Liquid Swords

Intro one: (not included on 7")

When i was little... my father was famous.
He was the greatest sam-urai in the empire;
And he was the shogun's decapitator.
He cut off the heads of a hundred and thirty-one lords.
It was a bad time for the empire.
The shogun just stayed inside his castle -- and he never came out.
People said his brain was infected by devils.
My father would come home -- he would forget about the killings.
He wasn't scared of the shogun, but the shogun was scared of him.
Maybe that was the problem.
Then, one night... the shogun sent his ninja spies to our house.
They were supposed to kill my father... but they didn't.
*woman screams*
That was the night everything changed *voice fades*

Intro two: rza

See, sometimes...
You gotta flash em back
See niggaz don't know where this shit started
Y'all know where it came from
I'm sayin we gonna take y'all back to the source
We bounce, yo

Chorus: rza, gza

When the mc's came, to live our their name
And to perform (forrrrm)
Some had, to snort cocaine (caiiinnne) to act insane (sannne)
With before pete rock-ed it on, now gone
That the mental plane (plaaanne) to spark the brain (brainnn)
With the building to be born
Yo rza flip the track with the what to gut
Check em check chicka icka etta uhh

Verse one:

Fake niggaz get flipped
In mic fights i swing swords and cut clown
Shit is too swift to bite you record and write it down
I flow like the blood on a murder scene, like a syringe
On some wild out shit, to insert a fiend
But it was yo out the shop stolen art
Catch a swollen heart from not rollin smart
I put mad pressure, on phony wack rhymes that get hurt
Shit's played, like zodiac signs on sweatshirt
That's minimum, and feminine like sandals
My minimum table stacks a verse on a gamble
Energy is felt once the cards are dealt
With the impact of roundhouse kicks from black belts
That attack, the mic-fones like cyclones or typhoon
I represent from midnight to high noon
I don't waste ink, nigga i think
I drop megaton bombs more faster than you blink
Cause rhyme thoughts travel at a tremendous speed
Clouds of smoke, of natural blends of weed
Only under one circumstance is if i'm blunted
Turn that shit up, my "clan in da front" want it

Chorus

Verse two:

I'm on a mission, that niggaz say is impossible
But when i swing my swords they all choppable
I be the body dropper, the heartbeat stopper
Child educator, plus head amputator
Cause niggaz styles are old like mark 5 sneakers
Lyrics are weak, like clock radio speakers
Don't even stop in my station and attack
While your plan failed, hit the rail, like amtrak
What the fuck for? down by low, i make law
I be justice, i sentence that ass two to four
Round the clock, that state pen time check it
With the pens i be stickin but you can't stick to crime
Came through with the wu, slid off on the dl
I'm low-key like seashells, i rock these bells
(when the mc's..) now come aboard, it's medina bound
Enter the chamber, and it's a whole different sound
It's a wide entrance, small exit like a funnel
So deep it's picked up on radios in tunnels
Niggaz are fascinated how the shit begin
Get vaccinated, my logo is branded in your skin

Chorus

Intro: (first three lines lp only)

I had a bad dream
Don't be afraid, bad dreams are only dreams
What a time you chose to be born in...

Babies crying brothers dying and brothers getting knocked
Shit is deep on the block and you got me locked down
In this cold, cold world...

Verse one: the gza

It was the night before new year's, and all through the fuckin projects
Not a handgun was silent, not even a tec
Outside as i'm stuck, by enemies who put fear
And blasted on the spot before the pigs were dere
You know hoods robbers snipers new in sight fuck blue and white
They escape before them flash the fuckin lights
Gunshots, shatter first floor window panes
Shells hit the ground and blood stained the dice game
Whether broke callisthetic, any style you set it
Beat niggaz toothless, physically cut up like gooses
But with iron on the sides thugs took no excuses
Therefore, your fifty-two handblocks was useless
Links was snatched off necks, scars on throats
Jackets took, after bullet rips through coats
Against those who felt the cold from the steel made em fold
And squeal, once the metal hit the temple of his grill
Destruction worker, who was caught for his bomber
No time to swing the hammer that was hangin from his farmer's
And it's bugged how some niggaz catch slugs
And pockets dug from everything except check stubs
And it does, sound ill like wars in brownsville
Or fatal robberies in red hook where feds look
For fugitives to shoot cops, niggaz layin on roof tops
For his cream he stashed in a shoebox
But he was hot, and the strip was filled with young killers
You don't suspect, so cops creep like caterpillars
And born thieves stay hooded with extra bullets
Those who try to flee they hit the vertebrae, increase the murder rate
Similar to hit men who pull out tecs and then
Drop those who act like thai flows from mexican
Rabbit, like recipients cashin checks again
Back to the motherfuckin spot on lexington

