Hip Hop (Explicit) - Mos Def

Written by：J. Kirkland/D Smith

You say one for the treble two for the time

Come on y'all let's rock this

You say one for the treble two for the time

Come on

Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape

Now let it fall huh

My restlessness is my nemesis

It's hard to really chill and sit still

Committed to page I write a rhyme

Sometimes won't finish for days

Scrutinize my literature from the large to the miniature

I mathematically administer

Subtract the wack

Selector wheel it back I'm feeling that

From the core to the perimeter black

You know the motto

Stay fluid even in staccato

Full blooded full throttle

Breathe deep inside the drum hollow

There's the humyoung man where you from

Brooklyn number one

Native son speaking in the native tongue

I got my eyes on tomorrow there it is

While you still trying to find where it is

I'm on the Ave where it lives and dies

Violently silently

Shine so vibrantly that eyes squint to catch a glimpse

Embrace the bass with my dark ink fingertips

Used to speak the King's English

But caught a rash on my lips

So now my chat just like dis

Long range from the base-line swish

Move like an apparition

Float to the ground with ammuntionchi-chi-POW

Move from the gatevoice cued on your tape

Putting food on your plate

Many crews can relate

Who choosing your fate yo

We went from picking cotton

To chain gang line chopping

To Be-Bopping to Hip-Hopping

Blues people got the blue chip stock option

Invisible man got the whole world watching

Where ya at I'm high low east west

All over your map

I'm getting big props with this thing called hip hop

Where you can either get paid or get shot

When your product in stock

The fair-weather friends flock

When your chart position drop

Then the phone calls

Chill for a minute

Let's see who else hot

Snatch your shelf spot

Don't gas yourself ock

The industry just a better built cell block

A long way from the shell tops

And the bells that L rocked rock rock rock rock

Hip Hop is prosecution evidence

An out of court settlement

Ad space for liquor

Sick without benefits hungh

Luxury tenements choking the skyline

It's low life getting tree-top high

It is a back water remedy

Bitter and tender memory

A class E felony

Facing the death penalty hungh

Stimulant and sedative original repetitive

Violently competitive a school unaccredited

The break beats you get broken with

On time and inappropriate

Hip Hop went from selling crack to smoking it

Medicine for loneliness

Remind me of Thelonius and Dizzy

Propers to B-Boys getting busy

The war-time snap shot

The working man's jack-pot

A two dollar snack box

Sold beneath the crack spot

Olympic sponsor of the black Glock

Gold medalist in the back shot

From the sovereign state of the have-nots

Where farmers have trouble with cash crops woooo

It's all-city like Phase 2

Hip Hop will simply amaze you

Praise you pay you

Do whatever you say do

But black it can't save you