I just read it as an drunken observation, maybe from a high rise window.
Observation leads to reflection, which is what I think the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs are about
The fourth is probably my favorite, I think the subject matter is the clearest, but aside from that the line "Jackie-O shotgun in Imhotepגs terra cotta Acura." is pretty unfuckwitable.
Last paragraph similar to the first, observing the "goings-on"
Its too late at night for line by line, I didn't know there'd be homework.
It is dense as fuck and that is something that I enjoy.
CTR LEGACY THREAD
Moderators: TheBigSleep, stype_ones, Philaflava
Ha. Yes, it is written as a drunken, or hungover/still vaguely drunk observation that leads to imaginative digression.
The narrator is drunk at the barbershop on a Saturday morning. He's on an unstoppable mission for pussy, so he's getting the fly cut, the crescent part.
I have no idea why i wrote this but it was fun to write.
The narrator is drunk at the barbershop on a Saturday morning. He's on an unstoppable mission for pussy, so he's getting the fly cut, the crescent part.
I have no idea why i wrote this but it was fun to write.
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
Got Game
What up ma?
First of all, Im stepping to you on the humble
Now I've had a bit to drink, so excuse me if I stumble
Like the drum on a track, Im trying to find the place I fit
Come on over, have a drink, relax, we'll talk a bit
About, who I am? Just that same old drunk fool
Navigating life on a beer and a bar stool
And now you, I like your attitude and disposition
Tell me all about yourself, "What ya do?", "Where ya livin?"
Its a given that Im diggin that bit of skin that you're showing
Makes me wanna get between, where ya been and where ya going
And Im knowing, you're not the type to pick up dudes at the bar
But like they say, "People change", so maybe today you are?
Either way, of others judgements, you really shouldn't care
I could pick you up tomorrow, we'll say I met you there
Treat you like a square, how bout dinner and a movie?
Perhaps, after that, if things go smoothly
A quick nightcap right back to square one
We'll be sippin on some whiskey until the evenings done
Feeling like I won, so I hope you say yes
Just do me this favor and uhhh.... pick up the check?
Thanks.
First of all, Im stepping to you on the humble
Now I've had a bit to drink, so excuse me if I stumble
Like the drum on a track, Im trying to find the place I fit
Come on over, have a drink, relax, we'll talk a bit
About, who I am? Just that same old drunk fool
Navigating life on a beer and a bar stool
And now you, I like your attitude and disposition
Tell me all about yourself, "What ya do?", "Where ya livin?"
Its a given that Im diggin that bit of skin that you're showing
Makes me wanna get between, where ya been and where ya going
And Im knowing, you're not the type to pick up dudes at the bar
But like they say, "People change", so maybe today you are?
Either way, of others judgements, you really shouldn't care
I could pick you up tomorrow, we'll say I met you there
Treat you like a square, how bout dinner and a movie?
Perhaps, after that, if things go smoothly
A quick nightcap right back to square one
We'll be sippin on some whiskey until the evenings done
Feeling like I won, so I hope you say yes
Just do me this favor and uhhh.... pick up the check?
Thanks.
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
GhostTown
This is the end of my spree....
Feel like the longest of long shots
The kettle to your black pot
The rebel in a glass house without a cause launching rocks
Cream of a lost crop, seeds blown in the wind
Its harvest season, best believe Im breeding more than just sin
Another bend in the road, feels like I've been here before
Still second guessing even as I press the gas to the floor
Put down the pen and the sword, pick up a map and a plan
And anything else I can carry on my back or in my hands
Where I stand, path and pathos coincided precisely
If I can, reject them both to coast and hope that the light brings
Something new to show and prove, instead of more of the same
I paid my dues but tattoos and scars are all that I gained
Set my goals on this plane, view the forest for the trees
Put on my peacoat, press the dickies, and lace up the wallabees
Maintained patience with ease, still seeking out a change of scenery
Till penning lamentations doesn't seem to come so easily
Feel like the longest of long shots
The kettle to your black pot
The rebel in a glass house without a cause launching rocks
Cream of a lost crop, seeds blown in the wind
Its harvest season, best believe Im breeding more than just sin
Another bend in the road, feels like I've been here before
Still second guessing even as I press the gas to the floor
Put down the pen and the sword, pick up a map and a plan
And anything else I can carry on my back or in my hands
Where I stand, path and pathos coincided precisely
If I can, reject them both to coast and hope that the light brings
Something new to show and prove, instead of more of the same
I paid my dues but tattoos and scars are all that I gained
Set my goals on this plane, view the forest for the trees
Put on my peacoat, press the dickies, and lace up the wallabees
Maintained patience with ease, still seeking out a change of scenery
Till penning lamentations doesn't seem to come so easily
Dope. Understandable smooth ish. Especially enjoyed the last four lines.
"Set my goals on this plane, view the forest for the trees
Put on my peacoat, press the dickies, and lace up the wallabees
Maintained patience with ease, still seeking out a change of scenery
Till penning lamentations doesn't seem to come so easily"
That's one to grow on.
"Set my goals on this plane, view the forest for the trees
Put on my peacoat, press the dickies, and lace up the wallabees
Maintained patience with ease, still seeking out a change of scenery
Till penning lamentations doesn't seem to come so easily"
That's one to grow on.
A little 12 as an intro...
to me - The B apostrophe...
An excerpt from a track I'm making at the minute.
FUCK YOU!! And your silly soliloquies, what Iגm bringing is really,
syllable symmetry with spiffing delivery,
You forgiven?? Your killing me all this pissing and misery,
Divies snivelling rhythmically while I listen indifferently,
Iגm a glistening shivery single slither of synergy,
Testing chins so horrifically with these missiles blitzed lyrically
I mean, seriously, youגre piddlies opitomy,
i'll make your visage seem like you sipped something vinegary
Bring a sling to your mimicry, singing and scrimpery
See a symbiants scenes of gimps loosing a limb or three
cus you ainגt getting rid of me like Clinton and Hilary
Gimpie lily livered chimps donגt make kiddies go GIGGEDY...
bosh.
