Eric B. & Rakim – Paid in Full
Thinking of a master plan
Cause ain’t nothing but sweat inside my hand
Thinking of a master plan
Cause ain’t nothing but sweat inside my hand
Poisonous sting, which thumps up and act chumps
Rae’s a heavy generator, but yo, guess who’s the black Trump?
My vernacular
Exercises my cardiovascular
Flipping like a spatula
Attacking like I’m Dracula
A legend like Acura
In fact I’m a Maxima
Alpha to Omega
The Pharaoh is coming back for Ya
Split you to your marrow
I self lord and master you
The ambassador
Of the murder flow
Gonna ravish ya
Have you ever loved someone so much
You’d give an arm for
Not the expression, no
Literally give an arm for
When they know they’re your heart
And you know you are their armor
And you will destroy anyone who would try to harm her
Now hush, little baby, don’t you cry
Everything’s gonna be alright
Stiffen that upper lip up, little lady, I told ya
Daddy’s here to hold ya through the night
I know Mommy’s not here right now
And we don’t know why
We fear how we feel inside
It may seem a little crazy, pretty baby
But I promise, Momma’s gon’ be alright
Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman
The Invisible Man and Hercules don’t scare me
The FBI, Anti-American Committee, J. Edgar Hoover, President Nixon
President Johnson, Martha Mitchell
And her husband or her man or her woman Ethel
Kennedy, all the Kennedys
Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Rockefeller
None of these people scare me
What scares me is that one day my son will ask me
What did you do Daddy when the shit was goin’ down
They say I walk around like got an S on my chest
Naw, that’s a semi-auto, and a vest on my chest
If you lookin’ for me I’ll be on the block
Check it, fifteen of us in a three bedroom apartment
Roaches everywhere, cousins and aunts was there
Four in the bed, two at the foot, two at the head
I didn’t like to sleep with Jon-Jon he peed the bed
Seven o’clock, pluckin’ roaches out the cereal box
Some shared the same spoon, watchin’ Saturday cartoons
Sugar water was our thing, every meal was no frills
In the summer, free lunch held us down like steel…
I hope you learn to make it on your own
And if you love yourself, just know you’ll never be alone
I hope that you get everything you want and that you chose
I hope that it’s the realest thing that you ever know
Hope you get the pretty girls that’s pretty at everything
Million dollar cribs, havin’ million dollar dreams
And when you get it all, just remember one thing
Remember one thing, that one man could change the world
That one man could change the world
If you got it, better flaunt it
New York, concrete jungle
Where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let’s hear it for New York
New York, New York
I’m Soulo, take a photo, blowing do-do in a dojo
We a green light, you a no-go, hey Q, go
No, Rock, go
I’m a rock though, like Barack though
And my eyes low and I drive slow like Paul Wall
Give it back though, I got y’all
Nah, fuck that, I’m a ball hog
No, fuck that, they gon’ fall off
Got a sawed-off, I’mma hop out, let it all off
Hop back in, then I haul off
We situated, we hit the pavement so hard
We all got ground to play with
A challenger is like last year calendars
Yup, you’re all outdated
Here’s a tune about this honey named Renee
That I met one day
On my way back from John Jay
I’m peeping shorty as she’s walking to the train
I tap her on her shoulders
Excuse me miss, but can I get your name
She said, my name is Renee
I said I got a whole lot to say
So may I walk you to your subway
She said if you want so yo, we started talking
I bought two franks and two drinks and we began walking
I had to see where that head was at
Cause her gear was mad phat
So we must chat about this and that
She told me what she was in school for
She wants to be a lawyer
In other words, shorty studies law
I’m telling shorty I’m a writer
There’s a war going on outside no man is safe from
You could run, but you can’t hide forever
From these streets that we done took
You walking with your head down
Scared to look, you shook
‘Cause ain’t no such things as halfway crooks
They never around when the beef cooks in my part of town
It’s similar to Vietnam
Six in the morn’, fire in the street
Burn, baby, burn, that’s all I wanna see
And sometimes I get off watching you die in vain
It’s such a shame they may call me crazy
They may say I suffer from schizophrenia or somethin’
But homie, you made me
Black don’t crack
Push me to the edge, all my friends are dead
Climb the ladder to success escalator style
She stays alone, never sheds a single tear
She stays in the coolest moods, clearly woman of the year
She and all her girlfriends, they go out dressed to win
She comes back to the cooler side of town
But she lives in my lap
Sometimes I wonder why we killers, why they killing us
I think we only wear a grill because they grilling us
Or how they feeling us, gotta look real and tough
Gotta keep your hands in the cart, know you stealing stuff
Came a long way from a boat and an auction
Now we got names and a vote, then a coffin
Whoever said illegal was the easy way out, couldn’t understand
The mechanics and the workings of the underworld, granted
Nine to five is how you survive, I ain’t trying to survive
I’m tryna live it to the limit and love it a lot
I start to think and then I sink
Into the paper like I was ink
When I’m writing, I’m trapped in between the lines,
I escape when I finish the rhyme…
Yo, I’m sure that everybody out listenin agree
That everything you see ain’t really how it be
A lot of jokers out runnin in place, chasin the style
Be a lot goin on beneath the empty smile
Most cats in my area be lovin the hysteria
Synthesized surface conceals the interior
A simple plan for life is change
Find yourself the nicest frame
Strange
Then you see the light, man
Then you find the right, lane
On a bright, day
Money kept, is twice as good as money burned
And money won, is twice as sweet as money earned
Me mommy love me, like she love her nappy head
She sang me fables, when she used to wrap me dreads
She said me look like me grandpappy, now he dead
He never met me, but he loved me, yeah he did
He was a king, before me Ma became a queen
They killed him dead, because he tried to stop the war
Me momma love me, like the song that she sings
But I think she loves me just a little bit more
We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us
No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us
Birthdays was the worst days
Now we sip champagne when we thirst-ay
Majored in chemistry, PHD in streetology
Degree in drug industry
Combinin’ H²O with matter from crack batter
Residue molecules scatter
Launchin’ rockets to make the pocket fatter
Mind brighter, the nine starts a crime
G equals and MC that ain’t near the square son I gets mine
They say you’re nobody till somebody kills you
But where I’m from you’re nobody till you kill somebody
I’m trying to do better than good enough
I won’t deny it I’m a straight ridah
I got a letter from the government
The other day
I opened and read it
It said they were suckers
What I see, on the daily
deals with reality, so come follow we on this journey
If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
But I did 5 mill’ – I ain’t been rhyming like Common since
is this reality or trickery? I donno I donno