Lyric Transcript: Paraffin (2018) by Armand Hammer

Sweet Mickey

ELUCID:

…going straight for the top?

fuck do I know

Lemme get ya'll together 

Spread em, burrata, mozzarella

Nothing that you could tell him

Rockabye God, golliwog, folly mask off

Somali teeth, squad deep, Save Our Streets

Hardly zonked

Percy Sledge with the gnarly conch

Lost my lunch - early Bacardi in sicario's Ferrari once,

already lumps

Built for comfort not for speed

Spark the skunk, regard the breeze, 

Floral carbon, hard to keep

It’s a web, it’s a weaved flow,
spiral like leaves from the trees off the forest like 

shopping bags whipping in the breeze,
urban green spaces

We raise a lion in the east, burn what we do away with

Wetsuit, on his wavelength

Baby, baste him, grey shrimp

Scrape Slim, soldier rag on the puncture wound

Deep maroon, speak deceit get your tongue removed

Through the sheets send you to your room

So who or whom it may concern:

Wait your turn,

there'll be a love offering after the sermon, dig deep

Bless the word

It was first, before Earth there was Black

Melchizedek face tats on his back

Don't get gassed

The Ancient of Days

Escape for a slave

Roots unrestrained

Traipse through the swamps

burrowed a cave 

Trichomaniac, delayed react 

Let me process how you fake adapts

Stats on the board in the year of our lord,
Work is a war,

proof is our nuke,

Banish the law

we only distort

Write up the court 

We call a system “Algorithm that apply pressure to achieve desired results”

Permutation and long division

Pearly gates and dystopic visions

For all my niggas, it's the Great Commission

(For all my niggas, it's the Great Commission)

Forevermore for truer living

Bless the mamas locked behind the prison 

(sample of a raven)

Forevermore

(Sample of speech made by Julius Eastman at the premiere of his composition Gay Guerilla) 

Without blood there is no cause

G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A x2

Without blood

G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A x4

Rehearse with Ornette

billy woods:

All that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Hole in his brain, hole in his brain

billy woods:

Every victory pyrrhic, every live show forget the lyric

.40 doing Tae Bo

Who'd've guessed this be how I finish

To everyone who got caught: I'm there in spirit

This is where the winners say
it ain't no winners in this game

but easy to say when you winning

Gravy spilling,
turkey, all the trimmings

Shook me awake in the clubhouse,
Nigga it's the ninth inning

Riding dirty in a lemon

Semper Fi, waving weapons at the peasants

“Hearts and minds”, that don't work

start squeezing off one at a time

Hole in his brain, hole in his brain

billy woods:

Just running 'round having fun, Brett Favre with the gun

Count bars on fingers like I'm doing sums

Off the one, begged producers to take out the drums, I'm dumb; call grown men young, call old men son, 

old men son

She let it be known the Puerto Rico row (roll? role?) was a no

Steve Biko to his peoples he would never let it go

Both teams asking "what happened?"

I demurred with the African accent

Even his message raps got the malware attachment

billy woods:

All that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Only came back to tell 'em 'bout them fuckin' flames

Sayin', all that he seen burnt a hole in his brain

Hole in his brain, hole in his brain

ELUCID:

I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning

Super predator-era veteran, I'm a warden

Silent weapon for quiet war, radical forces

Your favorite rapper's a corporate shill who dresses like a banker in they spare time

Don't you dare compare mine

Non-cipher, hands off, dirty bomb, faulty timer, poof

Buckshot, shorty slang, 19-naughty never mane

Three quarter shearling leather, jux you for a better chain

Niggas seeing green like Donnie Simpson

Reverse weave white hoodie, all-American lynching

Convinced niggas is lost causes

And caught the fact that this ain't for us

I'm in a constant state of rage

Elder ways amorphous, blood and orchids

Fifty people at a rap show, one's an informant

Niggas scared to be their self, whole life's a performance

I pity the fool, fuckboys deserve to be liberated too

Coon-skin rubbers, Madonna thot

If she feeling that way you might could watch, free entry

Complementary Shaq Fu punch for refreshment

Catch me outside, Happy Land the exit

Past due, send your soul to collections

Who gon' check me from the neck up?

