The Master

[rakim]
One two..

Yeah.. uhh.. yeah..
"rough enough to break new york from long island" -> my melody
Yeah it's the god baby..
Long island's own..
Barbarian of the microphone..
"rough enough to break new york from long island" -> my melody
It's for y'all niggaz

And the streets just a couple of miles east of mecca
Where peeps touch nuttin but style heat and cheddar
Compete witcha livelihood to eat better
And ain't nuttin sweet but the ladies who speak wetta
With a torn smile, tryin to get my song on file
It's on now, the whole town done gone wild
Kick rhymes off my heartbeat as a unborn child
Then developed a strong style on long isle
Won't be long now, i started rhymin young
I designed for fun, knowin my time would come
I started, payin dues djin with crews
Learnin the inner city rules, conveyin the news
Soon as the jam start the man's art'll jam parks
Slam so hard it remains a landmark
The rhyme that i'm stylin, smooth as a violin
But "rough enough to break new york from long island" -> my melody

{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}

Like any g.o.d., loose on a spree for new degrees
Things to do and see until nuttin is new to me
A true mc usually be into a breeze
And i can still see new york city through the trees
My advance slams put you outside lookin in
Or the other way around, that depends, look again
Took a pen so you could zero in on my book of gems
It extends from the hamptons to brook-lyn
Through every hoodie in town, to learn the boogie down
Til every dj around, wanted to put me down
Rhymes got rougher til i was ready to blast off
And harass all from suffolk county to nassau
Where we keep the money pilin, keep the honies smilin
Keep the heater just in case kids start whylin
The rhyme that i'm stylin, smooth as a violin
"rough enough to break new york from long island" -> my melody

{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}
{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}

Grew up in wyndanch, formerly known as crime-danch
Me and my mans we travel lands to find jams
Where violence usually ends in sirens
By all means, we all fiend for finance
We make cash on the street called straight path
We take class, build with the gods with great math
Everyday true to the street, and never fronted
Along the way, learned from the best that ever done it
Bein exposed to life's highs and lows
Got my flows ready for shows, i'm ready for the pros
I put it on a tape and then the city i tested
Then on the radio the r's requested
Now the whole world's whylin, all the girls smilin
You know, it's on, soon as they let the crowd in
The rhyme that i'm stylin, smooth as a violin
"rough enough to break new york from long island" -> my melody

Word up.. i wanna give a big up to long island.. stompin grounds.. f'real
{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}
Crime-danch.. one love baby.. word up..
{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}
I wanna give a crazy shout out to all the dj's back in the day
Who used to let me smoke they microphones, yaknahmean?
Big up to dj maniac, dj teddy tuff, and dj cool breeze
{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}
Word up

{*dj cuts and scratches "rough enough to break new york from long island"*}

(1st verse)
Aye yo it's mr. low-key you need to go see
The host by far a mostly o.t., with a brand new show but
You know how the flow be.
Cause when i swerve, you observe it closely
If you smoke trees, smoke more than an o-z.
Mix any kind of dope with me, you o-d.
You get the c-d, l-p c.o.d.
Poetry cause you to fully load the v.
Drop place to place be crazy over me.
Even different nationalities, over seas.
However do a don't emcee, you know me. g-o-d.
She know she d-o-e, so show me.
Even with no jewelry she call me goldie,
Like a jacuzzi she overheat an o-g.
Like sushi swimin' in a open sea. i'm comin'.

(instrumental chorus)

(2nd verse)
She said it's the same since i came and rained it's still hard.
You can stimulate the brain, feel the god.
It's hard to go against the grain, it's real large.
Drive'em insane leave dames in silk bras.
Plus real cups spill, spill that bars.
What's the deal kids with hennessey grills they feel charged.
And you know what time it is? it's still ra's.
When i do a show real far they steal cars.
Stages of battle field reveal your scars.
Train hard, cause this is a game with ill squads.
Play with pain and gain a couple of yards.
And if you know the dreal, you can deal the cards.
And appeal to broads with jobs and ov-e-ods.
Body parts like buns of steel and spa's.
Then we can kick tha blahzay blah, smoke a cigar.
While i get ma-na-massage.
I'm comin'.

