1. |
Gather Round
03:46
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Hit the ground running my mouth hard as I ever did
Crowd of naysayers outside, I never let em in
'Cause I never been better than I am living it now,
Sever the leather off of your bones if you're bringing me down
The reckoning is hectic when you're sticking out your neck
Then I heard the records beckon, I reckon I'm fucking wreckin' it
You don't gotta love it, but you better respect it,
I'm the shit, y'all, you buried and septic
They try to tell me I'm soft, just 'cus I'm slept on,
but fuck it, I kept on truckin' and stepped on
These plastic rappers who been covering canned rap
I'm fresh to death, a cadaver in saran wrap
Even if I'm rockin' a capella to hand claps
Legends line up just to give your man daps
and if y'all thought Chess wouldn't smack a rapper down
then take a seat up at the front, everybody gather round
Look mom, rap music! Wow, what a disaster
I'll body the track and I'm smashing these other rappers
I'm thinking bigger than massive, the plan has been mastered
Fuck some shallow bars, I'm going hard in the plaster
And if y'all still in Paris, y'all best be embarrassed
I'm leaving handprints like drunk step-parents
I can rush the whole game like Sarah Kerrigan's harem
I can arrogantly tear 'em every time I'm spittin' sarin
My brainstorms rip the stem from your cerebellum
I got all kinds of verses, I just never care to sell 'em
It's compensation, but it ain't about the money, kid
And even if it were I wouldn't share like Sonny did
It's domination, the way that I've been running it
Nobody ever even wanna think about that other shit
That's why dollar for dollar, and pound for pound
Everybody wanna show up when Chess is in town
Not the best, but the best dressed rockin'
Stocked with a microphone and a fresh-pressed oxford
Apparently I'm a parody, or maybe a paradox
Cold-cock the box office wearing pair of Dockers
Clock you like a boxer and knock you out'cha socks
Chop the block off, rottweiler in a China shop
Docked till y'all wanna stop jockin' dishonesty
I be coppin' and hoppin' up on the opposite commodity
Come on, y'all - somebody stop me
Put some hair on your chest, pot of black coffee
Half of y'all wanna rock with me, half are cross shoppin' me
Possibly trying to find an MC as hot as me
But nah, B, not easily, and not if he's not me
Please buy all all my records, and buy a lot of copies
Give 'em to your homies, have 'em pass 'em around
I said one more time, everybody gather 'round
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2. |
A Crying Shame
02:50
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Sighs and stirs her coffee with the side of a knife
I just try to reconstruct the puzzle pieces of her life
Once again it's my job to tell her she's right
And I empathize, I'm just not feelin' it tonight
I'm supposed to be on her side, I try to hide
that I've decided I would rather die than try to modify
the lie that she's been livin' in, I felt like givin' in,
She goes on and on and on about this life that she's imprisoned in
So I hang on every word, every cop out
Every excuse about how no one likes a dropout
She's acting like the whole world is crashing down around her
She hates all of her friends and the people that surround her
There's no sense of irony
'Cause if it gets better, she can never cry to me
But since she's so comfortable down on her knees
I gotta ask her one time, just shut up, please.
So I said, it's a crying shame
The more we all change, the more you stay the same
You never wanna try, you just lay the blame
And still you wonder why we all walkin' away
And that's because I'm sick of hearing how bad you got it
When you diggin' out the past and blastin' it out the coffin
'stead of laying it to rest, looking back and laughing on it,
or turning off the film and forgettin' what happened on it
You do it all passively, like there's some chastity
to break down the sabotage you're using as a strategy
ain't that a sad tragedy, mad that your dad had to see
The way that his daughter could ever fail that massively
but that was how it had to be, it seemed so sad to me
that anyone would ever sing the blues so happily
and I won't ever hear you change your tune,
got the same sad songs about the pain and abuse
It's like a full time job when I try to respect you
In the best of all worlds, we woulda never even met you
There's some days that I can't go through with it,
If you got another chance, you wouldn't know what to do with it
So I said, it's a crying shame
The more we all change, the more you stay the same
You never wanna try, you just lay the blame
And still you wonder why we all walkin' away
Walk away.
