1987

Acid-wash Guess with the leather patches

Sportin' the white Diadoras with the hoodie that matches

I'm wearing two Swatches and a small Gucci pouch

I could have worn the Louis, but I left it in the house

Now, my niggas Duce and Wayne got gold plates with their name

With the skyline on it, with the box link chain

I'm wearing my frames, they match my gear with their tint

And you know Lagerfeld is the scent

Now, my nigga Rafael just got his jeep out the shop

Mint green sidekick, custom-made ragtop

"Strictly Business" is the album that we play

"You're A Customer" the pick of the day

Now there's a nigga on the block, never seen him before

Selling incense and oil, my man think that he's the law

But why on earth would this be on their agenda?

As he slowly approaches the window

"Uh, uh, I've seen you before, I've been you and more

I was the one bearing the pitcher of water

I rent the large upper room furnished with tidings of your doom or pleasure

Whichever feathers decree"

Yo, Ralph is he talking to me?

"No, I'm talking to the sea son's resurrected

I'm the solstice of the day

I bring news from the blues of the Caspian"

My man laughs, he's one them crazy motherfuckers

Turn the music back up 'cause I'm the E-Double

"Wait but, but, but, but I know the volume of the sea

And sound waves as I will

Will you allow me to be at your service?"

My man Ralph is nervous

He believes his strange tongue deceives

And maybe he's been informed

That he's pushing gats hidden in the back, beneath the floor mats

Come on Jack, we don't have time for your bullshit or playin'

A'salaam a somethin' or another

"Wait isn't Juanita your mother?

I told you I know you

Now grant me a moment"

At the gates of Atlantis we stand

Ours is the blood that flowed from the palms of his hands

On the plow till earth, 'til I'm now

Moon cycles revisited, womb fruit of the sun

Full moon of occasions wave the wolves where they run

And we run towards the light casting love on the winds

As is the science of the aroma of sleeping women

Lost in his eyes they soon reflect my friends are grinning

But I'm a pupil of his sight, the wheels are spinning

Yo, I'll see ya'll later on tonight

In the beginning her tears were the long awaited rains

Of a parched Somali village

Red dusted children danced shadows

In the newfound mounds of mascara that eclipsed her face

Reflected in the smogged glass of Carlos' east street bodega

Learning to love, she had forgotten to cry

Seldom hearing the distant thunder in her lovers' ambivalent sighs

He was not honest

She was not sure

A great grandmother had sacrificed the family's clarity for God in the late 1800's

Nonetheless, she had allowed him to mispronounce her name

Which had eventually led to her misinterpreting her own dreams

And later doubting them, but the night was young

She, the firstborn daughter of water faced darkness and smiled

Took mystery as her lover and raised light as her child

Man, that shit was wild, you should have seen how they ran

She woke up in an alley with a gun in her hand

Tupac in lotus form, Ennis' blood on his hands

She woke up on a vessel, the land behind her

The sun within her, water beneath her

Mushed corn for dinner or was it breakfast?

Her stomach turned as if a compass

She prayed east and lay there breathless

They threw her overboard for dead

She swam silently and fled

Into the blue sea

La sol fa mi re do, si

The seventh octave

I don't mean to confuse you

Many of us have been taught to sing, and so we practice scales

Many of us were born singing, and thus were born with scales

Mhyrr-Maids, cooks, and fieldhands sang a nightsong by the forest

And the ocean was the chorus in Atlantis where they sang

Those thrown overboard had overheard

The mystery of the undertow

And understood that down below

There would be no more chains

They surrendered breath and name

And survived countless as rain

I'm the weather man

The clouds say, storm is coming

A white buffalo was born

Already running

And if you listen very close

You'll hear a humming

Beneath the surface of our purpose

Lies rumors of ancient man

Dressed in cloud face minstrels in the sky

The moon's my mammy

The storm holds my eye

Dressed in westerlies

Robed by Robeson

Ol' man river knows my name

And the reason you were born

Is the reason that I came

Then she looks me in the face and her eyes get weak

Pulse rate descends, heart's rate increase

Emcees look me in the face and their eyes get weak

Pulse rates descends, heart's rate increase

Emcees look me in the face and their eyes get weak

Pulse rates descends, heart's rate increase

It's like "beam me up, Scottie", I control your body

I'm as deadly as AIDS when it's time to rock a party

We all rocked fades, fresh faded in ladidadi

And when we rock the mic we rock the mic

And when we rock the mic we rock the mic

And when we rock the mic we rock the mic

But left the feminine side

Ignore the feminine side

Left the feminine side

Ignore the feminine side

Left the feminine side

Ignore the feminine side

Left the feminine side

I presented my feminine side with flowers

She cut the stems and placed them gently down my throat

And these tulips might soon eclipse your brightest hopes