[Mos Def]
Lawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd, lawd have mercy
All nice and peace and true, follow me now, we say
Say Hi-Tek yes you're ruling hip-hop
Say J. Rawls yes you're ruling hip-hop
Redefinition say you're ruling hip-hop
Say Black Star come to rock it non...
Yo, from the first to the last of it, delivery is passionate
The whole and not the half of it, vocab and not the math of it
Projectile that them blasted with, accurate assassin shit
Me and Kweli close like, Bethlehem and Nazareth
After this you be pressing rewind on top your master disk
Shining like an asterisk for all those that be gatherin
Connectin like a roundhouse from the townhouse to the tenaments
Cause all my Brooklyn residents, ? heavy regiments
Don't believe, here the evidence, where Brooklyn WHAAAAAAAoohhhh
See that? Bound to take it all kid, believe that
From where they sellin tree at, to where the police be at
Talib Kweli e-Kweli-ty yo tell them where we be at
[Talib Kweli]
Brooklyn New York City where they paint murals of Biggie
In cash we trust cause it's ghetto fabulous, life look pretty
what a pity -- blunts is still fifty cents, it's intense
Tree scents is dominant can't be covered with incense
My presence felt my name is Kweli from the Eternal Reflection
People thinkin MC is short hand for Mis Conception
Let me meditate, set it straight, came to the conclusion
that most of these cats is featherweight, let me demonstrate
Walkin the streets is like battlin, be careful with your body
You must know karate or think your soul is bulletproof like Sade
Stop actin like a bitch already, be a visionary
And maybe you can see your name in the column of obituary
Third rate teacher readin and talkin about,
"I knew he'd amount to nothin"
Neighbors like, "He was the quiet type,
who'd have thought they was frontin?"
Talkin +Loud+ like you in RCA, get carted away
with body partsV. Reid
In Africa, music is not an art form as much as it is a means of communication.
A Negro has got no name
Quite often, the words of the song are meaningless.
A Negro has got no name
We are wearing the name of our master
etc. (much overlap and repetition)