Keloid scar, just get the check cut 

Dettol

ELUCID:

Hero ain't nothing but a chopped cheese

'92 Accord trunk, exotic tree

Branches tore through the bag, baggy jeans

Walk away a 34 inseam

Bring me a dream

Squeeze from the hip.

wean from the tit,

schemes with the rich

skipping your name, nothing seem to stick

Fiending for a lick

Nothing major, just a blip, ain't it a bitch?

Just think: what if you could just- lay it all to dust

Did it for the rush,

Hush tone on landline

White noise, Babylon vampire,

he a goddamn liar

Arrows and AR's, born of chaos, Hey Ya/’ll

I can't scrub the stain off

This a liberation séance, stay on

Four-headed beast with eight arm

Lekker lekker

Invoking names in desperate measures, 

they who control the weather

Whatever whatever

AV Navy leather

Naked from the neck up,
stash the Black and Decker

Belook the Mecca

Hex-Throwers Anonymous,

disaster capital economic shit

The words charged inside an amulet

Doubting Thomas's

No such thing as common sense, somber kiss 

promises

billy woods:

It's too late for dialogue man, talk to who?

She ain't raised no fool

I rode through Idaho like Duel 

This game they don't explain the rules

Packed house, pew to vestibule

Blue vegetables

Earthy vegetal notes barely legible

but no less true

Like we won't always be cool

This America, somebody gots to lose

“Not I,” said the cat, off went the gat

Let the lawyer litigate while he sit back

The perpetrator was a different shade of black

Beat the case, said “let them eat cake” in his raps

Service weapon in my face, all I could see was his lips chapped

Wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him today

Chokehold slowly closed the airway, 

the sunken place I can't stay

“You built it on Indian graves!”, the lead character exclaims

Christmas Eve, again with the rattling chains,

Marley's ghost must've been something I smoked

Streets soot-choked,
courthouse overflowed, this shit broke (this shit broke!)

Could tell he was waiting for us to go to break out the coke

She said she's still having fun, she'll see me at home 

No Days Off

billy woods:

Grapes sour, asked after the vintage

The loud grows louder, feel like The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Out your depth, this something you can't finish

Signed guest list
Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith

Nobody blink, they don't know who the fuck that is

Don't come through talking crazy I'm babysitting my ex's kid

She only wanna know what time breakfast is

then snacks,
trust, you don't want none of that(You don't want none of that, tough guy)

She won't listen to a word you say

Onion powder only thing on they spice rack

but cats act like Quinton on his way

Gladys Knight's good old days (talk about 'em)

They said you still selling that same kilo of cocaine

Way I see it we all sell pain

She a hoe, she a pro,
she got all type of different names

Dance like I'm in leg and waist chains

Stepped on the rage, lust, fear, hate

Whip the mix till the base levitate

On the sixth day my father looked and should've been dismayed

Maybe go ahead and come in on Sunday, I'm just saying

No disrespect, I'm just saying

I'm just saying

No days off

billy woods and ELUCID:

You don't work you don't eat

You don't work you don't eat, you don't work you don't eat x4

ELUCID:

“That's problematic in itself”, I called out

Thinking about my barriers to wealth 

And it's clear:

rising and grinding couldn't help

Wasn't seen, wasn't felt

An honest day's overrated,

broke on payday

They still kicking it, watch and pray,

wait till something changes

But the marshall's at the door with lock breakers

I've got 

grips on the stove, tendrils of smoking the alcove home

They finna built the Devil’s prison in the south pole

This ain't the righteous way to go

Let me get your supervisor on the phone

Late stage capital, shooting down the living wage

Caveman figure rational

Castles with eyes in the sky

Claiming both the proud and the wise

Normalize us with the fuckshit

The corporation name was Trust

I'll get that for you no rush

billy woods and ELUCID:

You don't work you don't eat

You don't work you don't eat

You don't work you don't eat, you don't work you don't eat 
You don't work you don't eat, you don't work you don't eat 
You don't work you don't eat, you don't work you don't eat 