An excerpt from a track I'm making at the minute.
FUCK YOU!! And your silly soliloquies, what Iגm bringing is really,
syllable symmetry with spiffing delivery,
You forgiven?? Your killing me all this pissing and misery,
Divies snivelling rhythmically while I listen indifferently,
Iגm a glistening shivery single slither of synergy,
Testing chins so horrifically with these missiles blitzed lyrically
I mean, seriously, youגre piddlies opitomy,
i'll make your visage seem like you sipped something vinegary
Bring a sling to your mimicry, singing and scrimpery
See a symbiants scenes of gimps loosing a limb or three
cus you ainגt getting rid of me like Clinton and Hilary
Gimpie lily livered chimps donגt make kiddies go GIGGEDY...
bosh.
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/sh ... on=8,0,0,0" width="335" height="28" id="divplaylist"><param name="movie" value="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=5943625-fb5" /><embed src="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=5943625-fb5" width="335" height="28" name="divplaylist" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashpl ... d></object>
cant fall asleep
so i wrote this:
shout screaming curses that have you saying oh nurse it's
my ego thats been bruised
voodoo shredded and beheaded
left for deaded, scraped and bledded
wheres the medic or an eddict
that can keep me from my angel of death
strangling breath
so quiet kept
my conscience wept
for if i didnt half a step
thered be no trouble footing around
searching the sound
of the stomping of my soul
and the snatching of my crown
ive been stripped of all my accolades
awards and bits of flair
my mic check has checked out
it's like i wasnt even there
hello? was this thing ever on
and do you care?
this pride was swallowed whole
and now im blank as blank can stare
the front row is clowning too hmmmm
i think my minute's finished
worst of 8? thats fine with me
itll stay me as a cynic
i guess dont put me on that list
unless im one of one to win it
cuz losers make me laugh a lot
myself i just cant grin it
shout screaming curses that have you saying oh nurse it's
my ego thats been bruised
voodoo shredded and beheaded
left for deaded, scraped and bledded
wheres the medic or an eddict
that can keep me from my angel of death
strangling breath
so quiet kept
my conscience wept
for if i didnt half a step
thered be no trouble footing around
searching the sound
of the stomping of my soul
and the snatching of my crown
ive been stripped of all my accolades
awards and bits of flair
my mic check has checked out
it's like i wasnt even there
hello? was this thing ever on
and do you care?
this pride was swallowed whole
and now im blank as blank can stare
the front row is clowning too hmmmm
i think my minute's finished
worst of 8? thats fine with me
itll stay me as a cynic
i guess dont put me on that list
unless im one of one to win it
cuz losers make me laugh a lot
myself i just cant grin it
-
Sucka Ducka
- Posts: 7736
- Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:33 am
- Location: Denver
You have a dope voice and can flow. I do think that this verse would be a lot better with punch-ins though. Like on some of the "punchlines" it might be more effective to punch-in with a different inflection. It sounds a little rushed as it is. But still a cool song.Radio Raheem wrote:<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/sh ... on=8,0,0,0" width="335" height="28" id="divplaylist"><param name="movie" value="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=5943625-fb5" /><embed src="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=5943625-fb5" width="335" height="28" name="divplaylist" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashpl ... d></object>
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
Thanks Thun.
I really only record tracks so that I can see how they'll sound when performed. I've never taken recording too seriously. If I ever press anything up I would add proper punch-ins and vocals.
This song is a departure from my typical delivery so I do appreciate your comments re:flow and voice.
I really only record tracks so that I can see how they'll sound when performed. I've never taken recording too seriously. If I ever press anything up I would add proper punch-ins and vocals.
This song is a departure from my typical delivery so I do appreciate your comments re:flow and voice.
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
Polar Opposites
I think Ive posted this in some capacity on this board before. I just finished it and thought I should post up the final verison.
Been hearing people scream "last days!", supposedly they're grieving
Guess the threat of Armageddon's the only miracle worth believing.
But even up in heaven the most lackadaisical angel,
Would have to tilt his halo when dealing with us ground prone,
Top the charts! Crash the Boards! All the rage!, masses.
The space between the wings is where his thought process advances.
Then clashes, with my everyday no name productivity.
He's adding checkmarks to long lists of most sought after enemies.
But when its me who's next, Before I get that check
I tighten my halo up and pull it down around my neck.
Then flex, until it strangles off all of my capacities
Im ripping deep into the divine with a tedious tenacity.
And actually Ill pass a piece to ascending aristocracy,
Hoping for recognition amongst the wicked for my atrocities.
I cough and seize cumulus, each lung facing the dubious,
Distinction of raining down liquids that are infected to the nucleus.
And after I proven this, distinction's is true and real,
I remove that halo from my neck and ground it out beneath my heel.
Peeling wings off my back, I plummet to earth's surface,
Soles settle on the ground and I know the rebellion's worth it.
Of course Ive gotta pay for biting the hand that tried to feed me,
The slightest of infractions earns a place amongst the seething,
Pits and burning coals you know the metaphors well
Eternal damnation, the seventh ring, Hades, hell.
Beelzebub guards the gates collecting mortal penance
Laughing at crying souls on their knees begging repentance.
But Ive already been forgiven, plus never claimed to be evil
In fact as I look back I saw hell as other people
But I'm guessing that my preference for existential philosophy,
Aint really that impressive in the burning eyes of Mephistopheles
No exit is yet evident so I pursue my previous tactics.
Salvation through non-belief like I got the tradition backwards.
Burn out and slide in, gnashed teeth turn to a grin.
