1. |
Always
01:57
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“Always”
Defcee
In my prime and out of practice.
Today’s math is: it’s sixteen ounces of tragedy in a pound of madness.
Flashback–sippin or smokin to counterbalance,
until I vanished like how to cope in a house of addicts.
Swam where sound collapses, and lapped the talent pool.
Rappin til the morning skipped over an afternoon,
Slammin into half a moon. My attitude was acid
Cuz every helping hand I was askin for was tatted, “SOON.”
Lands and grooves on the other end of the mic,
Even when the blade’s duller than butter bendin a knife.
Jeweler’s loupe over the verses: clustered, perfected ice.
Searchin for the right words with tongue depressors and lights.
Double edges of spite cut the homies off.
Funny how he only plays the trump cards when he knows he lost.
Rocks supervillain masks battlin grief,
and keep a flick of Andrew with a laugh in his teeth.
CRASHprez
Now, in my younger days, I used to do the fade
Niggas rockin’ Foamposites, Pewters, Cooler Greys
I’m spittin’ poems in my Forces, ain’t no two-a-days
I raised my voice, I made my choice
Passed out down Baltimore, I hoped they’d record me
When Armand had called me CRASH, that’s my origin story
Had to CAPS IT like Dumile, threw prezident on it
Kept it low cuz old folks say “If that’s what you wanted? You could have it”
Then we got half a Kenyan, it was madness
But he kept droppin’ bombs, so shit was tragic (I-I-)
When every summer beat our backs
Me and Matt, Me and E, Me and Cal,
Me and Kub, Me and Lou,
KlanLife, fuckin’ right
Since my nigga died, I’m on overdrive in lovin’ life
When another rise, I’ma wonder why the timing wrong
Screaming to the sky: “Can y’all leave me and mine alone?”
Wonder why I fight like this
Cuz it’s always a time like this
It’s always a time like this
It’s always a time like this
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2. |
Home
02:00
|
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“Home”
CRASHprez
All my bredren lived in Nigga Heaven
Independence sold separate, ain’t no gated entrance
Graze the tension should you venture past a pay and pension
Ask too many questions, trade ya pain up for a wasted blessing
Covet every pot you piss in, piss on ya neighbors
Sell yourself they got a difference, diss all ya flavors
I was balking how a kid did
Walkman made the disc skip
Khaki my meniscus
Rappin’ over Sickfit
Diggin’ in a callous on my fists
Tabletop, 8 o’clock, freestylin’ over Clipse
Ass gettin’ whipped in the cypher
Ain’t no chance if you had wack shit to spit
Felt the fire in me gettin’ higher
Ask Lil Chris
Couldn’t pass Lil Chris
Baldhead from alopecia
7th grade, we made a tape
Teacher let me have some features
Chris got a solo
Ye rocked a Pink Polo, and niggas said no homo
Defcee
I never forgot where home plate is: writin records
in cold basements. So anxious–less genuine,
and more ‘08ish. Our own worst public enemies,
of course radio won’t play it.
Slept through the Night of the Living Clout Hounds.
Leapt into ciphers and kicked a roundhouse.
Hated in their verse, heavy handed, bitter, and raw,
but they’re graded on a curve, fam. I been on my job.
What they thought they earned a W for? Learned
young: keys open doors even when they’re under the floor.
Muscles are sore from pressin the issue that covered their fall.
They hit the canvas. We attack it with a brush and a saw.
Today’s news written in bubble letters with double edges.
Used to think there was nothin better than nothin, ever.
Oops, that’s TMI like fruit from trees in Eden’s eye
Dug for seeds inside and crumbled leaves to season rhymes.
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3. |
Wake
01:43
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4. |
Keep That
02:41
|
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“Keep That”
CRASHprez
Now we can talk some shit
Two 16 Cp, diggin’ the scene where the gays’ll be
Face a king
He may think it’s Maybelline when I bat my almond eyes
If I say “Great to meet”
Then we take all the time
And sweet thang taste the heat
Then we gon’ caramelize
In that suite, all will rise
I don’t mean law abide
I ain’t gon’ fall in line ‘til I take my coffin ride
I know the strong don’t survive
Cuz when I play back their words
It’s sum’n like Poltergeist
And ain’t no cash I earn
Can buy my bonus life
So that’s adjourned
Fuck the frail shit
Young nigga feel like Kiss
Why is prezident as hard as it gets?