Fuhrman Tapes

ELUCID:

When I roll out, roll out

When I go out, go out

When I go out, I go out

When I, when I

ELUCID:

Black pussy is the world's first religion

Laying prostrate in her division of joy, 

I've been redeemed

Bareback in the valley of kings

Empire State can't carry the weight,

ride with us or against

Attempt an execution,

Shits too critical for a euphemism

Practical magic,

launder my rations

Since '99 watching society slipping past us

I won two longstanding bets on an orange fascist begrudgingly

Butter leather cover me from the elements

I ain't buying what you selling, B

Tenement dweller knocking down wall for luxury loft

just white presences and value increase

Hell deep under me sensi

But I still peep

Every shut eye ain't sleep,

sun rises in the east

where planes hang low but the pressure sky high

I feel niggas when they be like "why even try?"

I elect Nature of the Threat as the new black national anthem

White panther, private dancer

Shake that shit for a real nigga

I been in the spot getting slizzered for some time now

On some self-care shit,
medicating

They still murk you if you standing up or lying down,

unarmed, 

in a suit, birthday or Armani

My philosophy: pig reform policy is an ice pack on the gun wound
No,

no, no, no idea's original

That's wisdom from a fool but still applicable

That's not beef,
it's just I'm not that into you

Back in the East, crack fume mixed with Mistolin

A dank shelter from American war machine

Pills and lean 

ain't been clean since the Afghani invasion

Kush blazing, open cases, tossed the book,

They rich, we barefoot

Niggas on the run, evening

Style of attack: aggressively defensive

Held a pistol and kissed you in remembrance

billy woods:

It's a reason they don't look you in the eye

It's a reason they change the subject every time

There's a reason she don't look you in the eye

There's a reason he change the subject every time

It's a reason they don't look you in the eye

It's a reason they change the subject every time

You know the reason I don't look you in the eye

You know the reason I change the subject every time

billy woods:

Blood in,
till its finished

Ain't no out, you in it

Days like hours, 

hours be like minutes

When in doubt assume everybody with it

Everybody with it, everybody with it

You'd be with it too if it wasn't you

That bomb be like sodium pentothal, tell the truth

on accident

It's cool you don't smoke how I do 

I be practicing

Cain laid his brother in a shallow grave and went about his day

Yet God said not one hair on his head, now shake a leg

Those glory days was generations in the feds

Took two generations for these niggas to start doing drugs again

Small victories, huh? 

Fled the village, accused of wizardry, huh?

They never seen the light, personal Christ,

shots muffled but witnesses seen the light

Before they dip, calmly pick that brass off the ground

Don't call my jack with your hand out, it's hard all around

billy woods:

It's a reason they don't look you in the eye

It's a reason they change the subject every time

It's a reason I don't look you in the eye

It's a reason

Hunter

ELUCID:

Data mapped galactic flows

Shitty crack bundles litter my path back home

Following looping drones of a familiar smoker's cough

Pipe glass scorch third-degree

Every verse curse the beat,
purposefully

That's word to me

Everything begins with intention,
pending addendum to the Book of Coming Forth By Day

Lose your life trying to ride this wave

Damn straight
Cream rise like tide, I'm taking mines off top

Knowing what it's like to cha-cha slide when it's time to pay

I'm good at these ghetto games

I'm good at these ghetto games

Brains got blew, coop he flew

Few states remove

Titty-deep in the Gullah swamp with a view

Flora, fauna and bandwidth, drop me a line

I eat too much pussy to be a Rasta

Smoke em if ya got em

My first pull was Chocolate from a chalice

Many mansions, many mansions

Slanted roof on solid ground

Scenic but rocky route

Too sweet, pull a tooth, free screenings

I told papi to chill on selling babies Hot Takis and blue juice,

it weighed me down

billy woods:

Black crow perched pon chimney pipe

Dark as your worst night

Heroin dealers crane they necks against the absence of light

Curses and stones thrown but it didn't take flight

I laughed at how they tight

Called on God between moans

But can't shake the feeling she faking, homes

My last meal was my own heart

You'll take the deal if you smart

Better yet: time's a flat circle
take the wheel and depart

It's you or them, it ain't no friends

Guns come out with the icey men

Here we go again,
again

ELUCID:

I only write for the dead, true sins of the flesh

Lawfully wed, close range to the chest

Houston it's spread

Crane of the neck, take heed it's a pledge

Spinning wheels when greed drove a wedge

Brokered a deal, now who’ll take the spread?