(instrumental chorus)

(3rd verse)
From the inner city to the suburbs, the street poet.
The most jiggiest kid with words, and peeps know it.
They've read about it and heard, plus t.v. show it.
So how do i reserve my swerve? i low pro it.
Now there eager to know just how deep the flow get.
I don't know yet, sometime the flow be so wet.
Spit a tech that will effect quicker than moet.
Or high as anything you smoke yet, go ahead roll it.
Any microphone i hold, my heat blow it.
My emo is make more doe till i can't fold it.
Anything i see or touch, i wanna own it.
Drop a jewel in baby girl ear, now she my co-ed.
I re-load and she keep the candy coated,
And when she know she can't control it.
She tell me she about to blow at any moment.
Well go ahead baby i can't hold it. i'm comin'

(chorus)
I will always be there
I always be there for you
I will always be there
I'll be there

(1st verse)
I'm bout to meet my comrade on the busy ave where we clash
Trying to see how much gritty cash this city has
Meantime harass every bitty that pass
And then here you come with your pretty ass
All petite like you make ends meet on wall street
Your for keeps couldn't find a woman more complete
You got your head on tight and when you talk i like
For me and you two different walks of life
I'm in the streets too much i pack the heat too much
Put too much trees in the dutch and don't keep in touch
You try to get in contact i don't respond back
Where the god at come back smellin' like cognac
Baby beware i'm tryin' my best to be fair
Aye yo-the key here is repair this love we share
Cause if we care we would prepare to see clear
Eye to eye we here as long as you be there

(chorus)
I will always be there
I will always be there for you
I will always be there
I'll be there

(2nd verse)
Yo, i'm startin' to understand it you like your evenings enchanted
Love is bond, organic- restaurants romantic
Want me to take your hand and take you around the planet
But i take advantage and take you for granted
Call collect explainin' why i ain't came yet
I ain't winnin' the game yet can i get a rain check
Blow me a kiss in the wind, i'm missin' again
Don't let your sisters and your friends tell you this is the end
Talk a hole in your head puttin' bugs in your ear
Make you role in your bed when your thug ain't there
Somewhere around ladies know i get lonely and proud
Open my file baby you should know me by now
Tryin' to get paid and stay away from old sites
Find my place in life plus i like to hold mics
It might be seven whole days and seven whole nights
But yo it's gonna be alright just hold tight

(chorus)
I will always be there
I will always be there for you
I will always be there
I'll always be there baby

(3rd verse)
Who said something good won't last forever
I know too much of any thing is bad

(1st verse)
Aye yo, who's the most explosive one yet?
The a roundest one left
Who flows express to them rhythm drum set ain't done yet?
Flow like a trumpet to your eardrum are deaf
Who pose a threat?
Yo- who's more ferocious- none yet
To the night damn set mic trends and life ends
In sight, i see the whole world through a tight lens
Rhymes i write wins and kept a white benz
Spend g's like hundreds and hundreds like tens
I get paid, black, but laid back with mild manners
When i flip it's the opposite of dark bruce banner
Out the lab with soul and melodies in your ear
And just when it all seem clear i disappear
All you gotta do is holler
Reappear like vol-la the street scholar
I'm 40 deep like ali baba
Give the mamas something to talk about in the beauty parlor
Keep it hot like lava, yeah
It's rakim allah

(chorus)
I know you find it hard to believe that
I am the genie of the mic an
I can do anything you wish but
Right now i'm commanding you to dance