Chorus:

Babies crying brothers dying and brothers getting knocked
Shit is deep on the block and you got me locked down
In this cold, cold world...

We be runnin from the cops, bustin off shots
Shit is deep on the block and you got me locked down
In this cold, cold world...

Verse two: inspectah deck

Yo
No time to freeze, undercovers ease up in grand prixs
And seize packages and pocket the currency
Clicks control strips full clips are sprayed
Yellow tape barricades sidewalks where bodies lay
Madness strikes at twelve o'clock midnight
Stick up kids on the ground broke the staircase light
And i stays harassed, scramblin for petty cash
Jakes on my ass young bucks is learnin fast
357's and 44's
Bought inside corner stores, their fire sparks the wars
Hospital floors surrounded by the law
Homicide questioning while the jakes guard the door
My hood stay tense, loyalty puts strength in my team
Cause niggaz main concern is cream
Some niggaz in the jet black gallant
Shot up the chinese resteraunt, for this kid named lamont
I thought he was dead but instead he missed a kid
And hit a twelve year old girl in the head and then fled
Tactical narcotic, task force, back off fast
Cause the crime boss is passin off cash
Extortions, for portions of streets, causes beef
Havin followers of indians trying to play chief
You witness the saga, casualties and drama
Life is a script, i'm not a actor but the author
Of a modern day opera, where the main character
Is presidential paper, the dominant, factor

Chorus

Chorus:

When a motherfucker steps out his place
And gets slapped in his motherfuckin face
Just because the motherfucker tried to base
The g.o.d., the g.o.d.

And while i see his whole click passes by
Motherfuckers think they qualify
And for those niggaz want to try
The g.o.d., the g.o.d.

Verse one:

Yo
I'm not caught up in politics
I'm no black activist on a so-called scholar's dick
I come through with the wu and drop math
And versatile freestyles bombs and phonographs
And deliver, all things and other in weight
Searched to death, on how living things relate
Cause at a young age, i was molded in a religion i relied on
And got caught up in superstition
Scared to split pole, duck black cats
Once in a while, threw salt over my back
But with knowledge of self from off the shelf
Made things seemed complicated now small like elves
So turn off the lights light a candle, and have a seance
Pull the lid off the dean martin scandal
Witches warlocks spooks and holy ghosts
Rza lets defraud the host

Chorus

Verse two:

We were on the same ship when the slaves were checked
I had to pull your card you was on the top deck
So i plotted my escape, i saw the thin line between love and hate
And fast from the hog on the plate
I suffered brutal pains, from whips and chains
Punishments that were set to wash the brain
So look listen observe and also respect this jewel
Drawed up, di-tect and reflect this
Light i shine, that cause my power to be find
Through the truth, which manifest through eternal minds
Purified gases and masses the same elements
That helped spark civilization classes
I see brothers quote math plus degrees
Look at professor ass niggaz can't feed they own seeds

Chorus 2x

Intro: method man

Aiyyo shorty, yo that's my word
Oh, y'all smellin y'all piss now y'all think y'all gold
Yo anybody get caught playin
Over here, i'm returnin em that's my word that they be blasted
Anything from two-twenty to one-forty, that's mine
Y'all need to step the fuck off
Y'all niggaz ain't crazy for real

Chorus: genius

Yo, the fiends ain't comin fast enough
There is no cut that's pure enough
I can't fold, i need gold, i re-up and reload
Product must be sold to you

