Culture for Dollars

[Verse 1]

Written word held weight

Now honor at best recessive trait

The sound and shape to come succumbed to Malignant maelstrom

Malformed mentals stained expected outcome

And not to be outdone

Some speak in half phrases

No definition to brush strokes already out of phase with these statements

Raise children off pavement...

Pulse on frauds hasten

When confronted with styles from gutter basements

Set to build like Freemasons, on three angles

All I see are Minstrel MC's on these channels

Perceived battles only held to sell albums

Propagate stereotypes that bleed out us

Our own doubt us

But I remain devout scholar of skills of forefathers

Ignorance was forced on us

Define honest, if we all breath diseased lies

Define the MC if all he spits are weak lines

[Chorus]

Who trades his culture for dollars?

The fool or the scholar?

Griot? Poet? Or White collared?

[Post-Chorus]

If my written words slurs

Then my speech correct

Keep my meaning inferred to test your intellect

If you remember hip-hop nigga 'nuff respect

Deadverse spoken with broken dälek

[Verse 2]

Spoken word held meaning

Hostile acts provoked

Formed metaphors

Created urban folklore

Never meant for these upper echelon aurals

That bought and stripped morals

From art that's gift for us

At heart I'm strict purist

Spit thoughts for poorest

5'6'' Honduran sights set on own ruin

Rugged cadence meant to capture essence

Ancestor's wrath festers under surface of uttered sentence

[Chorus]

Who trades his culture for dollars?

The fool or the scholar?

Griot? Poet? Or White collared?

[Post-Chorus]

If my written words slurs

Then my speech correct

Keep my meaning inferred to test your intellect

If you remember hip-hop nigga 'nuff respect

Deadverse spoken with broken dälek