(2nd verse)
Ready to dance y'all, my magic carpet's the dance floor
Last chance y'all even if you can't ball
What part don't you understand? your wish is my command
And i'm a rock a jam by popular demand
You gone love this, it's marvelous, baby
It gotta thug's twist-it start to get crazy
It's off the meat rack- can't keep my peeps back
Speak raps and i freak tracks for these cats
I got a fetish for puttin' together words and letters
It ain't all about the cheddars and y'all know where my head is
Ghetto scriptures for my little brothers and sisters
And still get vicious for the thugs and the misses
What i don't do is talk about the same old thing
When i come through, i drop it, and they gone swing
I bring the ladies joy until they make crazy noise
Cuz the beat's bangin'- i'm born to blaze, baby boy

(chorus)
I know i you find it hard to believe that
I am the genie of the mic an
I can do anything you wish but
Right now i'm commanding you to dance

(3rd verse)
The editor-forever more the predator, i said it all
I spread a war, like never before
Spit lead at yours like a ghetto braud raw at a ?
She'll never pause
With raw metaphors, i set it off
But i just begun the best is yet to come
Blessed with a majestic tongue since i was young
But i was stressed for funds and obsessed with guns
Test the one, let allah protect your son
Cause something musical magician, the ageiathic author
The microphone magician when i have a magic marker, a mentor
You can explore, every sentence is a tour
The inventor is more than adventure
You'll be blown away, and a zone ?
It's so ill, i still grab the microphone and say
One of my own displays like i'm known to blaze
And i bet rhyme pays until i'm old and gray

(chorus)(4x)
I know you find it hard to believe that
I am the genie of the mic and
I can do anything wish but
Right now i'm commanding you to dance

[dj premier scratches hook]

(hardcore...real ill niggas)
(i'm internationally known)
(when i be on the mic)

(hardcore...real ill niggas)
(i'm internationally known, yo)

(hardcore...real ill niggas)
(i'm internationally known)
(when i be on the mic)

(hardcore...real ill niggas)
(so all hail the honorable)

It's to my real ill niggas, heavyweight hitters
Dough getters, fifty ways to make figures
My niggas, that come on the spot to feel sisters
Like they hear real spitters and kids on the zigga-ziggas
When it's ugly, then the club is lovely
Thugs be sipping henessey and bubbly
To my comrades that keep it flaming hot
On dangerous blocks, claiming spots
Where the goal is to be one of the top-ranked soldiers
Forty-five holders, one of the high rollers
Get respect in the hood, credit is good
Knock it down lumberjack style, baby, extra wood
Rock it all night long, the bang-a-thon baby
Keep hanging on, we like it with the lights on
Don't have to blow twenty thou' to get to know honey's style
Show her the town, steal her heart, no money down

(hook)

How about some hardcore, yeah we like it raw for sure
Broads on the floor, wall to wall
There's more at the door, players ball to score
'cause this right here is for all of y'all
Rakim and primo, yo i got what you need bro
You go see a show, smoke an l, mean yo
And deejays play hits with hard bass kicks
And then they display tricks like the matrix
Make the record fly undetected by the naked eye
So just feel the vibe 'cause your ears never lie
Nowadays deejays bags of tricks, graphic
On some behind the back shit, catch it and scratch it
Classic, this kid got his craft mastered
Hands is mad quick like he mix with magic
Spin it back and forth and grab it, and know just where it is...
There it is

(hook)

To my elite peeps with the murderous mystiques
I hit the streets with beats and they critique for weeks
They be like "how that kid ra reach the peak?"
Pull out the heat and use my technique to speak
It's dangerous, sit calm and explain to kids
What part of the game this is and foreign languages
They hold ra's events in different continents
Put my lyrical contents in monuments
In ghetto garments, i rock a towel like a pharaoh
Mind travel, design style like apparel
My fashions last long as a lifetime
Cause i can see the future when the god write rhymes
They're mad cause i managed to reign so long
Like their chance to make money done came and gone
This is strictly for my listeners on the corners at night
And the sisters that be keeping this right, when i be on the mic

(hook)