Cuz i’m softer than y’all and it hit
I’m like Baldwin with all of the fits
Young Cornel when i lack a lining
Givin’ ‘em Hell, we ain’t pacifying
Wishin y’all well, y’all lack alignment
Nigga we…
Nigga we tried it
Get up off them goddamn diamonds
This ain’t a robbery
i’m sayin’ you ain’t sayin’ not a thing
This Black-Jew Power
With these gems for the gang, though
We keep friends on the payroll
You depend on the fakes though, whoa
HOOK: CRASHprez and Defcee
Who y’all think y’all fuckin’ with?
We ain’t knew to none of this
I move with my brothers, got ‘em covered
Keep that other shit
Defcee
How they givin out flowers
while saltin the Earth? Driftin off
in these verses for weeks at a time.
Throw a beat on and rhyme til I’m
caught in the surf, coughin up dirt.
Lower fees with the tide but they’re
callin it worth. Like gossip in church:
they’re fiendin for drama, and causin it first.
I’m locked into work
while they’ve got two feet on the line
just to launch into worse.
Why they in it for the disses? If I wanted to be famous, I could get it by dismissin
anyone that did me favors or commissioned me for business, but that isn’t what I’m
aimin for. My name is more than Twitter mentions, dig it? It’s an imprint in the city that I’d visit…
cuz I couldn’t build where I’m from.
Therapy was steel in the drum,
before I started wielding the rum
like a drill in the field or a mill in the club.
Eye of the storm winced. Short sprints
ripppin through the losses. Lit into the bosses.
Haters bitin til their jaws chip. long stints
listenin to talkin, fittin it for coffins.
Might not be a next year. I don’t bet scared.
I can hear the debt clear in your dead air.
Show me my respect here, no pretend glare.
If you feel the end’s near, keep it ten squared.
That chip on my shoulder what they’re tryna tip off.
Crosshair to crossroads I don’t wanna miss y’all.
Dripped in a drought and got fat in a famine.
Liftin their sound bout as fast as their fashion.
Move like a pool shark. Too sharp
Seven-twenty jam in the loop jaw. Boo yah.
—So if you’re viral, we’re a flu shot. Dudes locked
in for a few landeded smoother than doo-wop.
HOOK: CRASHprez and Defcee
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5. |
||||
“Paper”
CRASHprez
Open the hatch, catch my crumbs
Chicken with catfish, I’m numb
I got the gas in my lung
Secondhand dance on my tongue
Tiptoein’ all up the carport, nonstop tense
If Black Mom and Narc Dad catch this hotbox scent?
“Who made the kush your cologne?
Who else abusin’ them brews?
Who picked you up, got you home?
Don’t lie, did you do it too?”
Another Saturday night where I remained alive
Evasion of Satan’s stride with gang and our pages dry
Treat these stages like they sanctified
Basement sofa been a wave to ride, we pace with pagan pride
Faith adjacent to the famous lies engraved in space and time
Never makin’ haste with naked minds, we face this fate-
(That’s too much rappin’ ‘bout rappin’...)
I hope they palette my passion, but I still panic off package
How I’m gon’ pack it off practice when I can’t passive my praxis?
Gon’ and picture me tired
All my trauma designer
Hope you prime for the fire once all the commas entice ya (One)
HOOK: Defcee
We were splittin up this show paper.
We’d have done it all for no paper.
Broke the speed limit for slow paper.
Would do it all again, but we need more paper. More paper.
Defcee
Sick with a verse and a gram. We hid the cures in our hands.
We used to plan at the crib and rehearse in a van
on the way to the gig. Prayed that the pay was legit.
Never betrayed who we’re with. Ain’t built the same as the kids.
Dinner for two at a table for six. Slept overnight
in the car, hit the stage in that fit.
Tryna be swoll. Stuttered and stammered
when asked to describe how we flowed.
The patience we had was bout half
what was normal
but it depended the night of the show.
Riding these roads, right in the zone
we ignored flashing lights on our phones.
Fantasizin: what we’ll buy when we're on. Still didn’t price it to own.
All of my youngins are old. At least they’re cold.
I’ma forever be rapping their songs.
As I’m rememberin all of the studio trips where my big homies asked me to roll.
Those dreams didn’t die. They’re retiring now. Lighter in pounds. Some of us
fightin the clouds. The rest of us left on this Earth for the purpose of writin it down.
HOOK: Defcee
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6. |
Endless
02:31
|
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“Endless”
Defcee
As the sand’s spillin out an hourglass figure,
and Candyman’s fist’s slippin out a cracked mirror,
I draw the past nearer. Fast-forward, flask tippers
snatchin liquor fifth caps to flashback clearer.
Tearin “experience terror” off the bucket list.
Another day, another risk. Underpaid with double shifts.
Take what I can get, even if it’s an ugly bliss.
Feelin like luck’s a lick and I never tucked a grip.
Thinkin on potential that I lost in a watch.