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3. |
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Catch 'em in the club with some donuts and a pot of coffee
They writin' tickets givin' everyone a carbon copy
lock you in a box and they toss the key
never walkin' out till you obsolete
They shut the party down and they stop the beat,
Say you need a permit just to rock with me,
You takin' fingerprints and searching the body?
If you're policin' hip hop, I want to see some ID
Well little homie, says here you can not spit
Your record is criminal, rhymes are obnoxious
So keep it underground, call it “real hip hop shit”
'Cause if you get a budget, you a sellout, you not shit
Got a hit, got a deal when Doug Morris hears it,
Five mics in Source and they praise your crazy lyrics
But you ain't got no poetry, no prose, just cons
Call in a professional, check the homie Soul Khan
You the run the whole show, but you runnin' it bad
So we roll up with the gun and the badge
And ain't nobody gonna know what it means
Beat cops and we're on the scene
Now everybody go ahead and put your hands up
Cruisin' around in a new police truck
And everybody out here chasin' the green,
Beat cops and we're on the scene
[Soul Khan]
Well it's the unprofessional
That got your mama and your mama's mama
Sweating out them love jones chemicals
Your blunt smoke's medical, but you ain't sick, dog
You're too 8 bit for you to stunt so technical
There's thirty pages of rhymes in this here book
But what's the point if you forget it like a kid's yearbook
The A&R's tell me you just gon' hear hooks
But I got a pretty woman without Rich Gere looks
Soul's so willing to go gorilla food
For that Tillamook 'til it spills through a hole in my villa roof
For real, if you ain't feeling me, then you who do you approve of
You need a group hug and something that's tequila proof
But if you're just trying to get my goat, I'll let you yodel
and I ain't slowing down 'til ever single record mogul
recognizes I am Reggie Noble mixed with Quetzalcotl
so let me get to know you, before I'm dead below you
You the run the whole show, but you runnin' it bad
So we roll up with the gun and the badge
And ain't nobody gonna know what it means
Beat cops and we're on the scene
Now everybody go ahead and put your hands up
Cruisin' around in a new police truck
And everybody out here chasin' the green,
Beat cops and we're on the scene
Incompetent doctor, tried to save the patient
Cut the wrong limbs off, still made the payments
Picture perfect packaged by a major corporation,
We love the empty calories, your taste is amazing
You make it look so easy, like it's part of the plan,
Your single's fucking cheesy, you promote it with spam
You roll with stale crackers and you never go ham
Your grind is Lunchables, just being real with you, man
We all waitin' for that hype machine to die down,
Turn the lights down, get the fuck out of my town
You beggin' for success when we designed ours
My crew sticks together like Frida's eyebrows
And then we dictate that rap is in trouble now
Put your life savings on crap and you double down
You're fracking the scene, you pollute the underground
Because you ain't all in, you just here to fuck around
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4. |
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They say you get paper if you write it all plastic,
Another joke song, Chess, that'd be fantastic
It's just so much easier to be sarcastic
Half-ass it instead of being passionate
But you'll never learn to smile if you're too busy laughin'
And you'll never find happiness in all that detachment
A permanent sneer with your eyes to the stars
Hope nobody notices how boring you are
Like, irony, wow, nice job, Alanis
Isn't life working out just the way you wanted?