Yeah
It's the paragraph ambassador
The wild style fashioner
It's the god rakim, the master
Feel this

(1st verse)
This is that lost ass track off-the-rack kind of a track
You forced to rap, remember that? it's that
You know where i'm at, there go the gat
Pass me a bat, the kill-or-be-killed kind of attack
Steamin' ___, speedin' navigatin' the map
Negotiating with a chick, she got her head on your lap, ya hand on your gat
Premeditated plan of attack, with two of your most deadliest mens in the back
Comb the block, stop in the zone that's hot
Get out like you own the spot, home or not
It's that no mood to play, move out the my way
Yo, i been whistlin' this tune from throughout the day
Hey, yo, this is that ol' y'all niggas don't wanna battle
Turn it up loud make the whole block rattle
Boom boom- this one is gettin' blazin' hot
Boom boom- make you bust another shot from the glock

(chorus)
From the streets below to everything above
To the heart that pumps ra-kim allah's blood
I swear i kick a hole in your speaker and pull the plug
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues
From the streets beneath my feet to the sun
I'm number one and competition is still none
And i'm gonna keep kicking holes in your speakers and pullin' plugs
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues

(2nd verse)
Here we come now
Turntable spin like a merry-go-round
Never slow down, depending on how good your stereo sounds
Set it, up in the hood where we go surround
Tearin' through towns, turn 'em into burial grounds
This is the track that made theodore wanna scratch
The track that caused the first kid to spin on his back
And then we saw, kids spray-painting the wall
While some of y'all was waitin' for war breakin' the law
It's no antidote it's what you can't provoke
So just relax with your girls or your mans and smoke
And take a real hit, soon as it bang you feel quick
It's real thick, this is that ol' real shit
This is the description of designs for you to listen to
Reminiscin' the times and nothin' in particular
Keep you goin' just like a whole pot of coffee
Have you and your shorty doin' 80 in a 40

(chorus)
From the streets below to everything above
To the heart that pumps ra-kim allah's blood
I swear i kick a hole in your speaker and pull the plug
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues
From the streets beneath my feet to the sun
I'm number one and competition is still none
And i'm gonna keep kicking holes in your speakers and pullin' plugs

(3rd verse)
You know what this is
Yeah kid, give up your riches
Vicious, visions is not for motion pictures
Unstoppable, rollin' witcha sickest clique of niggas
Or witcha missus, gettin tropical kisses
Makin' faces, anticipatin' places her tongue hits
Suck her neck or just peck, better to funk it
The ep is in effect from dusk to sunset
She want a rim shot all over her drum set
Jump the bed rubbin' your head- it's rough sex
50 ways to keep a love wet
Down and up the steps with crazy positions left till she upset
"damn, baby, you ain't come yet?"
Hell, no- doomstick big as a elbow
Gel soft, well blow, give him a minute, he'll grow
And all you gotta do is play the track again
I'm ready and revived, baby, back again

(chorus)
From the streets below to everything above
To the heart that pumps ra-kim allah's blood
I swear i kick a hole in your speaker and pull the plug
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues
From the streets beneath my feet to the sun
I'm number one and competition is still none
And i'm gonna keep kicking holes in your speakers and pullin' plugs
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues

[canibus]
Yo!
Check it, yo!

I'm faster than leopards running across the vast desert
In twenty-two yards per second to catch me to daily delicatessen
It takes me thirty minutes to eat'em, forty minutes to digest'em,
And fifty minutes for it to pass through my intestines
So ask yourself a question?(what question?)
Can the canibus rhyme?
Is a fuckin porcupine half swine?
No time to make up your mind, you wanna run or die?
Clip you while you're running by, trip you up from behind
My rhymes, confuse niggas
Like somebody try to gang-bang
Wearin' a blue shirt and red pants, throwin' up signs with there left hand
Standin' out on the corner of wetlands with a confederate flag for a headband
God dam eggplants, niggas getting' me vexed man
Cause i'm surrounded by garbage like fred sav
And i can't seem to get away from it
I dreamed that i stabbed leviathan through the stomach, and ate from it
In my past life i slayed hundreds, and in the life before that
I played trumpets, to warn you that i was comin'
There's one billion ways to die, and i already tried
Nine-hundred million nine hundred and ninety nine
When i aim and fire my rhymes, like a hundred cannon balls flying
Striking you one at a time, in a parallel line
While the art of emceeing is steady dieing
Canibus and rakim allah is still in there prime!

