Lyrics

Scared Money

Scared money don’t make none.

Callin’ haves and have-nots, every cell on the block, every NGH with trigger empty barreled or cocked. March in like Parade of Scars if you’ve been stabbed or shot. Son, we smokin’ these batons right in front of these cops. Callin’ out to the kids, all my NGHs with bids, whether suited up or booted up or stuck in the mid. You can download it or boot it up. My pupils, un-lid. All my students of the underground with record store gigs. Callin’ out to the girls, the inventors of worlds, the intelligence of relevance and elegant pearls, pour like nectar from the lotus, Big Bang opus in swirls down the sweaty backs of hairweave tracks and dry jheri curls. Callin out to the pimps, hat-cocked slump with your gimp on your wrist with just a twist a lime to go with that limp. Hold your cup up so this ancient rain can find its way in. Let these suckas know the cost of reaching heavenly bliss. Yes.

Scared money don’t make none.

It was all a dream. I used to fantasize I was Malcolm…or Martin in the pulpit: the ballot or the bullet. I swear, I used to pray to change back the year when NGHs spoke of MTHRSHPS with space helmets for hair. Well, now what have we here? Thugs and Poets. Oh, yeah.

Convict Colony

I was born in a convict colony. And I was torn from the land that mothered me. Mother, may I? She said, “Yes, you may”. Well, today I… (Declare). I said, right here, today! You’re a Convict Colony if you’re running from the sun! You’re a Convict Colony!A Convict Colony! And you don’t really want it.

I was birthed from the Earth. Fought my way to this day. Now, I’m grown. Truth be told. I’ll be here, ‘til you’re gone. You’re a Convict Colony if you’re running from the sun! You’re a Convict Colony if you’re reaching for your gun! You’re a Convict Colony if you’re running from the sun! You’re a Convict Colony! A Convict Colony! And you don’t really want it.

WTF!

I’m fighting every war at once and I’m winning.

You can’t think of me like you did in the beginning….

By the time you hear this song you’ve gone wrong. Caught in the labyrinths of time, in your mind. Unlearn. Unwind. But, not to worry, there is no hurry. “Come unto me”, says She. “You’ve been polluted uprooted by Time. You have been muted, computed, but I’m a living vessel of the Sun, of the Moon, of the One. Come.”

Hey! You ain’t as dead as you seem (WTF?!) but you keep living your lies. Hey! Your life’s a bore but you dream. Bring yourself to be yourself tonight.

I see evidence in how you hold your head. And I see evidence in how you say what’s said. I see it in your eyes, that you’ve been hypnotized. “You’ve been polluted, uprooted by Time. You have been muted, computed but I’m a living vessel of the One, of the Moon, of the Sun.

Hey! You ain’t as dead as you seem (WTF?!) but you keep living your lies. Hey! Your life’s a bore but you dream. Bring yourself to be yourself tonight. (2X)

Bring yourself to be yourself…

NiggyTardust

NiggyTardust: Grippo King, philosopher, and artist. Downright to the marrow, he’s the arrow through the heartless. Sunlight in the afternoon, his shadow travels furthest. Woven through the heart of doom, he’s bursting through the surface. Hardly nervous, suffice to say, he understands his purpose: Threshold King of everything, a comical absurdist. Sometimes when he talks he sings, yet keeps his high notes wordless. Sing along when Niggy sings. Without you he’d be worthless, homeless, Earth-less. Venus Hottentot, up in the circus. Freak Show! Here him speak so properly, ‘cause every word is measured against meaning. Probably scheming to unlearn us. Don’t you call him by his name! White people call him ‘Curtis’.

When I say Niggy, you say nuthin. Niggy. Niggy.

When I say Niggy, you say nuthin. Niggy. “Nuthin”. Shut up.

“Put your mama on the phone”. You can’t say that, girl, Niggy’s grown. What your daddy gonna do? He can’t deny what he knows true. What the preacher gonna say? Preacher can’t shit, girl, the preacher’s gay. What your granny gonna do? She can’t deny the truth. Hey! NiggyTardust, here to stay! Paint him on your lunchbox or your thermos, for a fee. You might win the chance to hang with Niggy for a day! Side effects may include simply doing what you say. Hey! NiggyTardust, no guitar. Ghetto Gothic millionaire. A super-duper star! Side effects may include simply being who you are. you are yourself, my darling dear, and where never a niggar.

When I say Niggy, you say nuthin. Niggy. Niggy.

When I say Niggy, you say nuthin. Niggy. “Nuthin”. Shut up.

So what y’all NGH’s wanna do? I’m standing at the Pearly Gates so you can run and get your crew. I’m knockin once then I’m bustin’ through, with some gold Diadoras and a shirt that reads, “Do unto who?”. What y’all NGHs wanna do? Elevate the race or love these other MTHRFCKR’s too? The choice is yours, which means it’s up to you. But how can I love myself if I can’t love you?

