Song Lyrics

[Chorus]
They wanna know (All you have to do)
Know how I do
Maybe you don't (All you have to do is call me, call me)
Why you playing, why you playing?
I be going like two and two
With some hot shit ready to spit for you
With the songs that you love just to get you through

Back in effect
I'm back to collect
Got the respect
Which will turn into the cash or a check
You can, pay me in fear, you can pay me with love
You can, pay me in tears or you can pay me in blood
Spray me with slugs, and the revolution live, I never die in vain
The writer might be dead but the piece remain on the train (yea)
The music help you be true to yourself, accumulate wealth
So what I spit is the embodiment I do for self
As a teen it was kinda hard to find a job
I took over my writer's bloc and ran it like a spot
I'm Pimp see in this game nigga, I'm a hard
But I'm never feasting on it, keep speaking on it God
That's what they say when I'm building, I keep my dialogue street
But still spiritual like we deep inside a mosque
Or the sin of God that don't preach or go where the sinners are
And keep the fire burning like a slum lord in the Bronx

[Chorus]

Rhyme writer from nine to five
It's the 25 to lifers with the balance of the acrobatic high wires
The pain of the slave with his back feeling like fire
Cause the whip talking to his ass like Knight Rider
Most of these rappers now days be sounding like liars
Got visions of guns in they head like the Pied Piper
When I bust they start to disappear like my lighters
Cause they shit is faker than the dreads on Mikah Phifer
The industry is in trouble
Plus these industry niggaz is fake, so they tend to be in a bubble
So I hit the block where they're known to thicken the plot
Sticking up cops, kids be pocket-picking they Glocks (my man)
Balling outta control, don't be forgetting that niggaz is broker than dishes at a Greek wedding
They might try to run up on you, take your life quick
It's like this when you walk the strip up on the night shift

[Chorus]

This right here the bare essentials with no extras y'all
I kept it raw from the school of thought where less is more
Brooklyn is cooking and I blessed it with the special sauce
I got the soul of a prophet and never take a loss
Fresher than kicks out the box, the kids on the block
That is street hungry trying to get that sweet honey out the rock
Crack in the socks when they click the row thicker than sour sop
Listening to my black power rock
Music, of this hip hop we be rock to it
I'm a river, you a valley, watch me run right through it
You wanna learn how to do it, tell the truth in your single first
Lil' Kim went to jail for what you do in every single verse (free Lil' Kim)
Lyrics is perjury, your beats is more plastic than surgery
And we in the United States of emergency
One of the main reasons none of you lames worry me
Is I change lanes like I change planes and change currency

[Chorus]

K Abdul-rahman, Talib Kweli