Verse one: genius

I'm deep down in the back streets - in the heart of medina
About to set off something more deep than a misdemeanor
Under the subway, waiting for the train to make noise
So i can blast a nigga and his boys - for what?
He pushed up on the block and made the dope sales drop
Like the crashin of dow jones stock
I had to connect to cross seals, to catch more mil's
Than ho-bitches got birth control pills
I'm in the park, settin up a deal over blunt fire
Bum niggaz sleepin on the bench, they had em wired
Peeped my convo, the address of my condo
And how i changed a nigga name to john doe
And while we set up camp, we got vamp
Put the stake through his heart, i ripped his fucking fangs apart
Snake got smoked on the set like brandon lee
Blown out the frame, like pan am flight 103
He got swung on, his lungs was torn, the
Kingpin just castled with his rook and lost a pawn
A regular on the block, and played look-out
For playing predator with a glock, he should have took out

Chorus:

No neighborhood is rough enough
There is no clip that's full enough
I can't fold, i need gold, i re-up and reload
Product must be sold to you.. yo

Fiends ain't comin fast enough
There is no cut that's pure enough
I can't fold, i need gold, i re-up and reload
Product must be sold to you

Verse two: genius

It's mandatory that
I supply all my troops with mega firearms
Big apes, and spread em out like crops on a farm
To get cream, sometimes they repaint the scene
Like the last episode on gates and other niggaz
Plant bombs til the smoke from the blast becomes thick
And flows through all they knew, he's gun sick
His glock clicks, like high-heeled shoes on parquay floors
Mad sick, stand on hills and invade wars
Filthy foul, shoveling dirt, he's out to hurt
For instance, chop off hands, attack worth
His idols would lock down airports and extort
Some import, catchin ten percent of what the fiends snort
Up in the ski resorts, up in hills
They move keys and had skis making drops on snowmobiles
The plan was to expand, catch seven figures, release triggers
And live large and bigger than my nigga
Who promised his moms a mansion with mad rooms
She died, and he still put a hundred grand in her tomb
Open wounds, he hid behind closed doors
And still organized his crime and drug wars

Chorus:

Fiends ain't comin fast enough
There is no cut that's full enough
I can't fold, i need gold, i re-up and reload
Product must be sold to you

No neighborhood is rough enough
There is no clips that's full enough
I can't fold, i need gold, i re-up and reload
Product must be sold to you

The peers that come is tight enough
There is no niggaz that's fuckin up
I can't fold, i need gold, i re-up and reload
Product must be sold, to you

Intro: method man/johnny blaze

[special technique] fuck that
[special technique of shadowboxing] god damn
(the gza, god damn!)
(the gza, god damn!) pledge allegiance to the hip-hop!
(method, god damn!) i pledge allegiance to the hip-hop
(maximilli-on, maximilli-on)
(uh, yeah, ahh, uh) johnny blaze
I pledge allegiance to the hip-hop
(johnny blaze) maximilli-on
Maximilli-on

Verse one: method man/johnny blaze

I breaks it down to the bone gristle
Ill speaking scud missle heat seeking
Johnny blazing, nightmares like wes craven
Niggaz gunnin, my third eye seen it coming
Before it happen
You know about them fucking staten
Kids they smashin
Everything huh, in any shape form or fashion
Now everybody talking bout they blastin, hmmm
Is you bustin steel or is you flashin? hmmm
Talkin out your asshole
You shoulda learnt about the flow and peasy afro
Ticallion stallion, chinky eye and snot nosed
From my naps to the bunion on my big toe
I keeps it movin, know just what the fuck i'm doin
Rap insomniac, fiend to catch a nigga snoozing
Slip the cardiac arrest me, excorcist hip-hop posess me
Crunch a nigga like a nestle, you know my steez
Burning to the third degree, sneaky ass alley cat top pedigree
The head toucher, industry party bum rusher
You don't like it dick up in ya fuck ya

(allow me to demonstrate) that's right, you corny-ass
(the skill of shaolin) rap motherfuckers
(the special technique) better go back and check
(of shadowboxing) your fuckin stacks
(shadowboxing) cause your naps ain't nappy enough
And your reefs ain't rugged enough
Bitch