NiggyTardust…

Sunday Bloody Sunday

(By U2)

I can’t believe the news today. I can’t close my eyes and make it go away. How long? How long must we sing this song? How long? How long? ‘Cause tonight we can be as one. Tonight. Broken bottles under children’s feet. Bodies strewn across a dead end street. But I won’t heed the battle call. It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall.

Sunday Bloody Sunday. Sunday Bloody Sunday.

And the battles just begun. This many lost, but tell me who has won? The trench is dug within our hearts. Mothers, children, brothers, sisters, torn apart.

Sunday Bloody Sunday. Sunday Bloody Sunday.

How long? How long must we sing this song? How long? How long? ‘Cause tonight we can be as one. Tonight. Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.

Sunday Bloody Sunday. Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Wipe your tears away. Wipe your tears away. Wiper your tears away. Wipe your tears away.

And it’s true we are immune. When fact is fiction and TV: reality. And today the millions cry. We eat and drink while tomorrow, they die. And the real battles just begun to claim the victory Jesus won on Sunday Bloody Sunday. Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Tr(n)igger

So you don’t like the way we’re running things? And you don’t like the way the chisel glang? You want to blame it on the government on why you got no money for your rent? You want to start a revolution? And blame it on the institutions? You know there’s only one solution. So tell me what you’re gonna do son?

The trigger is you. The nigger is you. (2x) So what you gonna do?

You wanna blame them boys in Lebanon and act like you don’t know where they get it from? You wanna project all your problems and murder every hope to solve them? Would Jesus Christ come back American? What if he’s Iraqi and here again? You’d have to finally face your fears, my friend? Who’s gonna hold your hand when that happens?

The trigger is you. The nigger is you. (2x) So what you gonna do?

What do u teach your children about me? What do you teach your little children about me? Pimp, thug, bling, drug, Lord of the Undergrounded Kings. How can you be so sure I won’t call down the rain?

The trigger is you. The nigger is you. (2x) So what you gonna do?

Black History Month

Can you feel it? Nothing can save you. I’m tougher than bullets so, baby, pray to your savior. I never been shot, but I bet you I’m braver. I’m taking my spot, NGH, I ain’t afraid to be me. Sometimes I find it very hard to be..”Who?”. Me…{The inevitable rise and liberation of NiggyTardust!}

Yo the banana peels are carefully placed! So keep your shell toes carefully laced! The illest NGH got peppered and maced! Now amplify this. Turn up the bass!

Picture me, lampin’ in the company car. Rims like Tibetan prayer wheels. NGH WHT? I’m a star. I cruise the block like a feather back and forth ‘til I land as the song in your ear or the book in your hand. Now the whole fuckin world ‘bout to know who I am. Got your whole system up in my trunk. That ‘dog eat dog’ make my woofers bark: atomic crunk All my trill NGHs know who be bringin da funk. Lees and shell toes like it’s Black History Month. Yo the banana peels are carefully placed! So keep your shell toes carefully laced! The illest NGH got peppered and maced! Now amplify this. Turn up the bass!

Yo the banana peels are carefully placed! So keep your shell toes carefully laced! The illest NGH got peppered and mased! Now amplify this. Turn up the bass!

There was one. Bore witness to the rays of the sun. Synthesized in her own image. Photo negative. Shun. The development of Parliament. The phallic bop gun. Thus, the mother-ship connection spawned the birth of the drum. Ancient drum begat drum. Kingdom go, kingdom come. Ancient sector of the scepter risen up to the Sun. Hidden hand of man begat patented clone of the drum. Boom Bap strapped into a wire, tightly coiled, and re-spun. Trigger sound. Trigger gun. Drum machine. Machine gun. Bodies piled. Carefully filed under beats that were once reprogrammed to become: unplugged concert of Sun. Every ray with sample clearance. Every two begat one. Boom bop hard as a gun. White cross-trainers, unstrung. Let these suckas know the cost of making Harriet run. Let the North Star be your guiding post when turned from the sun until knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone.

Yo the banana peels are carefully placed! So keep your shell toes carefully laced! The illest NGH got peppered and mased! Now amplify this. Turn up the bass!

Break

And when my fears arise I blow them out.

Death creeps through the streets over programmed beats. A rabid dog in heat on a dead end street. Oil slicks, the only rainbows that canvas gray concrete. Shadows of skyscrapers fall when Mohammed speaks. Corpses piled in heaps. Sores and decay, reeks. Placing tags on feet. A Nike Air Force Fleet. Custom made. Unique. Still in box. White sheet. Ripened blue, black, sweet. White tank top, wife beat…

Hearts in two-step beat…Break. Dance pray work whip… Break. Neck jump back kiss… Break. Ashes, dust, kill, crush… Break.