Plasma congeals,
more brownish than red

Taste of iron and lead

If you’ll lie you’ll steal, tough guys still squeal

Aim for his fez, divided what's real

You're a fly in the web, riot for bread

Swipe crumb from the edge

Faithful tithing ten percent

Prophesied I wouldn't rumba with the reaper

My brother's keeper, a chosen child amongst the people

Arbitrary evils, force lethal

What is and isn't legal

Hard to hear the trumpet,

I'm a deep sleeper, but I feel like I've been running

It be sudden,
it be sluggish like the blood through fatty arteries

Be ye at the ready, I can't hide it’s all a part of me

Presidential pardons, arm the mamas, keep my body strong

A moving target in the killing fields, cunning skill,

unbroken will/wheel, but I be so fucking weary

Whistle past the graveyard running errands

Without warning, courting heaven

Seven is the number, snatched up by the hunter

ELUCID:

Speaking to an unframed sky

Hearing there's no why sometimes

Fear behind the eyes don't hide

If we gotta ride let's ride

If we gotta ride let's ride 

Speaking to an unframed sky

Hearing there's no why sometimes

Fear behind the eyes don't hide

If we gotta ride let's ride

If we gotta ride let's ride 

Speaking to an unframed sky

Hearing there's no why sometimes

Fear behind the eyes don't hide

If we gotta ride let's ride

If we gotta ride let's ride 

Rise, 

Rise, 

Rise

Alternate Side Parking

billy woods:

Crouched and watched as you sank

Straws snatched off the riverbank

Turnt the phrase like a shank,

had it stashed by the sinks

Didn't have to come to this, I implored negroes to think

My born date is a jinx

Wait at the gate, I'm a sphinx

You blinked, 

paid dearly for those forty winks

Cold as ice, she skated 'round the rink

Teeth impossibly white, cheeks pink

Finally suggested we rob them,

immediately switched my math

I do not need the problems

End up counting in the mountains

All jokes aside, my man had a Nigerian accountant

We was rolling even though by then the cancer had slowed him

Niggas wait till you in the car to tell you it's stolen

Too late to get out, no point asking where you going

This that dumb shit you gotta survive

Just to get to the point of the script
where a cop pull you over, coming from your 9 to 5
inexplicably empty the clip

billy woods:

Alternate side parking, I didn't leave the apartment

Alternate side parking, I didn't leave the apartment

billy woods:

Peace? Not this evening

It's not even close to even

No rhyme or reason, just open season

Just watch: seeing is believing (is it?)

They won't believe till there's nothing to believe in

He said it wasn't me, we didn't believe him

It's all wearing thin 

Simple lime and gin to the coupe brim

The suit was wearing him

It's another word hid inside chagrin

Big lips make quick work of your weed pen

The arc is long but it do bend, it do bend, it do bend

Alternate side parking, I ain't leave the apartment

I was just starting to start starving, the stick was sharpened

Head split, Percy Harvin

Shade drawn, room dark

But when he spit the room darkened

(Sample - potentially Walter Matthau?)

“Are you sure you haven’t got any money?” 

“No, no - it’s against company policy” 

“Well, play for fun...”

