Black Thought
Uh, I'm sorry for your loss
It's a body dead in the car and it's probably one of yours
The writing all across the window and the walls
Whether it was true or false, we shouldn't have got involved
Remember, we walked past the teacher, take the chalk and laugh
We wrote punishments: "I will not talk in class"
Now it's pistols punishing people for talking fast
And all these innocent bystanders is hauling ass
I hate to say I told y'all, but I told y'all
Things fall apart when the center too weak to hold ya'll
I'm just collecting what you owed to my old jawn
You 'bout to get swooped down on and stoled on
Fools swear they wise, wise men know they foolish
Well, we was headed for the web even before computers
I never thought you'd give me a reason to do this
Cain and Abel, Jesus and Judas
Caesar and Brutus, I see intruders, avert your eyes
I told you keep out of the hood, circumcise
How could you sleep? I thought you always was the first to rise
Ay, yo, you heard the line, "Everybody plays the fool"?
Well, I'll be that exception to the rule
The principal that hand-deliver lessons to the school
I was making major moves, my dollar déjà vu
My mission was my ambition was brandishing a tool
To be a' icon, wearing slippers made of python
Get mine quicker 'cause I'm slick as a pipeline
Transportin' the oil, tribulation and toil
Hit the operation, but I'm back in the soil
Got my crown tilted, my gown quilted, silk with cashmere
Burning Rome down in a minute, built it last year
Newsflash, I dodged the bullet that killed the cashier
My homie told me to come with him to the masjid
Them brothers said, "Don't go from written bars filled with rage
To primetime television and your gilded cage
Then forget it's people in the world still enslaved"
I barbwired my wrist, and let it fill the page
Gun fire n' flares, sirens glare
I'm in a iron chair where people who care
Don't get the lion's share
When I don't give a fuck, then I ain't fair
I'm on a higher tier with people gettin' money like the financier
Cash the herald
I'm fresh chopped and beveled
Rap on a doctorate level, so F. Scott Fitzgerald
Maybe I'm the new Rakim, maybe I'm fat Pharaohe
Undergarments or armor be my intimate apparel
Pre-Kardashian Kanye, my rhymeplay immaculate
Same cadence as D.O.C. pre-accident
Maybe, my acumen's on par with Kool G. Rap and them
Give me the proper respect, mothafucka', we back again
For a couple things we lost in a fire
The drive, the desire to perform on a higher plateau
I'm at that show, lost in a mire
Wondering how we got so far from inspired
Look, when photos were sepia-toned
And record players were somethin' you would keep in your home
Yo, the traveler, the meaning of Tariq, he was known
For the exemplary performance, uniquely his own
I made the twenty-one pound for some a newfound religion
Where money's put down, it's only one sound that make
OGs and young lions equally proud to listen
The secret amalgamism of algorithm
Coming from where only kings and crowns permitted the darkness
Where archaeologists found my image in parchment
Rolled into a scroll, holding a message for you
It said, "The only thing for sure is taxes, death, and trouble"
The anomaly sworn solemnly, high snobbidy
Freakonomics and war policy, dichotomy
That's Heaven and Hades, Tigris and Euphrates
His highness, the apple of the Iris to you ladies
As babies, we went from Similac and Enfamil
To the internet and Fentanyl
When all consent was still against the will
I got that detox for y'all
The microphone doctor, black Deepak Chopra
I'm a griot that make you wanna peacock your arm
Every heavy dignitary paying me top, regards
Boy, I'm three optics far from your binoculars
So, that smart money finna get the heat out the car
Yo, I'm K-Dot Lamar meets 2Pac Shakur
Got profiled by a few cops, too hot to charge
Listen, somebody said a price tag was on a rapper's head
So we gon' see a nice bag when the rapper dead
The mask black, the flag green, black, and red
They'll probably wave a white flag after plasma shed
No doubt, yo, the game went they own route
I can't explain what these lame kids is talkin' 'bout
Or how they fit they whole foot into they own mouth
I put a couple bodies in a brown bag, then I'm en route
I'm sneaker shoppin' with my son, a size 8
Prior to they release, 'cause why wait?
Look, in my estate I got electrified gates
For these blasé guys hating at a high rate
'Cause I dodged fate then got great, the fly's straight
If we ain't family or friends, then we don't vibrate
And I'm that gun in y'all face, none of y'all safe
If I catch you at the right time in the wrong place, slippin'
Sippin' on something with a strong taste
Like Whiskey or bootleg Bourbon with a corn base
My Levante resemble a vehicular threat
The mic I spray, resemblin' the sickle of death
It ain't strenuous to come from a continuous breath
I set fire to the venue, I'ma spin you and step
Rinse, repeat
You checkin' for the sound of the beast
I'm the hound, I'ma creep, I get down, I'ma eat
I'ma keep somethin' to lay a naysayer to sleep
Playin' with heat, nobody and nothin' fucking with 'Riq
Yo, these weaklings is claiming they cutting up in the street
Nigga, peace, you ain't working with nothin' but the police
Listen, you ain't finna be nothing but the deceased
Listen, you in a tournament with a permanent crease
I strike fear in the hearts of rap figures
Who mind bare the stigmas of time, no black privilege
From boom bap niggas to trap niggas
You in the trap with us, when the lines is as
Vivid as the walls on the graph
Autographed by the Lord of Wrath
I reside between the seconds on the chronograph
How much more CB4 can we afford?
It's like a Shariah Law on "My Cherie Amour"
How much hypocrisy can people possibly endure?
