it’s very literal
Album: Black on Both Sides (Track 5)
Lyrics:
Clear like a megaphone
Pretty nigga heart skipped the metronome
Rocked the Trump Tower to the terrordome
Poor house to pleasure domes
Soprano, alto, tenor to baritone
MOS DEF
one of the illest that you ever known
Rock steady baby, you a stepping stone
Smash your foundation into pebbles
My words leave your nerves unsettled
You take it to the next level down
Looking like a circus clown
Cats like you can’t even get a pound
Worldwide from the river to lakeside
My stage show stay live
make the sound man stage dive
I cut fat cats to eight lives
with my eight ball lines
I’m home ‘fore I’m done with all nine
Got you shook like a fault line
Come all shine and get tarnished
Brooklyn got your pay roll garnished
They form a huddle
Whisper like they want trouble
I melt the ice grills into rainwater puddles
Make the proud-hearted leave on the humble
Black steel in the hour
Assemble my skill form my power
My poems crush bones into powder
You mumble like a coward
I’m Mos Def, you need to speak louder
SUPER HEREOS!
Get your power, your masks and capes snatched
Brooklyn take what you can’t take back
I know a lot of cats hate that
All I can say black
There’s a city full of walls you can post complaints at
All the doubters and believers adjust your receivers
“I feel it,”
you can taste it through the speakers
The three six oh-riginal
sketch lyrics so visual
They rent my rhyme books at your nearest home video
chorus:
Tell them cats they need to sit back and observe where they at
Brook-nahm Vietnam
The heat is on
Put your joint on cruise
Try to rush you scuff your brake shoes, just cool and relax
Take a breath, take ten paces back
Stay on time Omegas
Brooklyn patrol like interstaters
Take their license and their registration papers
My joint’s so passionate
Make you peal out and mash your shit
Get wild cold crash your whip
Front chassis wrecked, but ock you can’t be too upset
Tow truck got my tape in the deck
I’m permanent like tattoos and birth marks
Third degree burn marks
Driving on tracks like Dale Earnheart
Stay on the low like the earth spot
Put a big loss on your earn chart
Nice since the nurse signed my birth chart
Seldom seen but often heard, while your jams is barely heard
Just my name is a daily word
From avenues to streets, terraces and park places
Stair wells, jail cells, penthouse to basements
Arrangement basic, but still fans chase it
Y2K can’t delete the true ancient
Apache war drum on the ranges
Skill level dangerous
Arrow head that killed all the cavemen
They cry John-Blazing, but step on the pavement
And get violated like a plaintiff
I ain’t shit to play with
I give a Goddamn what your name is
Delete it and make it so it never get repeated
Believe it
Tell the feds, tell your girl, tell your mother
Conference call you wack crew and tell each other
That they just ain’t holding me
I’m Mos Def, your hopefully
Mush off or you get bust off like a ovary
(chorus)
Brook-nahm Vietnam
The heat is on, no off-ramp or detour
Make these gassed up jokers
observe the speed law
Make these gassed up clowns
observe the speed law
Make these gassed up clowns
observe the speed law
Cause they speedin (x15)
Relax
Slow down, you better chill money
Lights be changing fast on these streets dude
Smash your whole shit up
You better cool out money
It ain’t like that out here
Look at these cats man, it’s funny man
He probably just got that car
About to fuck your whole shit up
Speed laws out here money
Knight riding cats
In control like interstaters,
state-ahs (x11)
Stay the.. FUCK off the road, money!! A tattoo of 13 ½ means 12 jurors, 1 judge, a half assed lawyer or half a chance