting it out
If you're checking us out this hour, we teatching hip-hop
Holy integrated people have it, I'm the present power!

Rap is something you do!
3x Hip-Hop is something you live! [scratched]
Rap is something you do!
Hip-Hop is something you live! [scratched]

Skaters, BMX-bike riders rock
Don't you ever stop! You are hip-hop
You doing the same things we did on our block in the suburbs
You know you be packing that black block
Selling that crackrock and ecstacy
Getting pissydrunk, falling out next to me
But like I told those in the ghettoes
Here's the facts! True hip-hop is so much more than that
Some much more than rap, so much more than beats
Hip-hop is all about victory over the streets
What you see on TV is a lie
That's not something you wanna live or pattern your life by
But, huh that's too much preaching ain't it?
You don't want the ?education[?], you wanna be dead on the pavement
Well, so be it, some of ya'll ain't gonna see it
Others wanna enslave your mind! Kris wanna free it!

[Chorus]
Rap is something you do!
5x Hip-Hop is something you live! [scratched]

"Oh yea" [scratched] From "P is dead"

"I have spent my whole life livin'", "talk to the fullest", "no doubt"

You know that's why these rappers can't hang
Cause the essence of hip-hop is not a material thang
They so careless, hip-hop is in a [?] we give
Rap we do, hip-hop we live
How many times I gotta say it? How the radio ain't gonna play it
And you hip-hoppers sit back and okay it
Think about it! (think about it)
The present course of action, we have got to reroute it!

[Chorus: repeat 3X]
Hip-Hop is something you live!