Consider yourself: less than, inferior to, half man, superior to woman, unbearable likeness. Consider yourself: almost, never quite, dark-skinned, lily white, black as sin, devils den, whiteness. Consider yourself: outcast, criminal, unseen, invisible, point blank, ready cocked trigger. Consider yourself: Hardcore, dirt poor, hustler, BCH, whore, reverend, doctor. Nigger.

Hearts in two-step beat…Break. Dance pray work whip… Break. Neck jump back kiss… Break. Ashes, dust, kill, crush… Break. Build up, pimp strut, slap…Break. Cotton, corn, crop, wheat…Break. Dance, whip, work, pray…Break. Neck, jump, back, kiss…Break.

Let it out. Blow it out. Spit it out. Get it out. Beat. Beatings. Beats. Beasts. Get it out. By the horns and get it out. Cough it up and spit it out. Get it out. Break the cycle, break the chain, break the hurt and break the pain. All my doubts and all my fears, break the spell that keeps me here. Break the cycle, break the chain, break the whip and break the pain. Get it out. Spit it out. Break. Break. Break. Break.

DNA

(NGH WHT: chaps. 9-12)

Feel the music. Son, we got you programmed like a beat. When I press snare, Yo, guard your grill. ‘Press kick, you move your feet. You can’t compete. I got my hydrants parked on every street. I’m federal NGH. Son of Sun. Come close and feel the heat. I am the streets. The white lines only separate me from me. You hydroplane in false gods name and still crash into me: Sign and Tree; Mountainside; Guard Rail; The Sea. They thought they stole you from my arms then carried you to me. Here’s the key: DNA encoded in a beat. White rocks in a vial, NGH, ain’t got nuthin’ on me. BCH I’m free. Ask these editors at MTV. Far as they, know they’re publishing some new school poetry. Let it be. ‘Cause even that will serve to turn the key. Doorways into other worlds. The Truth shall set you free. YOU are me, I am you, but also I’m (s)he. She-pherd of a bastard flock that grazes in the streets. Feel the beat. Nod your head. Lean back, yo. Touch your feet. Let me see you pop that thang right there girl in your seat. Feel the heat. Count this page amongst your whitest sheets. Comfort in my every word. Slide under. Countless sheep.

Hail Mary, Mother of God. Got the whole host of angels shuffling in my ipod. NGHs learned to raise their voices when I lowered my rod. Staff of Moses. Pharaoh knows it. Son, my word is my bond. Tune my heart with mind. Speak my nature: Divine. With the future in my pocket tightly gripped like a 9. Keep my finger on the trigger waiting for the right time. Ancient NGHs align! Path of Cosmic Design. Blood of kings ‘cause Saturn’s rings don’t need no diamonds to shine. Yes, the reason for the season, ornamented divine. Coded Language of the mystics with my fist in the sky.

Keep your head up. We represent The Real, my NGH. Dead up. Book of the Dead. History bled. This NGH fed up. Led us to despair, some into prayer, and they won’t let up until they got us worshipping them false gods instead of The Realness. God of the streets. My NGHs feel this. We nod our heads and worship through beats. Go ahead and kneel. It’s the LOVE that makes the cipher complete. And it’d displayed through the way the bass line marries the beat.

Raw

What’s a song if you can’t fuck to it? I want to move deep in the gut of it? And what’s the right kind of Behavior to qualify as some ones savior? What kind of question is that anyway? I know I don’t deserve your time of day. But since you’re giving me some time tonight. Then hold me close, girl, and just squeeze me tight.

Raw.

I want to touch you on the other side where all your anger, fear, and hurt reside. I want to get to know the part of you that I can crawl inside, the heart of you.

Raw.

No One Ever Does

Memories are like promises that are seldom kept. Hence, why Jesus wept. Every day,

We are torn away from the one we love. There’s no God above. Only if you would spend your gift to uphold the truth of just me and you. And we represent all the time we’ve spent getting to this day. There’s no other way. Aren’t we whom we claim to be the descendents of, whom we place above? We must place within and slowly begin to love.

No one ever does.

Suddenly, who I thought was me was not me at all and I feel so small. Sitting way beneath who I want to be. I don’t want to be who I’ve grown to be. Only if I might somehow riff on the way before, let it be some more. Lift me from this floor. If I can’t walk I’ll crawl to love.

No one ever does

Can’t Hide love

(By Earth Wind and Fire)

You want my love and you can’t deny. You know it’s good, but you try to hide. You turn down love like it’s really bad. You can’t give what you never had. Well bless your soul, you can fool a few. I know the truth now so do you.