Life was a beach. I’d be joggin across it in socks.
Nothing charming waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Nails sharp and dark from diggin into the buddha stock.
At my job feelin the temperature buildin.
Direct deposit dropped, confetti fell from the ceiling.
Gotta wait two more weeks for relief. If I can’t,
then breathe through looseleaf and a beat.
HOOK: Defcee
As the wheel keeps turning,
And your will keeps burning,
And your grind don’t stop...your grind don’t stop…
As the wheel keeps turning
And your will keeps burning
And your time won’t stop...your time won’t stop...
CRASHprez
Move the Spook from the door, make him stand at the desk
New recruits in the store serve the panic of flesh
“Too uncouth for the floor,” said the man in the vest
He too rude to ignore, how he manage ya breath
Best practice: hit ‘em in the tax bracket
Class action, make it fashion
Say what fam is, make it fascist
First chance, make my hands automatic
Then glance at the stats once they pass what their stance is
I’m a different face
On a page, I don’t dribble if I scribble out my middle name
I’m a buzzword
I’m the culture-in-chief as these vultures of grief let my tongue burn
I’m a line item
I’m the first one to die by design once the times need a sign by ‘em
Never mattered if nobody write a line like him
He’ll be ridin’ pine, and the limelight will not brighten
HOOK: Defcee
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7. |
Safer
01:52
|
|||
“Safer”
Defcee
Billionaires in the backseat wavin bail in his face.
The sales that he chase shapeshiftin into cells that await
in a future the record label’s all too selfish to break.
He’s bout the bells and the bass. They wanted scales and the weight
while the writing on the wall melts into Braille for his case.
Outside the prison, and he’s givin all his well wishers thanks,
needin a reach you couldn’t measure with the tale of his tape.
From the face of the front to the backs of our minds.
Smelllin the pack in his rhymes. Those the raps we rewind.
The role was waiting to be filled, so his casting sublime.
Raising 40s to his freedom as systems trap him in time.
Pairing his record with a blunt wrap and a dime,
forgetting his Jenga block of a sentence is still stacked on a lie.
Memories of ditchin the kitchen and chillin in sunrays,
left his past with a round-trip ticket, thinkin it’s one-way.
CRASHprez
Slip into this addiction, flip it for feng shui
Vivid depictions of kitchens distant and untamed
Hipster intentions elicit vision from one frame
Spittin’ in the distance, grimace ’til mission becomes fame
Young pain avatar
Take my nightmares away and marinate the madness tall
For my life, I’m scared today
Repair my faith by sabotage
Don’t you stack the wall
Ain’t no slackin’ once my data fall
Ain’t no past to draw
Splatter passion til you can’t recall
This an act we can’t withdraw
The catalog is massive
Once you stagnant, ain’t no chances, dog
Can you spell tomorrow out?
Can you melt your flesh until the sweat dislodge the hollows out?
I’ve never followed God without the martyr role to talk about
Breathe some, bleed some
Each one, teach none
Respun, restrung high up on the rafters
We never can erase you
We never have to thank you
And next to the stage is…
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8. |
Inheritance
03:07
|
|||
“Inheritance”
Defcee
A band for the organs before the casket drop,
and a candid recording of both the rappers shot.
Tactical forces that hope the cameras watch as
masses of corner kids yoked. Won’t let the hammerlock...go.
Ritalin. novocaine. Blizzards and mortar rain
rip through an open range. Village with no remains.
The young addicted to steel and lead. Better to numb a witness than kill em dead, until
their blood is chilled and they don’t judge the distance from stunt and crimson to real and red.
I’m still allergic to death. Eyes get to swellin at hearses and permanent rest.
Pull up at church for the service. No nerve for interments. I fled.
I can’t watch you get tucked away to “Amazing Grace,”
or hear the aches and pain escapin your family’s strainin face.
God forbid someone photographed your body,
And bought a fit when they sold it back to paparazzi.
Friends will turn enemies to dress like men of means. They’ll sell your cell
and wedding ring. This isn’t what God meant by “Everything must…go.”
HOOK: Defcee and CRASHprez
Thought we found the bottom but the lows gettin lower.
Send em home with promoters for the show when it’s over.
Does your death even matter if it can’t be sold?
And how much of your body does your family own
Until it’s dust?
...until it’s dust?
And what’s left for us?
What’s left for us?
CRASHprez
That all depends, but as of late, I’m ashamed of my offering
First place in sweepstakes over claim to my coffin?