But ain't nobody working on a cure, my young boul
Y'all just regular, I'm a' apex predator
Brim stay fresh, feathered up, etcetera
Nevertheless, I got a message and left
One dead messenger, yep
My pen is Henry Kissinger, Buzz Bissinger
Look, my caporegime is to no redeem
And my oldest son Ahmir Saleem out of New Orleans
Took a golf cart to the Baccarat from the Waldorf
What was on the wall? That depend on what you call art
I'ma say 300k ain't even in the ballpark
I charge more just for awkward small talk
So yes, who's fucking with it if it's not the best?
I get the lobby painted fresh upon my request
It's Kafka-esque, His Holiness, stop the press
That Cobalt blue, reminiscent of Makkaresh
Lord, we got Padma Lakshmi for you
Let her massage your back with black seed oil
The foundation is firm, the flags need soil
Me? I need Royal Tea because I bleed royal
Go through the vein to the brain, fabulous and strange
My journalistic range is a catalyst for change
It got anybody that listen pissin' flame
And 'cause the Hall of Fame got so many missing names
I'll acknowledge the original People's not Oliver
Y'all will get the next challenger for Excalibur
I'm more policed for my core beliefs
They tried to capture me and brand me on the cheek
With a fleur-de-lis
The side of my heart'll be more discreet
I'm international, my passport page is like War and Peace
I've always played my part from the start
Back in Philly where the triggers is mandatory to spark
With a slightest inflammatory remark
I have you enter living a category apart
Listen, a grain of salt'll tip the scales, it never fails
Walk on egg shells, sleep on a bed of nails
Criminal records like record sales
Making heads or tails
We like Henrietta Lacks up in the cells
My mother was a working class, very loving woman
Who struggled, every dinner could've been the last supper
I come home, chasing good-for-nothing half-cousins
And then walk in the crib to the smell of crack cooking
She was introduced to that substance abuse
On some of the strongest drugs that the government produced
Look, I even got excused by the principal
My story is out of the dub dub interview
I've seen some ice cold summers, hot winters too
I never thought I'd win Grammy Awards with The Roots
I never thought I would be getting long in the tooth
My OGs told me, ''Boy you better go and live your truth''
I am a walking affirmation, that imagination
And focus and patience gets you closer to your aspiration
And just 'cause they give you shit don't mean you have to take it
My words capture greatness, sworn affidavits
Yours truly, the celestial being
You stay seeing pulling up in the fresh European
High-stepping out of it, dressed to a T
And not another got more soul, 'less you Korean
I’ve been having visions of Nat Turner holding his master’s head Like Yorick and Horatio in Hamlet
Smacking it like a tennis racket, underhanded
Send a message through the Gram: ''The Eagle has landed''
Dressed in a military jacket made of canvas
I am no gorilla, I just make 'em go bananas
Outstanding, red, black, and green bandanas
Cocked hammers, hairs on my chin is outstandin'
Can't manage the weight of war, they're just out ballin'
Look, I'll fall up from the sky to see my calling
I'm not crawling, I'm a free man like Morgan
Seeing manhood in the hood is a damn good bargain
If a black man don't tap dance
And every girl that got a fat booty don't lapdance
Well, I guess it's somethin' wrong, huh?
Niggas completely uninformed
I don't burn bridges, yo, I keep the haters' runnin' for em'
I ain't one of y'all peers, I'm the sum of all fears
Somebody stronger than me? Who that? I'm all ears
Like Obama, I wish he had another four years
Y'all some jolly good Hollywood Squares
I'm like, ahem, approach the altar with your offering
I spoil rappers rotten like my only offspring
Being His Excellency gets to be exhausting
You in the residency of the one they call King
Dada, Ali Baba, the talented Mr. Trotter
Inside of my right palm, the mark of the stigmata
Big Poppa, wig chopper, emperor Jaffe Joffer, mufucka'
I'm stronger than the coffee out in Kafa
All y'all niggas vagina hop, remind me of Icona Pop
I step in the booth, I'm a bull inside a China shop, mollywhoppin'
Watch another cotton pickin' body drop
Every time we rock, yo, they acting like it's Mardi Gras
'Til the party stop, skirt off like she that Ferrari drop
Soul Cycle pumping that Earth, Wind and Fire ba-di-ah
Coolin' 'pon the dock, à la marina, hard body yacht
You seen another rapper cleaner, mami? Probably not
How it feel to be the best that did it, I admit it
I'm visiting from planet Bring-These-Niggas-Death-In-Minutes
And y'all know I'm exquisite, wicked as Wilson Pickett
The sickness I exhibit, I'm too legit to quit it
I don't fake it 'til I make it, I take it to the limit and break it
Never timid, what I'm about, I represent it
Infinite just like Chace is, been a million places
Conversation is how beautiful my face is
People hated on how sophisticated my taste is
Then I pulled up on these mothafuckas in a spaceship
Panther mind, I'm made of elements you can't combine
I'm at a level of intelligence you can't define
Einstein, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Tesla
Recording artist slash psychology professor
I preach for the East, never fold under pressure
The beast from the East and I glide like Clyde Drexler
Ay, yo, my new name is eighty five X's
'Cause I'm the rap game certified specialist
When I was reckless I was worried 'bout the guest list
I'm helping rappers everywhere fulfill a death wish
Yo Flex, I'm glad we made contact
My nigga also know this shit for Combat
Brain matter contain too much data
I tell a story like fingerprints and blood splatta'