Can’t hide love., I bet ya. Bet ya You can’t hide love. Gonna get ya. Can’t hide what I feel inside!

You can’t pretend there’s nothing there. Girl, I look in your eyes and see you care. So why not stop trying to run and hide? You won’t find out, if you never try.

Can’t hide love., I bet ya. Bet ya. You can’t hide love. Gonna get ya. Can’t hide what I feel inside!

Love has found the time to kiss you. Can you find the time to listen?

Life’s found the time to bug you. Can you find the time to listen?

Skin of a drum

And I can’t become my father when it’s all been said and done. His completions won’t complete me. I’ve divided me by one. I’m the answer to his riddle. I’m the caution of his wind. I’m the spoon wedged between tongue and teeth beneath his trembling grin. And I dare add my revision for I dare not suffer twice. And I dare not reinvent the past. And I dare not be the Christ. And I welcome every sufferer. And I welcome every Saul. Sitting in this room, on wooden bench, waiting for Joi to call. And I suffer here alone, Lord. Perturbed by my every thought. How I’ve tried to strip them to the bone. I’ve struggled and I’ve fought. Every jealous warped intention, smuggled, sewn into genes. Every hidden mongrel tendency exploiting me in me.

Each time I put them under but still they wanna test me. I cry out through the thunder. You storm right past me. I search and I ponder. I question and wonder. I roar and I thunder, Please, let me in.

I’ve been waiting here for what now seems the better of an hour. I’ve raised every crippled question from the dead and given power to the absence of my sanity. The presence of a fear that lies in between forgotten dreams that pile up every year. Up above the highest testaments, down below the wooden floor, there’s a gutted room, pitch black at noon, beneath a hidden door. deep within, you’ll find the attributes of every sunken man who must bang his head against the dead each day he tries to stand. And he’s standing pressed against the very woman that he loves. Kissing eyes and lips, embracing hips, surrendering to her touch. And just at the very moment that he touches heart to heart, she pulls from his touch, ‘cause it’s too much to mend what’s apart.

Each time I put them under but still they wanna test me. I cry out through the thunder. You storm right past me. I search and I ponder. I question and wonder. I roar and I thunder, Please, let me in.

It’s so hard to be the man I would be if hatred and fear no longer appeared. I swear I’ve become the skin of a drum, the heart of a man…Divided I stand.

Banged and Blown Through

We are broken instruments. Burst wide open. Smashed and bent. Not what you’d expect from these city streets. Who serves to protect the orchestra in me? Conductor! Conductor! I feel electricity. Conductor! Conductor! Can you bring out the song in me?

Instruments, banged and blown through.

Raised to be Lowered

To manifest your dreams before you manifest your fears. To navigate beyond the treachery of self despair. To find the balance between all you sense and all you see. To find the patience and the strength it takes to let it be. To stand amongst the crowd and have the strength to hold your own. To throw away the pen and pad and simply be the poem. To rise above hatred to love through seeming contradiction. To seldom take a side and learn to compliment the friction. To bring about the change within that we can’t live without. To shift and re-arrange ideals and learn to deal with doubt. To voice the victory and unlearn ways of self-defeat. To learn the value of, “yo, fuck the words just ride the beat”. To leave the comfort zones of all you know to all you feel. To step beyond the void and realize the unknown is real. To re-imagine every obstacle as just means of honing craft and learn to laugh at failures funny dream.

There has to be some other way to stop the fight. I was raised to be lowered. Was I raised to be lowered? Each day we sing and pray for guidance through the night. I was raised to be lowered. Was I raised to be lowered?

To not allow the worshippers to take up all the space. To dance at funerals and grieve when true love shows its face. To meditate upon the lesser things like hair and nails. To find new meaning in your freedom when your freedom kills. To walk the runway on the one day when you’ve lost your stride. To show your face when you feel more inclined to run and hide. To keep it gutter when you utter. No, it won’t stop until the ones that point their guns at NGHs get got! YOU’RE GONNA GET GOT! You let them NGHs get got. You’re gonna get got. Get popped. Get Cocked. You let them NGHs get got. Let them NGHs get got!

There has to be some other way to stop the fight. I was raised to be lowered. Was I raised to be lowered? Each day we sing and pray for guidance through the night. I was raised to be lowered. Was I raised to be lowered?

Hallelujah, all these other suckas make me sick. Inshallah we’ve come this far. The past can suck my dick. Blessed be the virgin, especially if she’s nice and thick. May your first time be full of grace, respect, and not a trick. First communion. Sacred as the day you were conceived. Born in sin? Nah, think again. Repent and disbelieve. Heaven is between your thighs. There lies the trick. Deceived. Holy blood shed once a month until you nurture seed.

Was I raised to be lowered?

The Ritual

…enough already. Stop reading and dance.