| Ladies and gentlemen
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| Kweli!
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| Won’t you stay around with me…
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| And please say the rhyme
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| Cause these rappers think that I’m
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| In love with your state of mind
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| Cause you a favorite of mine
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| And I know you on your grind
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| I don’t want to waste your time
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| But baby won’t you stay around with me…
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| And let my love (and let my love)
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| And let my love
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| Kweli you should rap about this, you should rap about that
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| Any more suggestions? |
| You in the back, yeah you
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| You should rap more on beat, you should rap more street
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| And never ever get your mack on please, how bout you?
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| I like the way you’re melodic, it’s cause you capture hypnotic
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| Portraits and seem to make the average exotic
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| Kweli you nice, I know you getting some love, but you can’t spit like a thug
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| And you a blow, you make a hit for the club, word
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| I don’t like your voice, I don’t like your choice of beats
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| It sounds like it’s forced, and what was up with «Back Up Offa Me»?
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| I ain’t like that, now you should get with Hi-Tek
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| Now he got nice tracks, them other dudes is type wack
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| Yeah, people keeping it coming, I keep it bubbling
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| Like the heat from oven boiling the water and the hate
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| So they light my fire…
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| I got a mic empire, my own label
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| I had to Emancipate Mimi like Mariah…
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| At some point I might retire, on some bullshit
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| My legacy, horseshit like Mariah’s…
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| Illest flow found in the game, soothing like the sound of the rain
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| It’s the dude profound with the fame, I refusing to be sounding the same
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| Keeping the verses, deleting the curses, defeating the purpose
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| When the people go on strike, I’m in the street with the workers
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| Speaking the words from a pulpit like the preachers at churches
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| Raise my hand, all the teachers get nervous
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| Cause they know I air them out
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| And they ain’t even really gotta hear me out
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| Keep it dirty like Pigpen, voice in the warrior’s head like Lynne Thigpen
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| Clocking like Big Ben, old school slang still find a way to innovate
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| Pete Rock got em feeling great, the ladies say
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| Won’t you stay around with me…
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| And please say the rhyme
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| Cause these rappers think that I’m
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| In love with your state of mind
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| Cause you a favorite of mine
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| And I know you on your grind
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| I don’t want to waste your time
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| But baby won’t you stay around with me…
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| And let my love (and let my love)
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| And let my love
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| Light the tip of the L, this heavyweight rap tipping the scale
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| And we never let the system prevail, real picturesque, missing the sale
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| Never that, it’s forbidden like Afghani sisters lifting the veil
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| I’m still leading the pack, these cats lacking
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| Just because you be having a dragon don’t mean you got the fire…
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| It ain’t nothing to play with, it’s sacred
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| My pen is the paintbrush, and dipping in paint plus
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| Truth, love, joy, anger, hatred and anguish
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| That’s the spectrum of colors I paint with
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| I don’t feast at the banquet cause freedom is the set that I bang with
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| Listen the conditions in my Slum Village is Tainted
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| I grew through the pavement, like the flower the girl drew in the paper
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| The sky bluer and the obvious save you
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| The rules of engagement that they use, attitudes of a slave
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| Man got me stressed out losing my patience
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| The moves that I’m making across waters
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| Through contraband that I’m taking across borders
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| Information never lost in translation
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| Too many new words to be learned, I’m spitting fire giving third degree burns
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| Giving them heat stroke, hotter than rocking a peacote
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| At Venice Beach though, all these rappers soup like miso, we go
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| Back in the days like reminiscing with Pete yo
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| Ladies welcome to the Kweli show
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| She goes…
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| Won’t you stay around with me…
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| And please say the rhyme
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| Cause these rappers think that I’m
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| In love with your state of mind
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| Cause you a favorite of mine
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| And I know you on your grind
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| I don’t want to waste your time
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| But baby won’t you stay around with me…
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| And let my love (and let my love)
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| And let my love
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| Ladies and Gentleman, its Talib Kweli
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| Yeah, this Ear Drum y’all
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| B-B-B-B-Banging on your ear drum
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| We got the incredible Pete Rock on the track like…
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| I like that, I like that
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| I want to give an extra big shout to my man Dave Dart
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| Holding me down as always and as usual
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| And his new born son, Cannon, brand new to the world
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| He’s now down with Blacksmith, Blacksmith is the movement
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| Jean Grae, Strong Arm Steady gang, Talib Kweli
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| It’s what it is, yeah |