[Verse 1] I’ve been thinking bout the great escape, steak up on my dinner plate/ shipping crates of records to distributers to earn my cake/ ain’t a silver-tongued mass of cells that could take my place/ shall grace them with my presence, when it hits them who I am they might spit out their grapes/ Young brother with a passion, rude with the magic/ but he still tucks his napkin/ only guaranteed death and taxes/ redman roots and it’s time for some akshun/… actin’…foul… put my words in a box like closed captions/ they let me play with C4, I took out they whole faction/ toe-tappin’ on that grown man/ my life, it ain’t no slow jam/ there’s heavy metal in my punk rock/ life formed from a sunspot/ that’s hot enough to burn any critics of my jump shot, let’s play ball/ I won’t fall, been ten toes down since cartoons on my lunch box, kill the small talk// [Hook] … and I want, and I want, I want to hold you down/ But love can do so much and there’s so much I want to do/ See the same things when I look around that my friends are going through/ Groupthink is in the way of things/ Bad Blood is in the way of things/ Holding on to what isn’t there just ends up delaying things/ I get “so high…” just thinking bout what we could be// [Verse 2] Hold up, hold up, hold up/ when I roll up it gets so nuts/ we’ll have a party, yea, we’ll have a party. Break out the red cups, put away the cold cuts/ I mean, all I make is cold cuts/ that’s no lunch food, and that’s so rude/ you talking when you hear grown-ups/ I’ve got bills to pay, I need more bucks/ I’ve got girls, I’ll always need more bucks/… until I’m Daddy Warbucks/ or Jamie Foxx and calling shots/ sing the same tune, but your score sucks/ like… “You can’t touch this”/ Just kiddin… good riddance/ but when I sit with a pad and a pen, it’s only good writtens/ my god, where did we go wrong? Bringing mad dogs around these kittens/ some people say what they can’t back up. I believe they call that trickin’/ and that gets in the way of things… like good times from good change/ these kids see the worst in us. No unity, that Rick James/ it’s a damn shame// [Hook] [Verse 3] Given the mood/ I see the color and I like it, too/ a little bit murky, but clearin’ the room/ I see the lights in the ice and the gloom/ Where are my manners? My name is Joe, y’all/ from where the coldest of cold are y’all/ you didn’t know? I’ve got flows here, y’all/ that stream of the consciousness’ golden, y’all/ Hold em up/ They’re slowing up my train of thought, electrifying that turnstile/ on that Vonnegutt, while mortals sleep, I keep eyes up, that slum child/ is not Hollywood, no millionaire/ but keeps it 100/ I’m frozen or something/ I’m up in the air/ I’m loving the feeling of being aware/ I’m fully prepared/ This life is not predictable/ this world is not unfixable/ I ripped a page from Constable, paint realistic, live avant garde/ if I do it, I do it large/ these media cats put Charles in Charge/ I’ll stage a coupe… Keep it true/ that collar’s whatever, my veins colored blue//

[Hook/Intro] See the world through a tv/ see the lights and the life/ and the shows and the rows of the people with “I” vote/ See me…taking notes of the flock/ when I wrote what I wrote, I was blazed on the thought/ this isn’t real, b/ this is a fevered dream of something sicker than we can even imagine/ the pain and the passion/ 10 years learning how to walk upon the surface/ Pray I don’t leave here worthless/ [Verse 1] Uh… sharper than my last cut, baby/ I lost my head and never got patched up, baby/ maybe if I had the sensibility to kill em the first time they wouldn’t come back like the villain/ wouldn’t come, too/ this the art of war, Sun Tzu/ this is the product of a monsoon/ what do they call you? 7000 tons of raw pressure/ turned into a diamond and no lesser/ [Hook] See the world through a tv/ see the lights and the life/ and the shows and the rows of the people with “I” vote/ See me…taking notes of the flock/ when I wrote what I wrote, I was blazed on the thought/ this isn’t real, b/ this is a fevered dream of something sicker than we can even imagine/ the pain and the passion/ 10 years learning how to walk upon the surface/ Pray I don’t leave here worthless/ So I… Work! (x8) Live, consume, die, repeat (x8) [Verse 2] Find me rolling five deep/ mind deeper than the Mariana trench. take a dive, please/ I connect like 5g/ I’m back to the future/ my raps are like sutures. I’ll hold it together like I ball with Hoosiers/ eye on the ball and the shooters/ eye on the eyes that watch us through computers/ eye on the eye on the back of the dollar. See the polluters/ clean kicks turned dirt nasty/ I run tracks, reebok classy/ I’ve got a hundred bucks that says you won’t pass me/ just spread eagle like Puff’s Cassie/… Mama raised a good kid, didn’t she/ fangs came later when the moon changed/ You can feel mood change in the room when I get mentioned/ your disbelief needs no suspension// [Hook] [Verse 3] Give it a limit then watch it explode/ Give it an image you superimpose/ hold up some fingers on each hand to show/ that we all have a left and a right and a soul/ but you mess with my family or friends, you’re my foe/ I will smash you like Grandaddy Mac was the Hulk/ That’s no threat, it’s a promise and I do not fold/ so don’t you get fresh, grab a sheet if you cold/ drape it up like you from Houston, a veiled execution, see nobody knows how I did it/ leave all the clues in the tracks that I’ve written. You don’t want no trouble, that goes to the critics/ competition is a myth. You can claim a free market, but ain’t nothing free, but the gimmicks/ who will you be when the universe listens? The mic to your chin while you face the infinite//