Verse two: the genius/maximillion

I slayed mc's back in the rec room era
My style broke motherfuckin backs like ken patera
Most rap niggaz came loud but unheard
Once i pulled ut, round em off to the nearest third
Check these non visual niggaz, with tapes and a portrait
Flood the seminar, tryin to orbit this corporate
Indsutry, but what them niggaz can't see
Must break through like the wu, unexpectedly
Protect ya neck, my sword still remain imperial
Before i blast the mic, rza scratch off the serial
We reign all year round from june to june
While niggaz bite immediately if not soon
Set the lynchin, and form the execution date
As this two thousand beyond slang suffocate
Amplify sample through vacumn tubes compressions
Cause rza, to charge niggaz twenty g's a session

Verse three: method man/johnny blaze

When my mind start to clickin, and the strategy
Is mastered the plot thickens, this be that wu shit
I don't give a cotten-pickin fuck
About a brother tryin to size a nigga up, i hold my own
Hard-hat protect your dome
Look at mama baby boy actin like he grown
No time for sleep, i gets deep as a baritone
Killa bee, that be holdin down his honeycomb, loungin son
Wu brother number one, protect your neck
Flying guillotines here they come, bloody bastards
Hard times and killer tactics, spittin words plus
Semi-automatic slurs, peep the graphic
Novel from the genie bottle, hit the clutch
Shift the gear now, full throttle, time to bungee
To the next episode, i keeps it grungy
Hand on my nutsac, and spittin lung-ghies
At a wack nigga dat, don't understand the fact
When it come to rza tra-cks i don't know how to act
Real rap from the stat, killa hill projects
How to be exact, break it down
All and together now
Things are getting good looking better now

(allow me to demonstrate the skill of shaolin)
(sha-shadowboxing, the special technique of shadowboxing)
(shadowboxing)

[killah hills intro features rza, ol dirty bastard, and "grey ghost"]

(...the skill of shaolin)
Rza: yes the good life, you know *clinks glass*
Gza: what the fuck is that, hell's angels?
*ol dirty singing in the background*
[ahh mr. bobby steels, tony starks on line one for mr. bobby steels]
Rza: steels over here, steels over here
Peace, starks what's going on baby?
Yeah everything is lovely over here.
Gza: no shoes and no shirt on, sure the hills is where it's at?
Rza: yeah the, the maximillion is sure here
I'm over here with noodles and i got lucky hands with me
Gza: you got soul, r&b, classics? all that shit right?
Rza: yeah... grey ghost right in front of me right now
Grey ghost standing right here.
Yeah he has a briefcase; ohh, ok, ok i got you.
Aight thanks. *phone clicks*
Ggh: bobby steels.
Gza: huh?
Rza: mr. grey ghost, good to see you good to see you good to see you.
Ggh: a pleasure.
Rza: so is everything ok, is everything working as we planned?
Ggh: everything is working out, very nicely.
Do you have the cash, twenty-thousand dollars?
Gza: be nice to have a little breeze.
Breeze on by fuck the cops.
Rza: do we have the cash? we don't have to talk that, hey hey
Gza: get the fuck outta here with that hell's angels bullshit!
Rza: we got the cash we know cash rules everything around this motherfucker
Umm, let me ask you...
Gza: the fuck outta here!
Ggh: do you have the full amount? twenty thousand as we agreed upon?
Gza: fucking hell's bastards.
Rza: let me ask you a question mr. grey ghost --
Do you know a a don rodriguez?
Ggh: i know no such person.
Rza: don rodriguez from the bronx? don rodriguez?
Ggh: i don't know who you're talking about.
Rza: i think you do know him cause your fuckin friend don
Is down at one-twenty precinct right now singing
His fuckin ass like a fuckin bird.
Gza: life of a drug dealer
Rza: the fuckin guys is comin
Ggh: do you believe him?