Watch the cesspools fade beneath my feet as I ascend,
Back to where I belong my soles now firmly planted
No more smoke no more clouds just a view of circumstances
Somehow, Im most disturbed by the fate that I deserve
Which is walking here on earth, a number amongst the herd
But I've learned to accept the purgatory logic gives
And reject the mysticism that keeps us reaching for polar opposites
Been hearing people scream "last days!", supposedly they're grieving
Guess the threat of Armageddon's the only miracle worth believing.
But even up in heaven the most lackadaisical angel,
Would have to tilt his halo when dealing with us ground prone,
Top the charts! Crash the Boards! All the rage!, masses.
The space between the wings is where his thought process advances.
Then clashes, with my everyday no name productivity.
He's adding checkmarks to long lists of most sought after enemies.
But when its me who's next, Before I get that check
I tighten my halo up and pull it down around my neck.
Then flex, until it strangles off all of my capacities
Im ripping deep into the divine with a tedious tenacity.
And actually Ill pass a piece to ascending aristocracy,
Hoping for recognition amongst the wicked for my atrocities.
I cough and seize cumulus, each lung facing the dubious,
Distinction of raining down liquids that are infected to the nucleus.
And after I proven this, distinction's is true and real,
I remove that halo from my neck and ground it out beneath my heel.
Peeling wings off my back, I plummet to earth's surface,
Soles settle on the ground and I know the rebellion's worth it.
Of course Ive gotta pay for biting the hand that tried to feed me,
The slightest of infractions earns a place amongst the seething,
Pits and burning coals you know the metaphors well
Eternal damnation, the seventh ring, Hades, hell.
Beelzebub guards the gates collecting mortal penance
Laughing at crying souls on their knees begging repentance.
But Ive already been forgiven, plus never claimed to be evil
In fact as I look back I saw hell as other people
But I'm guessing that my preference for existential philosophy,
Aint really that impressive in the burning eyes of Mephistopheles
No exit is yet evident so I pursue my previous tactics.
Salvation through non-belief like I got the tradition backwards.
Burn out and slide in, gnashed teeth turn to a grin.
Watch the cesspools fade beneath my feet as I ascend,
Back to where I belong my soles now firmly planted
No more smoke no more clouds just a view of circumstances
Somehow, Im most disturbed by the fate that I deserve
Which is walking here on earth, a number amongst the herd
But I've learned to accept the purgatory logic gives
And reject the mysticism that keeps us reaching for polar opposites
New Year's 2004
Brambleberry Champale makes me more vicious-er when it's dusky. I thought you knew.
"Motherfuck a New's Year Eve. Crush-kill, destroy if you must, but never ever stress that ol' next script. You write your nightcap as if it concludes on Sugar Hill, bubblin' until the freaks of dawn. But level with me, akh. Get off the halcyon. Visualize your future-shock as $25 damage at the door. Five-oh is posting high as the HBO satellite, acting all kinds of extra tonight. Don't get me started on Dick "I'm-a-Murderous-Cyborg-Beneath-The-Droopy-Jowls" Clark's Countdown To Armageddon special. Strokes at midnight? Thinkful wishing, dunny. Fishing your plastic collar stays out of the homeslice dip bowl, more like it."
Raheem unloosens the silverbacked wrapper of a mixed-berry Nutri-Grain bar with domineering tenderness, handling the crummy fruit wedge like an aging barfly does a finicky crypto-virgin. Across the recognized threshold into the nebbish and cluttery parlor my mother reorganizes her mah-jong tiles and dusts her fleet of unicorn figurines on some crazy Rosie the Maid shit that doesn't make sense. She straight slaughters a pack of Iroquois-scrambled, internet-smuggled Virginia Slims without even thinking. My sister, my father, and our skittish porcelain calico named Junior witness gumshoe Ethan Hawke kick fire out of Denzel's gracefallen ass. NJ Transit, that disrespectful crosstown parabellum, wheezes, honks, and whirs through our peculiar colony, smothering my peace for a couple of light years, but you see me wincing not.
"The dips were a popular distraction and they still are. Speaking of which, about the Deltas, and this Moonlit Melodic Rush joint they got going on at the Route 18 Marriott? I dunno, man. You see Ra, there's but one objective assuming tonight's the night: get nice and run up in some power-u. Guinness-willing, stay in the cut and tear shit up righteous. Getting home safe, that would be peace too. If I can make it through the night without hearing 'Hey shawty -- it's yo' birfday!' - victory. But let's not get ahead of ourselves like Uniblab. Zoning on some feast of St. James en route to Zorro's Halloween Jam in the plush Somerset hills? Fuck outta here with that. Happy 2004."
I pause to take another swig, 'cause I'm one nickel-slick motivator. A stupefyingly superfluous gesture, sure. Brain cells been scintillating astro-black whirligig since Halloween. Today's sermon conversates preacher-to-choir trickeration. Tradition and ritual. From the goodly tents of belovable Borinquen to the totemic ashtrays and notices stacked on a tabletop smudged off-white by Star-Ledger travesties. The amber tassled hanging lantern may have been lifted from a gypsy palm-reader's musty parlor in Englewood. Or a greasy bulletproof dim-sum joint in Asbury. No matter. We rest deep in the gone-est backstreets of Eastwick. Mind you, this is not even my table to be bringing anything to. Not my kitchen either.
"I'm saying though, peace to man, woman, and child - but given these options I might as well lay low and wait for Los Tres Reyes with their jet-propelled camels to touch down. Everyone will just have to assume I blinked myself away to some whole 'nother other realm. You know, where folks get down for the upstroke and, uh, good bitches are the baddest you can bag, I think. Either that or they'll say I jetted to New Haven, but that's today's science, you feel me?"
Raheem rises from behind his tagged-up Book of the Dead, looking about as somber as an ironed t-shirt. A peasy-headed sheep who lost himself wooing the strangest wool, Ra now presumes himself to be founder than a motherfucker. Rumors abound that he was born with a hologram halo orbiting his skully, but felt compelled to pawn it for twenty bucks and a mood-ring after his older brother, a predicate felon and surprise signee to Jay-Z's Roc-a-fella imprint, caught a charge for toting a plasma gat inside blessed Newark, I mean, Liberty International Airport, thereby grounding his family's plans to skyrocket into the superstrate. I go ahead with my damned self, as advised.
