Hip Hop - Mos Def.mp3

[00:02.345] You say "one for the treble, two for the time"
[00:05.951] Come on, y'all, let's rock this!
[00:08.396] You say "one for the treble, two for the time"
[00:11.299] Come on!
[00:12.236] Speech is my hammer, bang the world into shape
[00:14.252] Now let it fall, (huh!)
[00:16.301] My restlessness is my nemesis
[00:18.715] It's hard to really chill and sit still, committed to page
[00:21.670] I write a rhyme, sometimes won't finish for days
[00:24.277] Scrutinize my literature from the large to the miniature
[00:27.326] I mathematically add-minister, subtract the wack
[00:30.321] Selector, wheel it back, I'm feeling that
[00:33.022] From the core to the perimeter black
[00:34.912] You know the motto, stay fluid even in staccato (Mos Def)
[00:38.380] Full blooded, full throttle
[00:39.912] Breathe deep inside the drum hollow... There's the hum
[00:43.093] Young man, where you from? Brooklyn number one!
[00:45.767] Native son, speaking in the native tongue
[00:48.375] I got my eyes on tomorrow (there it is)
[00:50.375] While you still tryin to find where it is
[00:52.338] I'm on the Ave where it lives and dies, violently but silently
[00:55.637] Shine so vibrantly that eyes squint to catch a glimpse
[00:59.231] Embrace the bass with my dark ink fingertips
[01:01.756] Used to speak the King's En-ga-lish
[01:03.643] But caught a rash on my lips, so now my chat just like dis
[01:07.119] Long range from the base-line (swish)
[01:09.127] Move like an apparition, float to the ground with ammunItion
[01:12.576] (Chi-chi-pow) Move from the gate, voice cued
[01:15.059] On your tape, putting food on your plate
[01:16.990] Many crews can relate, who choosing your fate (yo)
[01:19.942] We went from picking cotton
[01:21.485] To chain gang line chopping, to Be-Bopping, to Hip-Hopping
[01:25.050] Blues people got the blue chip stock option
[01:27.629] Invisible man, got the whole world watching
[01:30.162] (Where ya at?) I'm high, low, east, west, all over your map
[01:33.494] I'm getting big props, with this thing called hip hop
[01:36.316] Where you can either get paid or get shot
[01:38.356] When your product in stock, the fair-weather friends flock
[01:40.953] When your chart position drop, then the phone calls....
[01:43.880] Chill for a minute, let's see who else hot, snatch your shelf spot
[01:47.273] Don't gas yourself, akh'
[01:49.008] The industry just a better built cell block
[01:51.491] A long way from the shell tops
[01:53.687] And the bells that L rocked (rock, rock, rock, rock...)
[02:16.304] The more emotion I put into it, the harder I rock
[02:20.240] Hip Hop is prosecution evidence
[02:22.002] An out of court settlement, ad space for liquor
[02:24.498] Sick without benefits (hungh!) Luxury tenements
[02:27.129] Choking the skyline, it's low life getting tree-top high
[02:30.825] It is a back water remedy
[02:32.528] Bitter and tender memory, a class E felony
[02:35.120] Facing the death penalty (hungh!)
[02:36.965] Stimulant and sedative, original repetitive
[02:39.352] Violently competitive, a school unaccredited
[02:42.936] The break beats you get broken with on time and inappropriate
[02:45.841] Hip Hop went from selling crack to smoking it
[02:47.849] Medicine for loneliness remind me of Thelonius and Dizzy
[02:51.157] Propers to B-Boys getting busy
[02:53.073] The war-time snap shot, the working man's jack-pot
[02:56.473] A two dollar snack box sold beneath the crack spot
[02:59.215] Olympic sponsor of the black Glock
[03:01.134] Gold medalist in the back shot
[03:03.064] From the sovereign state of the have-nots
[03:05.084] Where farmers have trouble with cash crops (woooo)
[03:07.646] It's all-city like Phase 2
[03:09.047] Hip Hop will simply amaze you, praise you, pay you
[03:12.222] Do whatever you say do, but, black, it can't save you