Killah hills 10304

Restaurants on a stake-out
So order the food to take out
Chaos, outside a spark steakhouse
Maintain the power, i feel the deal's gone sour
Nigga mr. wedding, late a fuckin half hour
And his man who bought land from tony starks
While he was contractin bricklayin jobs in city parks
He's a loan shark, bitches raise a grand to a finger
In a garment that's stretched, got it sewn like singer
Cause all that talk blasphemy this kid after me
For the heist, in a burlington coat factory
Fuck it, he turned snake so my nigga cash stole his copilot
Who used to drive like sacks of blow on this remote
Area, we label dead man's island
Two hundred miles south from thailand
Right off the docks, i got the various custom made yachts
Burial plots, for my niggaz hit with fatal shots
There's no need for us to spray up the scene
I use less men, more powerful shit for my team
Like my man muhammad from afghanistan
Grew up in iran, the nigga runs a neighborhood newsstand
A wild middle eastern, bomb specialist
Intiated, at eleven to be a terrorist
He set bombs in bottles of champagne
And when niggaz popped the cork, niggaz lost half they brains
Like this ex-worker, tried to smuggle a half a key
In his left leg, even underwent surgery
They say his pirate limp gave him away
As the feds rushed him, comin through u.s. customs
Now look whose on the witness stand singin, a well known soprano
A smash hit from sammy gravano
Here's the plan minimum for the hit, two hundred grand
Half time at the game blastin niggaz out the stands
The sharp-shooters hit the prosecutor, judges are sent
Photographs of they wives takin baths
Along with briefcase filled with one point five, that's the bribe
Take it or commit suicide
First rule, anyone who schemes on the gold in syria
I want they small intestines ripped from the interior
I got a price for those jewels, ship em freight cargo
Don't forget to launder the cream through wells fargo
Reconstruct those processin plants for the call of costa rica
Four hundred barrels of ether
Two hundred pounds of reefer
And fifty immigrants with fake visas

Life of a drug dealer
Killah hills, 10304
The saga continues

Chorus: gza and rza

I gotcha back, but you best to watch your front
Cause it's the niggaz that front, they be pullin stunts
I gotcha back, but you best to watch your front
Cause it's the niggaz who front (they be pullin stunts)

Lyrics:

I was always taught my do's and don'ts
For do's i did, and for don'ts, i said i won't
I'm from brooklyn, a place where stars are born
Streets are shot up, apartment buildings are torn
And ripped up, stripped up, shacked up and backed up
From fiends, cause the bosses on the scene, they got it cracked up
Kids are slingin in my lobby
Little steve and bobby
Gettin paid but it's a life-threatening hobby
Yeah, they still play hide and seek
The fiends seek for the crack, and they hide and let the cops peep
Grown folks say they should be out on their own
Before the gangs come and blow up their mom's home
Because they lifestyle is hectic, so fuckin hectic
Blaow! blaow! blaow! bullets are ejected
My lifestyle was so far from well
Coulda wrote a book with a title "age 12 and goin through hell"
Then i realized the plan
I'm trapped in a deadly video game, with just one man
So i don't only watch my back, i watch my front
Cause it's the niggaz who front, they be pullin stunts
Back on the ave of lavonia and bristol with a pistol
Stickin up pamela and crystal
You know your town is dangerous when you see the strangest
Kid come home from doin the bid and nuthin changes
What is the meaning of crime (what?)
Is it criminals robbin innocent motherfuckers everytime?
Little shorties take walks to the schoolyard
Tryin to solve the puzzles to why is life so hard
Then as soon as they reached the playground, blaow!
Shots ring off and now one of them lay down
It's so hard to escape the gunfire
I wish i could rule it out like an umpire
But it's an everlasting game, and it never cease to exist
Only the players change, so...

Chorus 3x

Rza - i gotcha back (8x)
I gotcha back so you best to watch your front
Cause it's the niggaz who front, that be pullin stunts
I gotcha back but you best to watch your front
It's the niggaz who front, that be pullin stunts

Outro: (lp version only)

*old man*
Your, tech, nique, is, mag-ni-ficent
When cut across the neck
A sound like wailing winter winds is heard, they say
I'd always hoped to cut someone like that someday
To hear that sound
But to have it happen to my own neck is... ridiculous
*man gasps for air*