"The whole wide world's whylin' out over the sun, moon, and stars. Taking the divine order for granted. Pagan stowaways on the Mothership Connection boggling on the upbeat. Hedonism across the Heavens. And we're supposed to ascend past the surly bonds with bells on? Tell me, Ra, what's so fantastic five about ringing in the '04, huh? What do you suppose Starfleet Commandant Prince and his belly-dancing star troopers from Venus have to say about all this? Where's Puffy and Mase with their lunar landing loungewear and Gucci solar-flare goggles? Are you really losing sleep over Y2K, Colombian Heaven, and Illuminati's role in the free nights and weekends scheme? I thought not. Niggas would both celebrate and dread Tuesday 2:43pm if it could be celebrated and dreaded."
I swig again. Ra grunts approvingly at my last point, then follows his poignant reply with a clumsily reverberating chuckle. Which devolves into a phlegmatic cough. He concludes with his infamous, Nod N' Grin super deluxe special knockout supreme, patent-pending. He is not an imbecile or a Stepford Son or a negro-stalgic bobble-head on Jupiter; this is just how it goes for now. Such a response is amicable enough to ensure survival through a routine traffic stop and stoic enough to mush a venegeful breezy before her claws scrape corneas. Ra's performed smuggery is born of the same voodoo plus-degree that granted him, the melancholic North Philadelphiatic son of no one special, undisputable ask-cess into the silk e. smoov drawers of a certain cutesily connivingful Atlanta-bred orange blossom. Miss Kalesha Miriam Fairfax-Coaxum. I resume my speech while he slurps Henny-n-Schweppes on the rocks out of a Welch's grape jelly jar through a looping, phosphorescent crazy straw...
"But don't get it twisted, son. Far be it from me to perpetrate as if shit never jumps off lovely, when the god least expects it, right? You remember that dimed-out breezy that Pedro tried to to wifey up, Yvelisse or Evelyn. Yunilka maybe? One of those elegant names with counter-intuitive spelling. Butterscotch Peruvian-Cuban queen from North Bergen, tig ol' bitties, forever lugging her laptop around campus in a gunmetal case. Used to rock Sour Starburst teflon tank tops walking home from jams in mid-November. Strutting through the rapid reconstruction of George Street as if niggas turn into the fucking velveteen rabbit when it's brick out. Is this ringing a bell, kid, or what?"
Yes, Miss Kalesha. A head of hairs tasered straight as beams of red dwarf starlight on the julep-cool eve of our annihilation. A perfect stranger to contractions and slanguistics and dangling participles. The exalted descendant of the noblest Creole-Cherokee-Moroccan tri-racial isolate to be marooned in the wilderness of North America. Surely, Raheem's swagger rings formulaic. But recognize that his spacey contemplative pose is capsuled by memories of a household where incarceration in maximum security modules is the norm for both sexes. He makes disastrous decisions from time to time but beyond addressing long obscured root causes, I can only accentuate the aspects that entertain . It was thought that a comet or a PDA-sized bit of anti-matter done went and stole on the earth's surface the day he dicked down that little trollope in the fifth floor bathroom while her anime-obsessed fiancee was embroiled in his take-home exam for his Actuarial Science seminar. Fantastical.
"Think. She was an Anthro major. Used to get blunted halfway to Andromeda in the bike room and complain how her salary from the Piscataway Petco went to her poor dying great-uncle in freaking Cajamarca. In her irie-er moments she confided that she wished she could smuggle a whole warehouse of the newest Nokia flips to bribe Peru's medical elites. To ransom the ancient metallurgist out of the proverbial woods. Doesn't happen though. The same day she gets fired over e-mail for sleeping on the job she learns that her great uncle has returned to the essence. Cirrhosis of the liver. She doesn't eat or sleep for two weeks and flings herself in front of an Acapulco Taxi. Last I heard she eats strained peas through a tube and has so many bolts and wires clanging around in her legs that she's frequently accosted by airport security."
My mother enters the kitchen and asks if there's a proverbial light at the end of my story. This amuses Ra to no end, and the folks back in the living room nearly die from their convulsions. Her critique was not directly solicited; up to this point, I presumed she was too preoccupied with the finer nuances of polymer plastics and dust migration to weigh in. However, this was her state-of-the-art kitchen (on this point of territoriality she was practically a Savage Skull) and thus her conversation. Without distracting her phaser-gaze one single angstrom from the rinky-dink Westinghouse TV-VCR lazily situated on its neurosis-inspired yet pleasantly Hemmingwayish looking shelf, at that moment broadcasting a glammed-up gladiatorial contest between two youthful yet dour Japanese chefs, she argues, in sensible terms, why two men in their mid-20s should not be staying in on New Year's. Namely that sitting in the kitchen while the world around us pulsates in Bacchanalian bliss, is kinda freakin' gay, no? Her words. I continue as if she said nothing, addressing nobody in particular.
"Anyways, my point is, you remember when we rendezvous'd with her cousin Antonia, last year? The really smart one with the electro-permed black hair and the fat-ass thighs, who always got let into spots for free? Talked about how she feared chafing more than fear itself, as if niggas cared to know about her lotion regimen? We show up at two in the morning after being literally tossed out of Club Happy Hunting Grounds in Neptune. There she is, three sheets to the wind and positively ecstatic to finally be in the company of some real men who can hold their liquor down and keep it there. Next thing you know shorty and company are butterflying wildstyle to an old Shabba Ranks CD on repeat, grinding on us against the piano in the dank ass rec room, while Chemistry major boyfriend is tore the fuck up and knocked the fuck out on the pleather sofa in the lounge overlooking the Electrical Engineering lab. Word to all that."