(chorus)
From the streets below to everything above
To the heart that pumps ra-kim allah's blood
I swear i kick a hole in your speaker and pull the plug
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues
From the streets beneath my feet to the sun
I'm number one and competition is still none
And i'm gonna keep kicking holes in your speakers and pullin' plugs
You emcee's is playing tug-a-war with your tongues

(1st verse)
Levantore!
Yeah, it's just ghetto, kid test the devil to hit the next level
Wish they was a rebel with cerebral metal
Inflex the bezzle with the peddle to the metal
In a thug's paradise where love have a price
So we love for life like thugs love the night
They sell drugs for ice for the benz with bug lights
Some hug mics to the world, hung like parasites
The likes lethal, the mics lead you
A sneak preview, watch what we do and what the hood teach you
I still see through the eye of a needle
So i can watch people cause slug backwards is evil

(2nd verse)
Levantore!
Yo, what's this? yo bust this. yo it's time to up lift
They think all we do is bust clips and puff splifs
And plush whips and clutch chips and touch chicks
Flont rocks like fort knox and hog blocks
Taunt cops with more props and we want not
Panhandling with your mans and them
Scrambling, gambling, plans to win
While the cops clock em, thieves flock em
Women watch em, traders wanna top em
Ay yo what's the problem
Before the narcs knock em opposite playas plot to rob em
The ghetto got em, my man said it's rough at the bottom

(3rd verse)
Levantore!
Ghetto alert, let's do whatever work to get rid of the curse
We went from 1st to america's worst
On this competitive turf, now let's inherit the earth
There's more prize for one another, and call shots
12:00 til the next ball drop
All year around plus they shuffle non stop
You think it's rough at the bottom, it's even rougher on top
My peeps gonna have to reach and turn for me
And everybody's side of the street'll be celly
Ain't nothing funny, burn plenty and burn money
And earn money and watch the century turn 20

(4th verse)
Levantore!
We all should, from the woods to the big city and the small hood
Everybody should be welcome to the ball if we all could,
But we fall cause we brawl, yo it ain't all good
We need to play right, stay tight with ya air alight
Keep your game tight, no need to play trife
Get cheese from the daylight to the late night
And it's shouldn't take death to appreciate life
Before a lot parish, we got to cherish if allah let us
Let's give prop and merits till the block flourish
In this metropolis, stay on top of this
You know what the prophet is, be prosperous

(5th verse)
Levantore!
Now we networking
Respect the next person, it'll be less hurting
Or left lurkin, while we kept our dreads working
Connect set for certain, total networking
Last chance to advance and stash grands
If you have plans to have fam and mad land
Own shine, condone crime or hold 9s
I know what the problem is, killing our own kind
To my flame throwers, train sober, remain soldiers
Stay sane so these pretty dames can hold us
Terror terrain rollers and range rovers so the train goers
Claim your fame, maintain, till your game's over

(6th verse)
Levantore!
Ghetto alert, let's do whatever work to get rid of the curse
We went from 1st to america's worst
On this competitive turf, now let's inherit the earth
There's more prize for one another, and call shots
12:00 til the next ball drop
All year around plus they shuffle non stop
You think it's rough at the bottom, it's even rougher on top
My peeps gonna have to reach and turn for me
And everybody's side of the street'll be celly
Ain't nothing funny, burn plenty and burn money
And earn money and watch the century turn 20
Levantore!