How sad it would be if your style was dishonest
And you were always pissed off and talkin' obnoxious
Maybe that's just your way of being cautious
Keep your head high, nose above the lot of us
Can't bear the thought of ever having to care
So you acting real arrogant to hide that you're scared
And now you're stuck becoming everything that you hate
You're puttin' up the walls and you're try'na relate
You need somebody to save you from yourself
Because you're so 1998
And now you're stuck becoming everything that you hate
You're puttin' up the walls and you're try'na relate
You need somebody to save you from yourself
You need somebody to save you from yourself
[Satellite High] [DISCLAIMER: This is what I hear by ear, I make no guarantee as to the accuracy of these lyrics - OC]
Tryin' real hard to never get caught
Taking anything serious, don't wanna lose the leverage I got
Post up with the beverage and pot
Building with the nihilism in my life because man, what else have I got
To define me?
I'm all like “remember the 90's!”
Yeah, I got some feelings but you're never gon' find these, dude
'Cause it's creepy to care,
and I keep it that way,
Sincerity's another language, grace is Chinese
Colorblind to these hard-earned lessons
[I literally have no idea what the next two lyrics are, please help]
It's just me, or at least the me I present
A firebrand, always quick with the barb and the spark
Playin' hard but I cry in my pillow after dark
Postmark in the middle of my heart when I shout
Get real, I ain't a killer, I'm a mark – out
And now you're stuck becoming everything that you hate
You're puttin' up the walls and you're try'na relate
You need somebody to save you from yourself
Because you're so 1998
And now you're stuck becoming everything that you hate
You're puttin' up the walls and you're try'na relate
You need somebody to save you from yourself
You need somebody to save you from yourself
Doesn't the negativity ever start to drain on
How there's never been a parade you couldn't rain on
How do you stay in that broken frame of mind
Walled off and drowning, mouth open to sigh
Try to find a soul to hear you moanin' and cry,
But everybody's gone because you wasted their time
It's an echo chamber and you feel like it's shrinking
The walls are closing in, and I know what you're thinking
You can't figure out how it got this far
But when it's time to party we will pity party hard
Playing poker with a full deck of sympathy cards,
And a joker who forgot how he got those scars
So he asking everyone on both sides of the bar,
Hoping for the comfort of a stranger's car
So you lick your new wounds, and you ask for more salt,
Still haven't figured out that this is your fault
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5. |
Man Overboard
03:35
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Woke on a foreign shore, broken and war-torn
Chokin' my vocal cords, hopin' for open doors
Man overboard, nothing of value was lost
Keep your gold chains, homie, I got an albatross
The tide rolls in and it's sinking your plans
Every great creation becomes a grain of sand
Hold your tongue like you were born on a pirate ship
Take my advice instead of sitting, admiring it
I would dive so deep just to find what I needed
When I belong on dry land, putting a whole sea between us
I'd try to decompress, I'd bend till I'd break,
With a belt of dead weight and two empty tanks
Fish in a barrel, grip the trigger, I'll pull it
Rip your ribcage with three silver bullets
And when it's all said and done, we're gonna drift apart
And you'll never pull those slugs back out of your heart
I will never lay eyes on that ocean again,
A sea full of sirens with emotions to mend
There's blood in the water, and circling sharks
There's blood in the water, they gon' tear you apart
So never lay eyes on that ocean again,
A sea full of sirens with emotions to mend
There's blood in the water
There's blood in the water
Blood in the water, make the rivers run red
The same subtle nightmares, a plague in your head
A life you've devoted to a poisonous well
A life you've devoted to a personal hell
Punctuated by the pain of another dry spell,
Stuck staring at the clock, asking what will time tell
Said you'd help me find my way, but you did the polar opposite
Dishonorably hopped into my boat and started rockin' it
And lead me astray, I shoulda stopped and thought it obvious
That a stowaway would not be someone to keep it honest, see
The captain's obligation is down with the ship
But when the shit hits the fan and the sails start to rip
Somebody gotta help him charter out another verse,
A row of teeth chewing on encouraging words
But you raided the arsenal, dove off of the planks