My mother spasms in hysterics for at least three straight minutes because one of the dueling chefs inadvertently elecotrocutes himself while frying some Red Sea eel. Though the electrocution is mild, her laughter is severe, intimidatingly infectious. She is small of frame, tiny really, and resolutely copper-colored. Physically speaking we share only a wide fleshy nose but somehow people can sense that we are mother and son without even being told. Which is funny because I doubted our consanguinity as a youth and secretly longed for the night a day-glo flying saucer would whiz me back to my real family's home planet in the vicinity of Los Angeles. If I had owned a Viewfinder that could peer into the future I might have informed her that this was the very last New Year's she'd be breathing without the aid of medical technology, the last time she'd ever see Raheem, and a host of other last times that are ever apparent and all the more irrelevant in retrospect. But of course I don't have one so I don't do anything. She insists that I'm careening through the ether towards a lifetime of loneliness. She claims that I wouldn't be trapped in such a sad emotionless vacuum if I hadn't fucked things up so royally with Melissa. I'm feeling generous so I entertain her concerns.
"Listen, ma, we need to stay on subject here. That whole situation will fix itself with time, peace Connecticut. Ra and I, we're lickin' shots all day, every day as it is. For the sake of argument, let's say Stupid Nigga Wednesdays, rolling twenty deep to Maritza's Bistro, getting aired off dollar Yuenglings and Strong Island Iced Teas. Plus ashknuckle townies will get stole on just for living and we're Audi Five-thou before the boys roll up. On to the next spot, cussing out chickenheads in stirrup pants under the drippy train station bridge. You got dope fiends watching us, slurping up hot oily pizza slices crust-first, laughing they asses off, wildin' out like it's the jubilee and what have you, niggas just cuttin' on broads like they're trash. We're made for this nonsense. Clearly, we can entertain our own damned selves. And now we're supposed to squeeze into some sweatbox just 'cause, well you know, the fucking Gregorian calendar and shit?
My mother starts to sigh and hacks up her lungs for a minute. She says that she has not one clue what i just said then calmly explains to us that she is expecting company -- meaning an intergalactic menagerie of basket cases and mutants she has befriended through her social outreach work -- and that this peculiar party will promptly beam themselves up to church at 11:40pm. So unless I want to sing the halogen candle-lit praises of Jehovah's only begotten wine transmutationist I'd best to decide whether or not we'll be shooting over to Vanessa's house party in Freehold or hitting up the Marriot or loitering in a 7-11 parking lot. Ra taps me on the shoulder and makes the horrendous suggestion that he is considering visiting his ex-girlfriend Yolanda in Amboy. I am thoroughly repulsed by the concept on so many levels, and knowing this guy and how he is, she probably isn't even cutting. Cuddling, maybe. I'm nauseated to the core of my being so I grab my Carhartt and tell Ra we have to talk outside. On the driveway he notices my furor and addresses me eloquently and soberly.
"The fuck is your problem, nigga? She texted me and said I should come through, she misses me. She wants to watch Brown Sugar."
Of all movies? Now I'm heated. The champagne is tachyon-fast in my blood vessels and my thoughts are even faster, accelerating far beyond my capacity to articulate them in English. Ra is so convinced of the correctness of his mission that he's already unlocking the driver's side door of his rented Camry. I turn around to make sure nobody's looking and I draw my orange box-cutter from my interior pocket. The steel is extra cold and I nearly drop the friggin' thing. I turn around and take but two steps before I realize that Ra also has a pair of orange box-cutters drawn. When you see one aimed at you it might as well be a light saber. He's looking at me like 'And what?' After an awkward nanosecond or two we both burst out laughing, breath visible in the smoggy December atmosphere. Ra mutters something about metal things and he's interrupted when my mother shouts through several walls to request assistance with a pickle jar. When I come back outside the car is warmed up and Ra has even relinquished the driver's side to me. Smart move on his part.
"Aight now listen, your ex-girlfriend will be around tomorrow and the next day. You can fuck her on Flag Day for all I care. Rosh Hoshanah. Who gives a fuck? That's why ex-girlfriends exist. I need you to call Truth and Jeff, we're gonna mosse it up and find a spot to fall into. I can't call them, nigga, this phone barely gets reception here. Cingular, what do you expect? It works in Princeton, sometimes. Plus I've thrown this piece of shit against the wall in my room every time I've accidentally deleted a paper. So half a dozen, maybe eight times, aight? Because I'm an idiot, okay? Forget all of that. We're gonna drive until we find something worthwhile. We got our own backs. What's the very worst that could happen?"
I turn on the radio and I am immediately assaulted by mumbly yet excruciatingly loud words of doom: "MY FLOW MY SHOW BROUGHT ME THE DOUGH THAT BOUGHT ME ALL MY FANCY THINGS MY CRIBS MY CARS MY POOLS MY JEWELS..."
"Sweet motherfucking mother of christ god-damn it! Shit! You've got to be motherfucking kidding me!"
It feels like someone filleted my liver with a pen-knife. And it's only 6:48pm EST.
"Motherfuck a New's Year Eve. Crush-kill, destroy if you must, but never ever stress that ol' next script. You write your nightcap as if it concludes on Sugar Hill, bubblin' until the freaks of dawn. But level with me, akh. Get off the halcyon. Visualize your future-shock as $25 damage at the door. Five-oh is posting high as the HBO satellite, acting all kinds of extra tonight. Don't get me started on Dick "I'm-a-Murderous-Cyborg-Beneath-The-Droopy-Jowls" Clark's Countdown To Armageddon special. Strokes at midnight? Thinkful wishing, dunny. Fishing your plastic collar stays out of the homeslice dip bowl, more like it."