If He Holla (Ft. SKECH185)

ELUCID:

Cordoned off the block, sun propped up with unbearable lightness

Deadstock box on ice to be thawed in a time of crisis

Grab a mop Lord, 

five swipe daily make for a righteous hypebeast

Rappers on High Street, blind priests,
no DOB on the ID

She rock a thousand dollar weave, her services are well appointed

Only for tonight see, touch not my anointed

You got the motherfucking coin but never seemed in a shortage

You can't afford to credibly question what is the law, toys getting shorted

Undercover wars broke out, extortion

Morbid science slash the glory in violence 

Forces

I feel so so so so so so SO important

Warning: void of sale

golden feathers, weights and scale

Hold my leather, offshore tax shelter
Eat a dick my nig

St. Louis rip, grease shine his lip,
fix your momma wig

Her other one's on skates,
Thizzler on the roof, there's one in every family

Next year I'm bringing home the cream, hands-free

Plan B, CMD land speed

Drawn bead, bill clipped juice, reptile skin on feet

Where, when the praises go up, it be raining gold teeth there
POV

I ain't make the rules

I ain't make the rules

billy woods:

Your God is distant

Your father never listened

God forbid your father missing, have to do wrong off of intuition

Son ask what I be doing in the kitchen,

kid I'm trying to beat the fucking system

Came home staring a thousand yards in the distance (Gone fishin')

Kronos swallow stones during interdiction, the bitch bewitching

Zeus lay low 

face like he ain't going back to prison

Now we in the weeds where ordinary turn hard to believe

Told my mentee "trees used to have stems and seeds"

Lookin' at me crazy, nah I'm fucking with you B

You know me

I grew up at the reaper knee 

paperwork said they found residue on the beats

We all watched the widow weep 

just to be sure

I was eleven with the widow's peak almost relieved he was gone

Gutted, they don't want that realness

When cousins and uncles caught the illness

Gone til Thanksgiving lying, dying, trying

Trapped animals stale, stole sockets

You want a sick verse buddy you got it

Off message even when I'm on topic

Skech185:

My aunt was 700 miles away from my father when his sister died

Was told he stared into space numb

Was told to save my money and not to come

Better hold a stoneface in place of leisure

Please tell me about your vacation

So I can paste my face in it

In moments of pain and isolation

My mother lost a close friend

She sat with her and watched her fade

Funny the same man who failed with a screwdriver, succeeded with AIDS

And that makes a protest or t-shirt meaningless

I stretched out both hands to prepare for weapon stress

I fight everyday to die as an old man

At the pace of a headache and an ounce of blood

Word to my liver

This cocktail's the only thing that keeps me from killing you niggas

Damn that site passed on your album (it did?)

My people keep getting executed (they are?)

But I need to lower my volume because I'm too black to for my surroundings…

Black Garlic

billy woods:

Pleased to see tree up to his standards,

Machiavelli grand oil on canvas

Veritable parade of private dancers

yet the black hole grow like cancer

Packed snow, tracks like panzers

By the end the feds was the Panthers

Count your dead by the swing of a lantern

Don't even ask, you don't wanna know the answer

ELUCID:

Abuse of power comes as no surprise,

clapping at the read-out from the other other side of time

He who maneuver through the flowers when the sky rip,

Free black mommas, fuck the talk cause she a flight risk

Kill em in the saga, scribe the modest side-kick

I advise you not to try this

Do not

billy woods:

Of course its a drag,

but you go to war with the army you have

Steely Dan, Leadbelly, Iron Flag 

Raw aura, ran em off like slag

God looked and was glad

The Devil seen, said "I need half"

I laughed, you must be mad! (You mad)

Out ya damn mind

Watch her wine suh, she wine SUH

Move them posts, still see the goal line though

Mid '90s flow

Bokeem Woodbine in the liner notes

ELUCID:

DJ Vlad, big boss at the end of the internet

Whitesplaining Uncle Tom futures to disinterested black women

Routeless rapper, seas or in a plane

Lil Wayne acoustic cover a sign of the times

All cap,
lemon pepper his wing

Exclamation on arrival,
I get all inside

Three times you'll deny me

Lounging between two pillars of ivory in the garden

“Don't move”, not a problem

Revelation in 1080p

Worldstar number, when you see me don't speak

Legalese is designed to overwhelm you

Legalese is designed to overwhelm you

Legalese is designed to overwhelm you

Scrape your face to this, smell heaven

Millionaire rapper with remedial economic analysis

Fuck I know, I used to rap for pork chop sammiches

Black animus,
banished to the east

Hammers for the meek

Stay the fuck from police

VX

ELUCID:

Poppycock,
snot box a rap-a-tronic polyglot

Flambe on the firetwat,

Send flowers for the molliwhop

Body, I

pump a hottie, I just be trying to line it up

Knock it down, domino,
bondage Imma try my luck

Dime of dust up out the envelope,

why you living true to what a liar wrote?

