New Museum

[Verse 1: billy woods]

Dropped to no reception

Empty exhibition white walls silence deafening

Negative space stretching

The internet every couple seconds refreshing

The same couple mentions

Merch boxes in the closet

Out of sight, out of mind, but paid outta pocket

Couple friends at ya show them other niggas got a mosh pit

Day job in the morning just the thought makes me nauseous

[Verse 2: Open Mike Eagle]

Don’t put me with the Rottweilers

Walk me in with the show dogs

Fool, I’m Nikita Koloff

So committed I never break character

Forget the fucking marketplace

I’m an installation, now where’s my carpet space

Jerk this lever, click my media

Do my own cuts, wik-wik-Wikipedia

[Verse 3: E L U C I D]

10 curated commandments

Lessons live from the Schomburg

Critic acclaim hard earned

Full body knob turns

Enthralled blond birds

Hypnotized like Farnsworth

Milquetoast served by futurists in pom pom skirts

Fog smoke and mirrors give em something to talk about

Lukewarm rap wizard behind the curtain be fizzled out

Far from the source, the isolationist

Close shave against the grain

Came full circle but what he saying?

[Verse 4: Busdriver]

Observe the piece to right of me

Completed in the late nineteen hundreds

It saw no praises from contemporaries

And generally had all the enlightened flummoxed

It cradled notions of art as crime

And developed wildly, set apart from time

But when buyers make decisions along the party lines

So harvest mine, they tarnish your shine

Hang like a varmints behind

[Verse 5: billy woods]

Bottled mineral water, live sampling bird calls

Back to the audience brass on the balls

Politely inquired as to the loot

The talented Mr. Smalls notwithstanding

Trailer to the video on Vimeo, grandstanding

Instagrammed Wired covers got me backstage glad handing

If you can sing a lil something might soften the landing

Have the fans American bandstand dancing

[Verse 6: E L U C I D]

Murse ratchet

Flanked by wing dykes, you can't hack it

Bass awkwards

Short of cult classic with kings rations

Voted most consistently average

Big budget mastering

Squandered passion

Pump action but still banging flaccid

NPR think pieces

Ex-conscious rappers laid out to pasture

Blowhard circle jerkers chatter

Broad strokes from hands of irrelevant self-described masters

Fractured patterns

Crooked paths to look back and laugh at

[Verse 7: Open Mike Eagle]

Wish I could eat offa brownie points

Who’s the next messiah the spectacled crowd anoints (Me, nigga!)

Put my dirty drawers in the glass cases

Make gasfaces at typos and backspaces (Stop fucking up!)

Get it right the first time

Micromanaging this class of interns

Hire docents to meet the required quotient

And keep your greasy fingers off my Kraftwerk

[Verse 8: billy woods]

Sip cafe-au-lait kaffiyeh, hoodie and Timbs

Knightsbridge pied-a-terre, friends of friends

Split through prescription lens

Richard Wright in Paris status

Damn right I wear my sunglasses at night

Hobbesian savage

Egg white omelet caramelized shallots

Stockholm syndrome

Cote de Rhone cleanse the palate

Checking account check the balance

Shelltoes and rope gold all he told the stylist

Bitter like old-timers when they hear that looped soul behind us

[Verse 9: Busdriver]

Murky depictions of dead pigeons

Given red ribbons at the local gallery opening

I gasp at the earnings of a cold chillin’

Even though I’m supposed to be sold for millions

Cause I’m more Jesse Owens than Owen Wilson

Cold chilling

On a placinated cell wall Bell Palsy body language

My deadened gaze is a tell all

And I’m not art, until I’m seen here

Sentenced for killing every turn of phrase during my teen years