I became the auction
As if fame was stalking my face
As if pain was all that I’d chase
Meanwhile, as I mop up the seed from my stomach
I wonder if I’m too diseased for our screaming in public
They dim the light til we discreet
See the shame how they collapse
If you choosy for deceased, let me be the last
I’m tough the way I act
I run the way I’m black
I’ve hung, no, I’ve hanged the way I stay so damn detached
What to make of my silence when it’s violence unto myself?
I’ve come to take the assignment of an undying love for my, vibrant love for my,
Righteous love for myself
My hope is dressed by my walk
How I fund my life with my words, yet I choke whenever I talk?
If their gun never touch none of us, I know the world fit the glove
But no matter what sum they muster up, I never will lick the blood, never
|
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9. |
Cold Wax
02:13
|
|||
“Cold Wax”
Defcee
Impossible is my normal. I wrote tracks in stone sap.
Asking why I play the sad rapper role. jo, I don’t act.
All my friends wanted was freedom and CPD had their phones tapped.
Coke under pinkies to cope with creepiness of a LoJack.
Grateful I saw in rap what REDACTED saw in a dopesack
Self-censoring cuz they ain’t been sober for long enough to own that
All of my heroes either swallowed oxies or they smoked smack.
Didn’t even notice when I saw em float, flap, or zone zapped.
Some of us only hang on by a thread...and then the rope snaps
At the wake in my father’s suit, cuz I was broke flat.
Listened to the eulogy. Something under my coat cracked.
Now I reach into the grim reaper’s mouth and snatch their ghosts back
Heart of cold wax. Silver tongue, and gold plaques. Used to
throw yak til my chest felt like it was split with a poleax.
Secrets buried under the crib, paid a yellow brick road tax
Now I’m driven crazy by all the itches I won’t scratch.
CRASHprez
Fire-water swimming, did baptisms in cold Jack
Slaughtered to submission, no mint condition when grown Black
They don’t come to listen, ring every way you’ve atoned flat
Drifting through the distance, another lie in a phone pact
I won’t let my tone crack, I’m goin’ for my Koufax
And you can’t coach that, OG
I know you pray I’ll see another day, but ain’t no guarantees
I know you’ve been scared for me
Since I got unscared of me
We prolly all need therapy
When clarity evades me, I feel lazy, it’s embarrassing
It’s scary when I’m facing how I’m taking time to tear at me
Apparently this crazy world gon’ change me, what my tarot read
Their parodies are lazy when safety remain a scarcity
How I’m finna covet from a bucket, still tippin’
When my siblings gotta suffer cuz they hunted?
This the ugly that we stuck with
But I can’t turn my back on
Can’t change it from within
So pray for me again
|
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10. |
||||
Defcee
I know what I don’t deserve, and I know all the smoke I’ve earned.
Covered in the dirt I threw. Smelling like the dope I burned.
I learned nothing lasts forever, but I want my name to try. I
can’t stand the rain, but drained it dry on this page of rhymes.
Paper sky that drizzles ink. Shattered dishes where I threw
That kitchen sink. Peeped every gray area and lit it pink.
Littered links on Twitter feeds. Complained when it ain’t hit for me.
Jealous that the homies made it. Didn’t pay their ticket fees.
Misery loves cliques and teams. Some of em hanging my jersey up.
Doubled my paper. It urned to dust. Stuck in the chamber, and turned to rust.
Budgets with vacancies running away from me under mistakes that weren’t worth enough.
Stumbling lazily, hunger was catering, hustling change til these burdens dumped.
Exorcism’s exercise, cleansin sin with cinderblocks.
Medicine to mend the mind: pencils in the tinderbox.
Write this burning out my head. Forest fires in the blood.
Time is turning round the bend. Hope that I don’t miss the bus.
CRASHprez
Called to take the present tense as I
Keep one J entrenched in yesterday
Jaw agape to feast upon this life
While the future drench me in malaise
Prime myself to show somebody love
That’s enough to make an enemy
Find some help, or go to God above
Or pack it up when ain’t no friend to keep
Retreat, but no givin’ it up
Three deep, and we whippin’ amuck
If you think we sweet, ain’t no Entenmann tucked
We sneak with a criminal strut
But that’s what the neighbor see
A waste if we ain’t in the Major Leagues
But cain’t let my homeostasis tweak
Keep the balance
Speak your peace, you might greet the Fallon
Might reach the Roots, increase the mileage
You breach the truth, they’ll greet with talons
Don’t falter none
Walk it, son
Why prophesy how you die?
Why waste words like we get new time?
Won’t do the grind forever
That’s how crew stay behind, they clever
Selling my hours to live all devoured
We been held the power
I rest when it’s time to rest
I never depend on the flowers
Do more than just trying for best
We give our resistance the glory
And never give in ‘til my kin and my friends
Get to witness the end of the story
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