Hit rock bottom and you made your escape
I will never lay eyes on that ocean again,
A sea full of sirens with emotions to mend
There's blood in the water, and circling sharks
There's blood in the water, they gon' tear you apart
So never lay eyes on that ocean again,
A sea full of sirens with emotions to mend
There's blood in the water
There's blood in the water
You've been sucking on lead like it's going out of style
Staring down the barrel every time that you smile
Three dozen white shells in a sawed-off shotgun
That fester into yellow when they soaked in your bile
Each toxic word that you can fit in your mouth
Keeps polluting your bloodstream once you spit 'em out
Runs through your veins and makes your skin crawl
Need a fix of your poison, you just itch in withdrawal
You flash those little fangs every time you come around
And I'm getting so sick of sucking the venom out
I got a target painted on the side of my neck
Where you can take aim with that pain you inject
And when you barin' those teeth, I just sigh and I
See you bite down on that cyanide
Call it a death sentence, watch the words die
Another tide rises, and I wave goodbye
I will never lay eyes on that ocean again,
A sea full of sirens with emotions to mend
There's blood in the water, and circling sharks
There's blood in the water, they gon' tear you apart
So never lay eyes on that ocean again,
A sea full of sirens with emotions to mend
There's blood in the water
There's blood in the water
There's blood in the water
There's blood in the water
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6. |
Mata Hari
04:03
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The hurt was visceral
Words, I took 'em literal
Shipwrecked, washed upon the shores of the miserable
Walked into mine, of all the gin joints in the world
A mouth full of fangs,
A doe eyed little girl
Are you lost and you're hoping that you might be found?
Or do you find yourself looking for a way out of town?
You're far from home, but that's always where the heart is
That's the blunt side of the story that hits the hardest
A blade between your teeth, your lips are pressed to my neck
I was always impressed by the way we'd connect
The pressure in my chest, the way you'd possess me
Got me questioning my rules, like who could Chess be
Tongue and hands tied like she could arrest me
Made me confess how invested I'd be
And what a bloody mess that turned out to be
She got front row seats to see me burn out for free
When the dusk is creeping on and on,
And the sun won't rise
You stay down, you stay awake
Open up your eyes
We all laugh, we cry, we say we're sorry
But ain't nobody ever cried for Mata Hari
Ain't nobody,
Ain't nobody
Now, I was so hellbent on staring at those headlights
I was blind to every warning sign and red light
She let her hair down, tried to get her head right
And in retrospect, I should have gone and read right
Between the lines, rewind to the start
She didn't want all of me, just the best parts
She wanted attention and validation a la carte
Just to charge the batteries on that cheap plastic heart
Empathetic sympathetic synthetic,
Prosthetic pumping a pathetic set of fetishes
Rejected a medic to inject the anesthetic
Of a leech infected with depressants and sedatives
Couldn't keep it copacetic, she said it, I read it
I was never offended, she just couldn't defend it
And then it was mended but torn at the edges
And when it's broken like that, you just toss it, you end it
When the dusk is creeping on and on,
And the sun won't rise
You stay down, you stay awake
Open up your eyes
We all laugh, we cry, we say we're sorry
But ain't nobody ever cried for Mata Hari
Ain't nobody,
Ain't nobody
Pull your blinders aside at the firing line
You never felt so alive as the night that you died
But you kept your head high, settled to your knees
Never thought you'd be so easy to please
Pick apart the pieces like petals on a flower,
She loves me not through those withering hours
Light years past these other men and the boys
Just couldn't stand out to a Helen of Troy
Had to fight an entire army to get your attention
Shoulda been the gold standard, you're an honorable mention
At best, a statistic, and twisted as shit
The way I tried to hit the mark but got a swing and a miss
Figured I'd be the best, so I was hedging my bets
The worst part is that I'm as good as it gets
Get some rest, you only grind your teeth at night
Because I haven't given you a bullet to bite
When the dusk is creeping on and on,
And the sun won't rise
You stay down, you stay awake
Open up your eyes
We all laugh, we cry, we say we're sorry
But ain't nobody ever cried for Mata Hari
Ain't nobody,
Ain't nobody
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