spitting,
it's wicked and it's decadent
Revolutions per minutes, every
time the record spin
Retribution for cynics,
like a stick- up kid with weapons
In Brooklyn,
they say I run it, the 'Natti is checking in
No matter the terminology,
blood splatter artistically
It's looking like a Jackson Pollock painting,
it's a mystery
Really should be brothers
united against the industry
The Africans diaspora scatter
at shattered history
The game missing me, rap
is so repetitive
Although I ain't your blood or your
cous', it's all relative
I got a gang of rhymes
And Tones' beats is banging
We moving through the streets
like we're slanging dimes
It's magical,
how the track is so classical
The cats who got gassed up
in their sweats like Plaxico
I'm back from my sabbatical
Voice of the future, black radical
Keeping all the damages collateral
Listening to instrumentals Thinking about
all the
things I've been through
The music is just a peek into my life,
it's a window
It's so high tech and it's also simple
Even if I'm knocked down, I
don't stay down
Even if I get down, I don't lay down
Hotter than the tar on this
empty playground
Hotter than the tar on this empty
playground
Hey yo, I'm taking all bets
and settling all debts
A giant leap for man
begins with a small step
From a sword to a set
To my people on the picket line
Who's sicking of getting treated like them
aliens in District 9
I juxtapose my business
model with my spirit
What, I'm just supposed to keep you
comfortable with the lyrics?
I know the flow's disturbing
I know for certain just because
you know all about the artist
Don't mean you know the person
You don't know me
I run labels
These unstable rappers is so phony
I try to listen but they're boring
as missionary position
So I'm shitting on these niggas
like dysentery conditions
I'm sitting on the throne, you dreaming
that it's empty soon
Nobody feeling you,
you're screaming in an empty room (Holla!)
The tree that fall in the forest,
nobody hearing you
Even though you fall the hardest
Don't get me started
Listening to
instrumentals
Thinking about all the things
I've been through
The music is just a peek into my
life, it's a window
It's so high tech and it's also simple
Even if I'm knocked down, I
don't stay down
Even if I get down, I don't lay down
Hotter than the tar on this
empty playground
Hotter than the tar on this empty
playground
Yo, I built up my defenses
When I'm left to my devices,
time gets suspended
More than DMX's driver's license
My music's steady,
not affected by the higher prices
People having sex in the streets like
Dionysus
You know what my advice is?
Fuck my advice, live your life
Stop tripping like everything
amount to crisis
I make the sacrifices
My history is black as ice is
I don't think that I can trust
you if you're lacking vices
I never miss a beat, the
liquor make me slurred
It takes my words, tries to twist
them like a Swisher Sweet
With sticky herb
American History
X, your teeth'll hit the curb
It's easy 'cause I'm
ill with the wordplay
I still flip the bird, like Jeezy
Strip it down, now it's exposed
I suppose my flow is the em
peror's new clothes
Although I'm always by myself,
I never ride alone
The music is on then I'm right at home, zoning
Talib Kweli