Raheem unloosens the silverbacked wrapper of a mixed-berry Nutri-Grain bar with domineering tenderness, handling the crummy fruit wedge like an aging barfly does a finicky crypto-virgin. Across the recognized threshold into the nebbish and cluttery parlor my mother reorganizes her mah-jong tiles and dusts her fleet of unicorn figurines on some crazy Rosie the Maid shit that doesn't make sense. She straight slaughters a pack of Iroquois-scrambled, internet-smuggled Virginia Slims without even thinking. My sister, my father, and our skittish porcelain calico named Junior witness gumshoe Ethan Hawke kick fire out of Denzel's gracefallen ass. NJ Transit, that disrespectful crosstown parabellum, wheezes, honks, and whirs through our peculiar colony, smothering my peace for a couple of light years, but you see me wincing not.
"The dips were a popular distraction and they still are. Speaking of which, about the Deltas, and this Moonlit Melodic Rush joint they got going on at the Route 18 Marriott? I dunno, man. You see Ra, there's but one objective assuming tonight's the night: get nice and run up in some power-u. Guinness-willing, stay in the cut and tear shit up righteous. Getting home safe, that would be peace too. If I can make it through the night without hearing 'Hey shawty -- it's yo' birfday!' - victory. But let's not get ahead of ourselves like Uniblab. Zoning on some feast of St. James en route to Zorro's Halloween Jam in the plush Somerset hills? Fuck outta here with that. Happy 2004."
I pause to take another swig, 'cause I'm one nickel-slick motivator. A stupefyingly superfluous gesture, sure. Brain cells been scintillating astro-black whirligig since Halloween. Today's sermon conversates preacher-to-choir trickeration. Tradition and ritual. From the goodly tents of belovable Borinquen to the totemic ashtrays and notices stacked on a tabletop smudged off-white by Star-Ledger travesties. The amber tassled hanging lantern may have been lifted from a gypsy palm-reader's musty parlor in Englewood. Or a greasy bulletproof dim-sum joint in Asbury. No matter. We rest deep in the gone-est backstreets of Eastwick. Mind you, this is not even my table to be bringing anything to. Not my kitchen either.
"I'm saying though, peace to man, woman, and child - but given these options I might as well lay low and wait for Los Tres Reyes with their jet-propelled camels to touch down. Everyone will just have to assume I blinked myself away to some whole 'nother other realm. You know, where folks get down for the upstroke and, uh, good bitches are the baddest you can bag, I think. Either that or they'll say I jetted to New Haven, but that's today's science, you feel me?"
Raheem rises from behind his tagged-up Book of the Dead, looking about as somber as an ironed t-shirt. A peasy-headed sheep who lost himself wooing the strangest wool, Ra now presumes himself to be founder than a motherfucker. Rumors abound that he was born with a hologram halo orbiting his skully, but felt compelled to pawn it for twenty bucks and a mood-ring after his older brother, a predicate felon and surprise signee to Jay-Z's Roc-a-fella imprint, caught a charge for toting a plasma gat inside blessed Newark, I mean, Liberty International Airport, thereby grounding his family's plans to skyrocket into the superstrate. I go ahead with my damned self, as advised.
"The whole wide world's whylin' out over the sun, moon, and stars. Taking the divine order for granted. Pagan stowaways on the Mothership Connection boggling on the upbeat. Hedonism across the Heavens. And we're supposed to ascend past the surly bonds with bells on? Tell me, Ra, what's so fantastic five about ringing in the '04, huh? What do you suppose Starfleet Commandant Prince and his belly-dancing star troopers from Venus have to say about all this? Where's Puffy and Mase with their lunar landing loungewear and Gucci solar-flare goggles? Are you really losing sleep over Y2K, Colombian Heaven, and Illuminati's role in the free nights and weekends scheme? I thought not. Niggas would both celebrate and dread Tuesday 2:43pm if it could be celebrated and dreaded."
I swig again. Ra grunts approvingly at my last point, then follows his poignant reply with a clumsily reverberating chuckle. Which devolves into a phlegmatic cough. He concludes with his infamous, Nod N' Grin super deluxe special knockout supreme, patent-pending. He is not an imbecile or a Stepford Son or a negro-stalgic bobble-head on Jupiter; this is just how it goes for now. Such a response is amicable enough to ensure survival through a routine traffic stop and stoic enough to mush a venegeful breezy before her claws scrape corneas. Ra's performed smuggery is born of the same voodoo plus-degree that granted him, the melancholic North Philadelphiatic son of no one special, undisputable ask-cess into the silk e. smoov drawers of a certain cutesily connivingful Atlanta-bred orange blossom. Miss Kalesha Miriam Fairfax-Coaxum. I resume my speech while he slurps Henny-n-Schweppes on the rocks out of a Welch's grape jelly jar through a looping, phosphorescent crazy straw...
"But don't get it twisted, son. Far be it from me to perpetrate as if shit never jumps off lovely, when the god least expects it, right? You remember that dimed-out breezy that Pedro tried to to wifey up, Yvelisse or Evelyn. Yunilka maybe? One of those elegant names with counter-intuitive spelling. Butterscotch Peruvian-Cuban queen from North Bergen, tig ol' bitties, forever lugging her laptop around campus in a gunmetal case. Used to rock Sour Starburst teflon tank tops walking home from jams in mid-November. Strutting through the rapid reconstruction of George Street as if niggas turn into the fucking velveteen rabbit when it's brick out. Is this ringing a bell, kid, or what?"
Yes, Miss Kalesha. A head of hairs tasered straight as beams of red dwarf starlight on the julep-cool eve of our annihilation. A perfect stranger to contractions and slanguistics and dangling participles. The exalted descendant of the noblest Creole-Cherokee-Moroccan tri-racial isolate to be marooned in the wilderness of North America. Surely, Raheem's swagger rings formulaic. But recognize that his spacey contemplative pose is capsuled by memories of a household where incarceration in maximum security modules is the norm for both sexes. He makes disastrous decisions from time to time but beyond addressing long obscured root causes, I can only accentuate the aspects that entertain . It was thought that a comet or a PDA-sized bit of anti-matter done went and stole on the earth's surface the day he dicked down that little trollope in the fifth floor bathroom while her anime-obsessed fiancee was embroiled in his take-home exam for his Actuarial Science seminar. Fantastical.