Locked up in the groove, empire state iron cloak

Cliff diver,
I need much higher than required dosage

Flesh prison going through the motions

Not a genius but I had a notion,

Duly noted by your throat

Smoking out the culprit, all your guys I heard are ghosted

Five fifths stamped on a knuckle, proper postage

I know worlds, I know oceans,

Every queen do some hoe shit
Yeah that’s cool though,

assume not an aberration

Taste it before you make that pussy gape kid

You made a human, that’s collaboration

Somebody said don’t put the date in the rhyme, this ain’t no affidavit

ELUCID: 

…I hate my neighbors

billy woods:

Smoke machine,

I roll like fog off the lake

Hopes and dreams

stream for whatever you wanna pay

Play my tape in the Madrasa,

They went to wake the Sheikh, ask “should I wait or..?”

Fuck it, cut to the chase

The money imaginary, I'll send it to your phone

Kick in your door to drive the point home

What percentage of your mortgage in the form of a loan?

What do you really own?

"Blood from a stone"

What I told collections while wiping cappuccino foam out the beard, like how do you reckon?

Nice church you got here, be a shame if something were to happen

Yup, even God pay protection

Reject the concept of interest on debts,

Rubber checks, the fetishist

ATM like a pussy, the money still wet

Bit her lip,

Blood money in a pimp piss test

Glass shoe fit the princess

Winked at the audience right when the plot twist

Only game in town so sit the fuck down, ain't no next

Ran in the bank like Jimmy Stewart

Surround the bank, J. Edgar Hoover

The machine shudder, bolts rattle looser

In God you trust 

it's not just numbers in a computer

billy woods:

Told the money lenders I can do you one better

Washed or unwashed in that river, to the land the lamb tethered

Disemboweled rams, the damned sit in splendor listening to the wind howl

Told the money lenders I can do you one better

Washed or unwashed in that river, to the land the lamb tethered

Disemboweled rams, the damned sit in splendor listening to the wind howl

Vindaloo

billy woods:

Somehow he fucked up the count

I pocketed difference and bounced

See me in the sky dancing

No ceilings, in for a penny in for a pound

Liquor store door headshot

“No stealing” in broken English

White man say he bought the ground;

the store show him the fine print

Pandora's door was open when she came in

Highest I ever got was the bottom of the pyramid

Highest I ever got was holding a bag wondering what if I just dipped?

Flow's like the moon

tides cold

A star in the void, like The More You Know

Carnies barking (yo yo yo)

Guess how much black mold your tenement hold
(Hmm) Are the tenants negro?

Either way, never much of a scold

Not the one to tell shawty slow your roll

The kid was keen,

made the exception

Take it from me: go get that degree

He dropped out, got rich as can be

Seen him grinning on TV,
all I said was, "my G"
under my breath

sips tea, it's none of us left

Light skinned niggas chucking threes, I wish 'em the best

Beyond God's law some exist

Summer's tryst turned winter slog

That's why you don't invade the USSR

Saw son serve it raw, vaping on a hoverboard

Genuflected, peace to a king, gave him his first little necklace

ELUCID:

If not mine, then whose?

That's just the few that made news

Proof not seen

Why they come for me, though?

Freeload, we know
(we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know)

Don't play the hero

Old school household smell like soul food

Slow stew,

spoon over pearl couscous,

onion loop, bundled herb

Built for comfort not for speed

All that with a whole bird, plus the giblets

Black always with a capital B

Work through the years unrattled by miraculous means

Shackles clink

Climbing pineapple trees, why?

