Twice Inna Lifetime

(album: Black Star - 1998)

Yo, we been through this before right?
So we figuring, if we gonna do it, we gotta freak it, y'know what I'm sayin'?
'Cause everything gotta go up from here, right?
So Hi-Tek, turn it up a notch

Hail Mary, 'matta fact hail Jane
Niggaz take my name in vain like I was cocaine
My affirmations kill emcees like assassination
Bringing you pain until you wish you had a vaccination

Or vaccine, I shine like Vaseline
Gas plays like petroleum, walk over them like linoleum
My vocab expand like a rubber band
Walking nekkid through the motherland, give the finger to my brother man

Niggaz just don't understand my reasons, I transcend like season
And scar these rappers like legion
It's treason, my suspension attract attention
I'm venting, giving these chicken heads detention

Did I mention my name, yo, go by the Jane Doe
Drenched in Polo, chill downtown in Soho
You don't know, this is just half my potential
Check my credentials, come harder than sequential

It's essential, you listen, I drive, you a pedestrian
They bless me on the track 'cause I attack with' the estrogen
Rhyme against the best a men, Jane burn it up
When you hear it in the whip, tell your man to turn it up

Yo, get it, yo
Yo, we fortified live, supporting allies
The wack is trying to shorten our lives, it sorta waters my eyes

But here is some'n the crying talk about
The verse on that cassette you and cousin fought about
That led to God and Satan's falling out
Encourage the liquor for those who ain't here that you pouring out

On 3-way, your parents, preacher and spouse called my house
Revive or ruin, my theories of mics
Sony or Aiwa, black or white, I fit in all stereotypes

Search for a cast to plot, I make you a laughing stock
So shook, I could walk a half a block and feel the aftershocks
Rain of acid drops, seek some help, now don't rewind
Get it the first time, shouldn't have to repeat myself

Eternally verbally, I have numbers, succumb to time outs
In rhyme bouts you'll dial 9, just to get a line out
Known fact or factors and non-rappers fractured
Results in more cast appearances than a hundred actors
Emcees I'm testing like diseases injected in gerbils
Wordsworth, Kweli, Hi-Tek, Reflection Eternal, what

My style high life like Fonz when I burn heads like a conk
'Cause niggaz front, when their chances get slim like Pharoahe Monch
Thinking they shits is heavy when they light like illumination
Intellectual masturbation with premature ejaculation

I'm coming cleaner than vaccinations
My fascination with character assassination
Got these niggaz burning like sensation

We keep it hot like matches and on lock like latches
Wack emcees get they microphones snatched like Lee patches
So you go, to every wack muthafucka that you know
My lyrics they get up in your genes like Parasucos

So there's no mystery about the father, niggaz is hot and bothered
Like the bitches that they are, taking pictures with stars
And got 'em open, but after they little hopes and dreams get broken
Me and Hi-Tek, we live long and prosper like Vulcans

Think I'm jokin'? We both got sons, we make cream and break dreams
See through the fake schemes, wiping your slate clean
Like a squeegee, we be lighting shit up like phosphorus
Turning flamboyant niggaz anonymous, depressing to optimus
You stopping us is preposterous, like an androgenous masohganist

You picking the wrong time, stepping to me
When I'm in my prime like Optimus
Transforming, from rookie of the year to veteran
Hip-hop is big business like Con Edison or medicine
But fuck it, they gonna let us in, or else we rush the door
I got too many reasons, save your whys and what fors

This is twice inna lifetime so I'm letting you know
Black star, Wordsworth, Punchline and Jane Doe
Lyrical compete and we emcee
We got the fortified five, exhibit level degree

Check it, I keep dough in my pocket while you follow the false prophet
Get deep like Islamics wrapped in a white garment
I touch topics that try to open up your optics
Vacate in the Tropics, you dodging bullets in the projects

Cut the nonsense, I'm hotter than alot a men
Start honoring, got more wifes than Solomon
Fuck the squad you in, a yo, we be the biddomb
Regardless what I spit on, you worse with the tracks I shit on

Once you get on, it's fair you can't trust
Words and Punch, make rappers march like the third month
I build with friends, lyrically spit gems
Call me diamond, 'cause I'm your girl's best friend

Emcees are born losers, alcoholic abusers
I'll go on the radio and start a gay rumor
And then I'll talk about how the crowd tried to boo ya
Label shoot ya, stressed out with brain tumors

My gat claps, 50 percent of the wack
Take it back to real rap, Krylons with' the fat cap
Get robbed for your as cap, leave you inside
Fortified live, repping NY 'til I die

Black body radiation situation that we working with'
My verb exists enlisted by the bogeys camping services
The purpose is, make you go and purchase this, no nervousness
We are, hot like black tar, Black Star with emergerence

Superlative, you fabricated like the word absurditive
I'm rocking this from here to where the purges live
To Brooklyn where the merchants live
Next door to the murderers
And bourbon is a elder man's medicinal alternative

My memory is furnished with, back streets to back seats to fat Jeeps
Legendary athletes who play by the trash heap
My crew wasn't that deep, but beef we didn't act sweet
Treading on these stomping grounds you better catch some black feet

Flashy, it was between DeKalb and Pulasky
Off the meter like an out of borough taxi
They run your pockets fastly, black and nasty, nappy and crafty
That's why they either sitting in Clinton or coxsackie
Mayor Rudolph can screw off, you too soft to stop us
You and your coppers should seek some foot doctors
Got your burnt chest popped up, but keep your guns cocked up
'Cause all them cats that you knocked up and always gon' be locked up

Hide ya self like Donna Summer, another number one
And coming from the underground, this is how it's coming down
Baby, let me run it down,
Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Jane Doe, Punch, Wor, hmm, umm, e

Excuse me, just ate another emcee
Sometimes that's just how it be
Bout ta wash you down with green tea and some lime
We like the five on the fist, fortified organized like dis