"Think. She was an Anthro major. Used to get blunted halfway to Andromeda in the bike room and complain how her salary from the Piscataway Petco went to her poor dying great-uncle in freaking Cajamarca. In her irie-er moments she confided that she wished she could smuggle a whole warehouse of the newest Nokia flips to bribe Peru's medical elites. To ransom the ancient metallurgist out of the proverbial woods. Doesn't happen though. The same day she gets fired over e-mail for sleeping on the job she learns that her great uncle has returned to the essence. Cirrhosis of the liver. She doesn't eat or sleep for two weeks and flings herself in front of an Acapulco Taxi. Last I heard she eats strained peas through a tube and has so many bolts and wires clanging around in her legs that she's frequently accosted by airport security."
My mother enters the kitchen and asks if there's a proverbial light at the end of my story. This amuses Ra to no end, and the folks back in the living room nearly die from their convulsions. Her critique was not directly solicited; up to this point, I presumed she was too preoccupied with the finer nuances of polymer plastics and dust migration to weigh in. However, this was her state-of-the-art kitchen (on this point of territoriality she was practically a Savage Skull) and thus her conversation. Without distracting her phaser-gaze one single angstrom from the rinky-dink Westinghouse TV-VCR lazily situated on its neurosis-inspired yet pleasantly Hemmingwayish looking shelf, at that moment broadcasting a glammed-up gladiatorial contest between two youthful yet dour Japanese chefs, she argues, in sensible terms, why two men in their mid-20s should not be staying in on New Year's. Namely that sitting in the kitchen while the world around us pulsates in Bacchanalian bliss, is kinda freakin' gay, no? Her words. I continue as if she said nothing, addressing nobody in particular.
"Anyways, my point is, you remember when we rendezvous'd with her cousin Antonia, last year? The really smart one with the electro-permed black hair and the fat-ass thighs, who always got let into spots for free? Talked about how she feared chafing more than fear itself, as if niggas cared to know about her lotion regimen? We show up at two in the morning after being literally tossed out of Club Happy Hunting Grounds in Neptune. There she is, three sheets to the wind and positively ecstatic to finally be in the company of some real men who can hold their liquor down and keep it there. Next thing you know shorty and company are butterflying wildstyle to an old Shabba Ranks CD on repeat, grinding on us against the piano in the dank ass rec room, while Chemistry major boyfriend is tore the fuck up and knocked the fuck out on the pleather sofa in the lounge overlooking the Electrical Engineering lab. Word to all that."
My mother spasms in hysterics for at least three straight minutes because one of the dueling chefs inadvertently elecotrocutes himself while frying some Red Sea eel. Though the electrocution is mild, her laughter is severe, intimidatingly infectious. She is small of frame, tiny really, and resolutely copper-colored. Physically speaking we share only a wide fleshy nose but somehow people can sense that we are mother and son without even being told. Which is funny because I doubted our consanguinity as a youth and secretly longed for the night a day-glo flying saucer would whiz me back to my real family's home planet in the vicinity of Los Angeles. If I had owned a Viewfinder that could peer into the future I might have informed her that this was the very last New Year's she'd be breathing without the aid of medical technology, the last time she'd ever see Raheem, and a host of other last times that are ever apparent and all the more irrelevant in retrospect. But of course I don't have one so I don't do anything. She insists that I'm careening through the ether towards a lifetime of loneliness. She claims that I wouldn't be trapped in such a sad emotionless vacuum if I hadn't fucked things up so royally with Melissa. I'm feeling generous so I entertain her concerns.
"Listen, ma, we need to stay on subject here. That whole situation will fix itself with time, peace Connecticut. Ra and I, we're lickin' shots all day, every day as it is. For the sake of argument, let's say Stupid Nigga Wednesdays, rolling twenty deep to Maritza's Bistro, getting aired off dollar Yuenglings and Strong Island Iced Teas. Plus ashknuckle townies will get stole on just for living and we're Audi Five-thou before the boys roll up. On to the next spot, cussing out chickenheads in stirrup pants under the drippy train station bridge. You got dope fiends watching us, slurping up hot oily pizza slices crust-first, laughing they asses off, wildin' out like it's the jubilee and what have you, niggas just cuttin' on broads like they're trash. We're made for this nonsense. Clearly, we can entertain our own damned selves. And now we're supposed to squeeze into some sweatbox just 'cause, well you know, the fucking Gregorian calendar and shit?
My mother starts to sigh and hacks up her lungs for a minute. She says that she has not one clue what i just said then calmly explains to us that she is expecting company -- meaning an intergalactic menagerie of basket cases and mutants she has befriended through her social outreach work -- and that this peculiar party will promptly beam themselves up to church at 11:40pm. So unless I want to sing the halogen candle-lit praises of Jehovah's only begotten wine transmutationist I'd best to decide whether or not we'll be shooting over to Vanessa's house party in Freehold or hitting up the Marriot or loitering in a 7-11 parking lot. Ra taps me on the shoulder and makes the horrendous suggestion that he is considering visiting his ex-girlfriend Yolanda in Amboy. I am thoroughly repulsed by the concept on so many levels, and knowing this guy and how he is, she probably isn't even cutting. Cuddling, maybe. I'm nauseated to the core of my being so I grab my Carhartt and tell Ra we have to talk outside. On the driveway he notices my furor and addresses me eloquently and soberly.
"The fuck is your problem, nigga? She texted me and said I should come through, she misses me. She wants to watch Brown Sugar."