Please say what I mean (mean, mean, mean, mean, mean, mean, mean)

Bask by the Sargasso sea

What's gon' be gon' be

Rhys told me to tell y'all

Hopping through the moon roof

Looking at self preservation at another level

You built bad in your birthday outfit, time costs more now

Throw down

Take me to your lizard king

Man-child hand style, pull purse string

Gangbang Earth

First and the last,
is it worth coming back?

Accustomed to the culture of cotton

and then there was crack

[Sample]

But that human part, sometimes, I tend to want to suppress. Because the human part in me might say: Mosia, "who killed my daughter in law? I should go and shoot them". The human part might say "I must go around looking for the Canaans brothers, and shoot them". But the revolutionary in me says, "it's over".

ECOMOG

ELUCID:

Herbs and roots

Mixtape white tee/tea and Noni juice

Steam pot simmer under zinc roof

Law of land, live and let die

I can’t seem to grasp time (spelling)

Watching death and how it comes in threes

Chili, garlic, ginger, head spinning, lord willing

There’s a line, as for me and mine

Dark bodies sent to Earth to usher in an unprecedented era

of cosmic regeneration and happiness

Mysterious tale

The veil's been lifted, are you listening?

Crooked scales

Written in a gentrified art hotel in the motherland

Closing the gap between over and understanding,

doubling back on a tangent to peep the jewel

Duel of the iron mic,
never made the news

To be seen and not seen at the same time is a mind fuck

Black Buck,

Niggas always wanna be the next white somebody

Respect the lineage, feel like I shadowbox with simians

All in my feelings, I got a right to

No photos please I got warrants

Alluring vipers with smiles made for pulling the jux

“No such thing as a halfway crook” be the mantra

Conjure man hold my new flow

Tone poem always in code

Don’t try to keep up, let it take you

billy woods:

The phrase "at the end of the day" 

punctuate damn near everything he say

Bitter to the taste, somebody’s gots to pay, 

his laugh bray like brass

Crafts tales of unlikely escapades

Talk like a fool, eyes searching your face

Knows you think you better,

wants you to know you ain’t

An even layer of burnt cork for the greasepaint

You know what comes next

You already know the rest

You don’t need me to tell you

You know I need the check

No respect, no respect

Propeller hat jaunty, surely you jest

Yet double back to holler at your aunty

Put the work in the bassinet

Get worked up over these manuscripts like Jack Torrance Shining, you just rhyming

I gave them work like everybody do these assignments

Voluble silence in that asylum. Rather than shame

They built a monument to the violence

Way we play, it don’t sound nothing like a violin

beat switch)

billy woods:

They got the bomb like uptown in ‘99

You can search far and wide for a hill on which to die

The rent still too damn high

Dead-bent but still quite spry

They got the bomb like a Spike Lee joint

So no time to waste, get right to the point

The roach is never dead

That feeling is dread

Those that could fled

Laid in the coffin like a bed and each child walked up to kiss his bandaged head

Still remember something foul my uncle said

Yeah, I’mma carry that to the end

Bob Barker

ELUCID:

If you can't say "fuck the police" out loud and in public

we can't strategically build with you

It's a crime to be poor

Satellite arm of the law,

Body snatcher

No man knows the hour

4, 5, 6, is it my time yet?

Full circle, perfect loop like dying on my birthday

Cremate me in my boots,

Scatter my ashes on a ocean,

I'mma walk on water

The suicide drill for the fourth quarter,

everybody play the fool

Top of the key, my shot water

Ford classic

Bundled to the neck in my Sister Rosetta Tharpe sweater

Varsity letterman 

to be a nigga is to Eshu/eschew elegance

Melancholy medicine for pressures

Spirit swells like faces under baton strike, the heart hardener

Her raging cosmic ice shower raining vengeance
on those who described with real and assumed power

That's a wet dream

I woke up on fire, still in the East

My only goal is to die free, with my dick hard,

Far from the potter's field if I'm being selfish

That's not my story though, if my mother singing glory

It's cause her baby boy getting over on his own terms

My brother too, it's so precarious

Ain't no flaming chariot up north unless we torch a prison bus

Sterilize the wound

To keep his kins to come flush in the face,
a numbers game

Projections start with seeds in the third grade

Incubation, more black bodies required

There's no soul in this machine

There's no soul in this machine

There's no soul in this machine

There's no soul in this machine

There's no soul in this machine

Sudden Death

ELUCID:

Whooooooooaaaa,
some kind of sudden death,

Whooooooooaaaa,
some kind of sudden death,

Whooooooooaaaa,
some kind of sudden death

Whooooooooaaaa

billy woods:

When that car note due she call you

Jezebel wasn't born with the silver spoon

When you hard, think about that too

Anansi lured the moon down amongst the dunya's dunes

Dark like the womb

Rooms inside rooms inside rooms

inside rooms

Duck-taped Montezuma looking for Cuba

Truck jewels, Rick the Ruler

Spanish peculiar off a couple woolahs

Lifted the devil's diary;
eloquent, no false piety

Piles of raw ivory

Pius V watch from the priory

The dead arm never tires B,
not entirely

ELUCID:

Still waters beneath the tower of Babel

All info on a need-to-know, give never more than he have to

You wasn't there

Figured it was better left unsaid

Mum's the word, familiarity preferred

Wrong words get you clapped in the head

It's only snitching if you was riding dirty with em

Cursory details murky

The nerve B,

Tongue untied, what's the deal deemed more worthy?

Burly, high alert

Don't ask who, what, or why it work

Hot-wire a verse

Before fear bring fire first

Heart of hurt

Dying of secrets, trauma repeated

Make sure when they show you who you are, you believe em

A child don't act this way without a reason

What's a beating word that they don't understand the meaning

Threats and promise keeping

Shut the fuck up when you get around adults who speaking

Weighing heavy

Stress pressure, diabetes

Set free

Don't let the devil get greedy

All seeing eye from the PD

With grunts, snarls, and spittle they greet me,

baring teeth

Leave me leaking

Root Farm


ELUCID:
I did not come to play with you hoes
I be up too damn early
Few Jolt Cola's short of a case
Gaps in my life,
Absent from photos, somehow kept the tapes
Smack the taste out yo mouth, 
steamed milk, coffee and cheddar scone
I wandered Azania without a phone
Ordered step
Flashing death, when my dick get wet
Hex breaker for hire, ten thousand tiny township fires ablaze
I believe in survivors
Lowkey oppressors call me brother
Lowkey oppressors call me brother
Lowkey oppressors call me brother
Black men are white men too, when convenient
Speak it like you mean it
And I never grab the mic without grabbing my (uhh)

I'mma read, I'mma read, I'mma read, 
I'mma read, I'mma read, 
I'mma read
right through you
Motherfucker right through you

(Frank Ocean Sample)
This is joy, this is summer
Keep alive
Keep alive
Stay alive
This is joy, this is summer
Keep alive
Keep alive
Stay alive

ELUCID:
Jake radio squawk and squeal
Visible exhale, Nor'easter chill
I'm in layers of black
Stretching these old bones, pointed toes
Red and blue strobe, play me on wax forever
Blood on the doorframe, steady leaking
Told him "take that shit across the way"
Please pass me by
I score fiends shooting the fair one
Life ain't, but fuck it
Sad chord shuffle, rushed percussion muffle
Short barrel red potato, move when I say so
They know, they know (they know, they know, they know)
Look mom I get paid for my thoughts, sort of
Yes that make room for me and mine
Levi on the way in due time
Shit don't rhyme no more, 
but making more sense in my mind
I been all kinds of poor
I know the line divide surviving and thriving
What side, what side, what side

There's a riot goin’ on
What a time you chose to be born
billy woods wrote that line first though

billy woods:
Nah, nah
Lone Wolf and Cub via Gary Grice
Hold your fire till you see the whites
of their eyes, shocked life had one last surprise
I was surprised to find people rather die than cut your slice of the pie
Nigga was aggy talkin' 'bout "I gots to gets mine"
That's when I knew I'd never see him alive again

Spliff like a pen, everything I wrote is in the wind
We didn't win, and I can't see doing it all over