Blackalicious
FREE! Like a bird out in the wind in the night
Like a 747 to LA that's in flight
FREE! Like a garden flourishing in the wind
Like a student bout to do it when he's graduatin
FREE! From any of the energy perception
Can never be defined create the definition within
FREE! Just lovin life itself and never pretend to be
Anything other than the man I was meant to be
Travel through time and get a glimpse of the centuries
To come a better day is promised remember
Edan
I simply use a rapper's bones to build to build my third niche
I work with the aesthetic of a brain medic
Cutting up the reels with crystal shards to make the tape edit
I take lettuce, onions, tomatoe
Add a dab of mayo plus the fish fillet-o
Appetizing gray matter with a strange platter
The symmetry of energy with chemistry and plasma
After you latch on to lost masters
Come back to re-evaluate the now chapter
Style masters born to make classics
And paint canvas geometric break dances
The almighty made Saturn caves and caverns
The flames of magma rivers in Niagara
All of this beauty can be yours to discover
Can't you see it brother?
Without the LSD I see colors
Common
want to be as free as the spirits of those who left
I'm talking Malcom, Coltrane, my man Yusef
Through death through conception
New breath and resurrection
For moms, new steps in her direction
In the right way
Told inside is where the fight lay
And everything a nigga do may not be what he might say
Chicago nights stay, stay on the mind
But I write many lives and lay on these lines
Wave the signs of the times
Many say the grind's on the mind
Shorties blunted-eyed and everyone wonderin' where I'm
Bush pushing lies, killers immortalized
We got arms but won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her
The Messiah, might even return through her
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her
Saul Williams
Nah.
I wasn’t raised at gunpoint and I’ve read too many books
to distract me from the mirror when unhappy with my looks
and I ain’t got proper diction for the makings of a thug
though I grew up in the ghetto and my niggers all sold drugs,
and though that may validate me for a spot on MTV
or get me all the airplay that my bank account would need,
I was hoping to invest in a lesson that I learned
I thought this fool had jumped me just because it was my turn.
I went to an open space 'cause I knew he wouldn’t do it
if somebody there could see him or somebody else might prove it,
and maybe, in your eyes, it may seem I got punked out
'cause I walked a narrow path and then went and changed my route.
But that openness exposed me to a truth I couldn’t find
in the clenched fists of my ego or the confines of my mind
or the hipness of my swagger, or the swagger in my step,
or the scowl of my grimace, or the meanness of my rep.
'cause we represent a truth son, the changes by the hour,
and when you open to it, vulnerability is power,
and in that shifting form you’ll find a truth that doesn’t change
and that truth is living proof of the fact that God is strange…
Talk to strangers
when the family fails and friends lead you astray
when Buddha laughs and Jesus weeps and it turns out God is gay.
'Cause angels and messiahs love can come in many forms:
in the hallways of your projects, or the fat girl in your dorm,
and when you finally take the time to see what they’re about
perhaps you find them lonely or their wisdom trips you out.
maybe you’ll find the spot where cycles end you're back where you began,
but come this time around you’ll have someone to hold your hand,
who prays for you who is there for you who sends you love and light,
exposes you to parts of you that you once tried to fight.
But come this time around you'll choose to walk a different path,
you'll embrace what you turned away and cry at what you laughed,
'cause that’s the only way we’re going to make it through this storm,
where ignorance is common sense and senselessness the norm.
And flags wave high above the truth and the two never touch
and stolen goods are overpriced and freedom costs too much,
and no one seems to recognize the symbols come to life,
the bitten apple on the screen and Jesus had a wife,
and she was his Messiah like that stranger may be yours,
who holds a subtle knife that carves through worlds like magic doors,
and that’s what I’ve been looking for, the bridge from then to now,
just watching BET like what the **** son? this is foul
But that square box don't represent the sphere that we live in,
the earth is not a flat screen I ain’t trying to fit in.
But this ain’t for the underground this here is for the sun.
A seed a stranger gave to me and planted on my tongue.
And when I look at you, I know I’m not the only one.
As a great man once said,
there’s nothing more powerful
than an idea
who’s time
has come.
Right.. that took a very long time..
I'd like to conclude by saying that I do not deny the presence of violence in hip hop, however the point I am trying to make is that it is the violent themes that are the exception to the rule, not the other way around, and because I am too tired to articulate anything, I am going to once again quote someone else to drive my final point across..
Quote:
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I wouldn't say most. Extreme violence in hip-hop didn't really start until the late 80s/early 90s, and even then there was always an alternative to that. If you consider all of hip-hop since its inception in the late 70s, I would say easily less than half of its output has been violent. Alot of artists may have spoken about the violence that occured around them, but as far as rappers celebrating their own violent ways, I don't think you really start seeing that until releases like N.W.A.'s "Straight Out Of Compton," Kool G. Raps "Road To The Riches," and Ice-T's earlier stuff. I'm sure their were some lesser known acts promoting violence before them, but it wasn't a national movement until these albums blew up.
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ALSO.. hip hop is not a movement exclusive to the states. There is a specific Aussie hip hop genre, the French really dig it too and, hell even Romania has hip hop bands. The beats and instant appeal of hip hop is universal and not exclusive to african american culture.
The end