Of all movies? Now I'm heated. The champagne is tachyon-fast in my blood vessels and my thoughts are even faster, accelerating far beyond my capacity to articulate them in English. Ra is so convinced of the correctness of his mission that he's already unlocking the driver's side door of his rented Camry. I turn around to make sure nobody's looking and I draw my orange box-cutter from my interior pocket. The steel is extra cold and I nearly drop the friggin' thing. I turn around and take but two steps before I realize that Ra also has a pair of orange box-cutters drawn. When you see one aimed at you it might as well be a light saber. He's looking at me like 'And what?' After an awkward nanosecond or two we both burst out laughing, breath visible in the smoggy December atmosphere. Ra mutters something about metal things and he's interrupted when my mother shouts through several walls to request assistance with a pickle jar. When I come back outside the car is warmed up and Ra has even relinquished the driver's side to me. Smart move on his part.
"Aight now listen, your ex-girlfriend will be around tomorrow and the next day. You can fuck her on Flag Day for all I care. Rosh Hoshanah. Who gives a fuck? That's why ex-girlfriends exist. I need you to call Truth and Jeff, we're gonna mosse it up and find a spot to fall into. I can't call them, nigga, this phone barely gets reception here. Cingular, what do you expect? It works in Princeton, sometimes. Plus I've thrown this piece of shit against the wall in my room every time I've accidentally deleted a paper. So half a dozen, maybe eight times, aight? Because I'm an idiot, okay? Forget all of that. We're gonna drive until we find something worthwhile. We got our own backs. What's the very worst that could happen?"
I turn on the radio and I am immediately assaulted by mumbly yet excruciatingly loud words of doom: "MY FLOW MY SHOW BROUGHT ME THE DOUGH THAT BOUGHT ME ALL MY FANCY THINGS MY CRIBS MY CARS MY POOLS MY JEWELS..."
"Sweet motherfucking mother of christ god-damn it! Shit! You've got to be motherfucking kidding me!"
It feels like someone filleted my liver with a pen-knife. And it's only 6:48pm EST.
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
crank that sambo wrote:You write lyrics? Lol, didn't know that...
This was okay. I can see you was going for vocab and you mos def had that... the flow was aight too. Some times it seemed like you were pressed to think of rhymes though... the topic kinda went all over the place. The most effective verse is always 100% focused... if you can't think of another concept for the next bar then describe the last concept in even more detail if its hard-hitting enough and conveys the point more... detail is never overrated.
Also, while the flow did hold up under close inspection I also think you could work on more complex rhyme schemes.
That's just my 2 cents... take it or leave it
and
@ comedy. lines 3-6 might be the illest sequence in the whole thing. and you must not rap (not that that is a bad thing) b/c shelters drown to pelt the crown is on some classic delay end rhyme multi-rhythmic steezgood shit, thunny...the katrina/flood/h20 imagery/metaphors/extended metaphor is dope and the fact that i am not 100% sure the speaker is you or another extended metaphor for a greater group of people or general breaking from a sweltering fear...is dope
Nets 2022
crank that sambo wrote:
Also, while the flow did hold up under close inspection I also think you could work on more complex rhyme schemes.
upon closer inspection, you are probably not a very good rapper and you should not be doling out advice so generously not unlike a failed surgical intern instructing someone to perform double bypass surgery
Nets 2022
-
Radio Raheem
- Posts: 2805
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:33 pm
- Location: South Of No North
-
donnyblack
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2009 10:55 am
- Contact:
Reason wrote:crank that sambo wrote:You write lyrics? Lol, didn't know that...
This was okay. I can see you was going for vocab and you mos def had that... the flow was aight too. Some times it seemed like you were pressed to think of rhymes though... the topic kinda went all over the place. The most effective verse is always 100% focused... if you can't think of another concept for the next bar then describe the last concept in even more detail if its hard-hitting enough and conveys the point more... detail is never overrated.
Also, while the flow did hold up under close inspection I also think you could work on more complex rhyme schemes.
That's just my 2 cents... take it or leave it
and
good shit, thunny...the katrina/flood/h20 imagery/metaphors/extended metaphor is dope and the fact that i am not 100% sure the speaker is you or another extended metaphor for a greater group of people or general breaking from a sweltering fear...is dope
Sorry, I gotta bite that picture....its hilarious!
-
Comedy Quaddafi
- Posts: 13515
- Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 12:15 pm
- Location: Southsea, UK
post-modern 
Very engaging read as it takes the reader along for the ride sorta
like how you dissed brown sugar
you seem like you work better in prose, the way colloquial speak blends with more verbose words is entertaining
best i read from you IMO
Very engaging read as it takes the reader along for the ride sorta
like how you dissed brown sugar
you seem like you work better in prose, the way colloquial speak blends with more verbose words is entertaining
best i read from you IMO
Whether to Jason of Philaflava or John Podesta, I will speak my fucking perspective openly
- MB
- MB
-
Comedy Quaddafi
- Posts: 13515
- Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 12:15 pm
- Location: Southsea, UK
I like the literature references and how theyre incorporated. Did you write this after devouring Beelzebub? cuz that always inspires me.
conclusion is good and somewhat deep, I fully agree with the message, if I understan it properly
conclusion is good and somewhat deep, I fully agree with the message, if I understan it properly
Whether to Jason of Philaflava or John Podesta, I will speak my fucking perspective openly
- MB
- MB
-
Comedy Quaddafi
- Posts: 13515
- Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 12:15 pm
- Location: Southsea, UK
-
Comedy Quaddafi
- Posts: 13515
- Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 12:15 pm
- Location: Southsea, UK
-
Comedy Quaddafi
- Posts: 13515
- Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 12:15 pm
- Location: Southsea, UK
-
Sucka Ducka
- Posts: 7736
- Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:33 am
- Location: Denver
-
Comedy Quaddafi
- Posts: 13515
- Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 12:15 pm
- Location: Southsea, UK
-
Sucka Ducka
- Posts: 7736
- Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:33 am
- Location: Denver