Phoenix

(album: The Beautiful Mix CD - 2004)

[Dave Chappelle as Rick James:]
That's right bitches...
It's the beautiful mixtape
Look this shit is beautiful, it's one of the best mixtapes
You'll ever hear in your life
One of the baddest muthafucking
Funkiest muthafucking mixtapes, ever
I said it... that's right bitches Talib Kweli
You're now rocking with the best, the best!

[Talib Kweli:]
Yeah
When I was a young man I had stars in my eyes
You couldn't tell if it was a twinkle or if I'm starting to cry
Time is wrinkled like the hands of the elders that love us
I find a window to watch the path like ghetto grandmothers
They says eyes is the windows to ya soul
So I open the the blind to feel the breeze blowing in from the winter chain
Surround myself with images of bravery
Cause the soul of my people bared witness to slavery
I seen the inside of my heart it get dark
Like the flesh of my bone
And heavy like the breath of this poem
Plus, I seen lands so dry the trees cry
Tears falling like it's autumn the leaves die
Pre-packaged futures freeze dried, cross me by
The body count in the streets is knee high
Plus, I seen pubbles so deep the puddles speak
Ripe with stories that leap from the cluttered street
Blood'll be beet-red running through the gutters cause heat
The currency that we exchange with folks who trying to eat
I cried in my sleep, seen trains speeding down the tracks of my tears
Running down the face of the Earth, c'mon
I see it in the space that was the place of my birth
I play eye tag with death she's such a flirt
That's some scary shit, I put it all in my music
Real loud making a scene if I seen it I use it, yeah
Beautiful struggling 'n' so I'm used to the bubbling
What I be uttering so hot it got the homeless people huddling
Haters muttering under breath, who ain't the best?
See the scavengers 'n' vultures picking at what's left
I rise from the ashes like a phoenix believe it
Flow brand new like a fetus believe it
Mean what I say if I say it, I mean it
I lived it, I breathed it, believe me, I seen it

[Jean Grae:]
Man I pray ya'll passionate
I swing out like a little leaguer on a Sunday ignoring the Catholics
Rebel rap with a spine plated metal back
I never fold medal gold with a vaulting pole
Nigga I'm better known as light let me shine on you
Mind confident rhyme dominant lines constant
Caramello color hella mellow
The fellows run up 'n' "Hello"
Hella sorrow when I tell 'em taken "Holla"
I got that horror vision, they say I'm masochistic
I don't think it's crazy they call me shady I'm flattered, get it?
My image is sick I'm in need of a medic
I should get a permanent residence and hospital bed it's
The way I freak shit, unique like that old rapper chick
I smack an actor in a wall 'til his back's in the brick
I rig 'em all with the mind basement 'n' trapdoors
It's me I'll clap the survivors until I see some rigor mortis
I seen the forest through the trees
But only because I cut off all the leaves
And left 'em blowing off into the breeze
That I create whenever I speak
I'm cheap fuck it, I need to win something
Before I kick this rap bucket in
Fuck it again, fuck you if this hasn't struck you
As a genius sticking out like a bucktooth
Uncouth, yes I know it mostly regarded as pottymouth
Dirty like the city ground you on when the shotties come out
I'm witty and plus I'm incredibly diligent
Dream of the president mac-millied I'm militant
I go along like a Philly bed I pity you
SIlly fool I know ain't nobody really feeling you

[Gunshots]