Don’t raise a fist without being prepped for reciprocation/ the sickest patient this side of ‘the land with no vaccination’/ the hate is grounded in no basis like anti-vaxxers/ so we rise above it, wave black flags at empty caskets/… the bombastic, boom bappin’ in indie land/ planted seeds, painted flames on the side of a mini-van/ drove it off a cliff and cued the scene from Thelma and Louise/ proved I’ll only kneel inside a coffin like my name’s Patrice/ Peace… I’ve been a beast since conception/ these ED thugs ain’t even hard with erections/ host their album release inside of an intersection/ maybe then you’ll get a hit, or just get hit in one direction/ boy band rappers… don’t make me laugh/ I’ll split your audience in half like moses and send your staff my condolence. What a blast/ the last cat I saw was black, smiled and took it home/ broke a mirror, walked under a ladder, and then wrote this song/ the empirical evidence ain’t enough/ the jury’s out, I guess I’ll drive to Newt’s for my lunch/while the world waits for another deus ex crutch/ I saw two hypochondriacs argue “who’s more out of touch”/ Shucks… got balls like an 808/ Mr. Roland, sittin’ holdin’ legs to my faded face/ jaded from the day-to-day, but turned that Jade into some gems/ … spit beautiful, shed a tear when you see my phlegm/ golf wang, kill em all-type massacre/ don’t ask me if I’m fly unless you’re considered a passenger/ I’m passin’ up the dog shit doo-doo rhymers in the metro/ got a style that lights a flame in every single grade of petrol/ this industry is pretty much a pet show/ Jump through all the hoops and give a cookie to the best, I’ll probably eat a couple cats and get my ass put in the kennel/ Either way, I’ll be the patron saint of what is next/ bless the child that can get out the ghetto/ not just physically, but psychologically/ not just poppin’ mollys for the sake of being college-y/ I issue no apologies until you address poverty/ marvel at the ignorance and eat a plate of collard greens/ you’re a famous rapper, that’s so great, let’s have a roast for you/ Greg Giraldo’s heating up the grill inside the vocal booth/ this is not a celebration, this is just what’s overdue/ make sure every cindy, kate, and ricky will get over you/ gone with a rad flow, what an asshole/ prolly killed a rapper, left the body in El Paso/ left my wallet in El Segundo/ these identity thieves must’ve saw the opportunity, said “Yesss”/ pessimism don’t describe my sensibilities/ you choke on seeds, I’d rather toke on sensimilla leaves/…crawlin’ like a millipede up the street/ scopin’ out the land to be inherited by all the meek/ delete the weak, survival of the fittest/but the fittest are more fun to hunt, I guess I’m just a critic/ I write in pitch black like I’m chronicling Riddick/ but the words light up the room enough to burn through any cynic/ trust me, man, this really Is a picnic/ eating every rapper, letting crumbs fall to the ants, while hearing crickets/ …the flow keeps coming, check the spigot/ the racial chameleon stays confusing all the bigots/ blend in, but go out guns blazing like Riley’s fundraising/ …Huey mindstate with Ed Wuncelor nuts hanging//

[Verse 1] She wrote the world off in cursive, cursing under her breath “this thing isn’t worth it”/ pursing her lips and the buzz isn’t working/ buzz words lighting up the wrong part of her brain on purpose/ arguing about the argument that life is/ lying in between these vices like vice grips/ love is a gripping sentiment that’s similar to sediment/ broken pieces of a greater whole/ that glues together more complex than it was before/ it’s been walked on by giants like Abbey Road/ but it doesn’t feel as overwhelming anymore/ …anymore/ reduced to a simple formula by the media/ but this is more in line with string theory/ I spoke the loudest and the clearest of any time in my life, though at the podium I swear they didn’t hear me/ So I put the mic down and that doesn’t make a nice sound/ akin to thumping your head on the wall with the lights out/ so it’s lights out… but that’s more dangerous/ we told the coolest kid in the room he couldn’t hang with us/ for fear of losing our control, no angel dust/ Mad at the way that the artist painted us/ with no regard to what the man had observed/ I’m a fan of your work, though I know I never met you/ we found our place of worship at the heart of our bedroom/ how we clear our minds when we need some more headroom/ how to lose ourselves from the notion we’ll be dead soon/ I used to think that forever was a myth, but I found out soon I was dead wrong/ forever is the starting place of a long race, the destination becomes clear when you’re no longer headstrong// [Verse 2] It’s all a process. We work towards progress, or just make nonsense/ don’t forget what it’s like to make love. There’s a reason why the wording of the phrase is to fuck up/ it’s fun to make believe that it’s always butterflies and sweet words/ disregarding that this takes work/ just forgetting that this might hurt/ and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing/ most of us can’t read the smoke rings… til it’s too late/ meet the true one until you meet two fakes/ Get impatient for results and you can’t wait/ so you tempt fate and dive into your worst mistakes/ the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince me that I was him/and that I can’t win/ though I mess up and I’m not perfect. I’m not the only one here swervin’/ I still try to play dream merchant/ I still say that this thing’s worth it, though it might not last/ the beauty of love is its complexity, every kind is forged differently, but it’s all stained glass/ In the church of our home, hope the walls last/ if the spirit can remain in my dome, I will always treat hope like a tall glass/… drink it up/ and find that perfect place where you only think enough //