This Is Not Just A Slam

This is not just a slam
It's bigger than that
Bigger than the scorecards and the winning of cash
Bigger than your applause and the giving of dap
This is the spitting of facts, wisdom and math in a lyrical fashion
This is bigger than slamming
See, what this is, sistren and brethren
Is a house of heavenly irreverence
Where we get more done before breakfast
Than the House of Representatives gets done in a whole Congressional
session
This is the cure for old age
Langston, Poe, and Yeats mixed with arsenic and old lace
Remixed with Miles Davis and Coltrane, pimp juice and gold chains
This is the head of Immigration and Naturalization
Finding out he just deported his own Mexican relatives
This is the Minority Report Division of Pre-Crime
Going back in time to arrest George W. Bush
For the future murder of an election
This is the aftermath, the apocalypse
What’s left over after the nonsense
This is where prayer meets politics in ways as colorfully twisted as
Kelis'; hairstyle is
This is Damocles guarding the garden of Eden
With one sword that says “Do Not” and another that
says “Trespass”
This is the Louisiana Purchase, plus tax
This is for all those who felt like they were in the sniper’s
crosshairs
Whenever they pumped gas
This is for presidential puppet-masters who can afford to send
thousands of troops to Iraq
While laying off thousands of people right here at “home”
With their government cutbacks
Damn, I guess that’s why they say never trust a man without a
moustache
“So, you want to slam with me??”
FUCK that.
This is for these babies among us trying to escape from poverty’s
stinking clutches
Who could tell you EVERYTHING about Jay-Z versus Nas
But not a DAMNED thing about Lincoln versus Douglass
This is for those whose suburbanite counterparts
Spread grape Smuckers over English muffins
While you spread Popeye’s strawberry jam over breakfast toast
Trying to figure out while you worked all your life and yet you’re
broke
This is for the five percent who control the wealth
With neckties, suspenders, chokers, and belts
WHAT slam?!
This is for these hordes of teens trying to be Frodo Baggins Lord of
the Fiends
Out here in these Baltimore streets
Who think all being grown means
Is being old enough to sneak into Norma Jean’s for a
striptease
At age fourteen, you tell me, is she a whore or a queen?
Shorty ain’t even old enough to legitimately get in
But she sure looks pretty when
She’s swinging from that pole that’s extended from the ceiling
And cocking her legs open so niggas can stick their tips
In her garter and sniff her kitten
So this is for the underdeveloped mind behind that
overdeveloped behind
FUCK a SLAM!
This is for one nation, under God, indivisible, yet still divided by
the reciprocal
In an infinite coefficient quotient
Don’t try to figure that one out: it was a paradoxymoron
Try this one:
This is for one people, divided by ignorance
United by lyricists who understand that “consciousness”
Is really nothing more than convoluted common sense
Carry the 5, take the L, dot the I, cross the T
Trade the decimal, raise your decibels
And in the words of my man Jamaal St. John, you “got math”
But this does not equal slam; see this is not that
This is for those who were raised in homes that were less than stable
Latchkey kids whose upbringing was left to cable
Fighting the Nothing in a Never-ending Story like ghetto Atrayu’s
Who grew up wondering why there were never any commercials for their
favorite brand:
Yellow label
This is for those who could tell you ten favorite CDs but not one
favorite book
This is for...YO, THEY SHOOTIN’!!...
...Nah...made ya look…
THIS IS NOT JUST SOME SLAM
THIS IS BIGGER THAN GOD’S SON VERSUS JAYHOVAH
THIS IS BIGGER THAN “ETHER” VERSUS “TAKEOVER”
THIS IS WHERE THE BEATNUTS MEET BEETHOVEN
THIS IS A HISTORY LESSON, SO I HOPE YOUR DATES ARE IN ORDER
THIS IS A STREET LECTURE, SO I HOPE YOU BROUGHT YOUR TAPE RECORDERS
THIS IS A DUEL OF THE IRON MIC WHERE I WILL YIELD NO QUARTER AND TAKE
NO ORDERS
THIS IS FOR ALL MY LATE-NIGHT SOLDIERS FINISHING THEIR CHAPBOOKS IN
24-HOUR KINKO’S
THIS IS THE BRANCH DAVIDIANS SETTING FIRE TO WACO
THIS IS THE KICKSTART OF US GETTING SMART ENOUGH TO PICK APART THIS
COUNTRY’S PALACE OF LEGO’S
THIS IS WHERE WE HAVE THE SAY-SO TO CLAIM THOSE AL QAEDA CELLS WERE
REALLY FUNDED BY FEDERAL PAYROLLS
AND YOU STILL THINK THIS IS JUST A SLAM, BAY-BRO??
I DIDN’T THINK SO.
CASE CLOSED.