How Many Mics

[Intro: Wyclef Jean]

Pick up your microphones, ha-ha

Pick up your microphones, yo

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean, Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Say, me say many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Verse 1: Lauryn Hill]

I get mad frustrated when I rhyme

Thinkin' of all them kids that try to do this for all the wrong reasons

Seasons change, mad things rearrange

But it all stays the same like the love doctor, strange

I'm tame like the rapper, get red like a snapper when they do that

Got your whole block saying "True dat"

If only they knew that it was you who was irregular

Sold your soul for some secular muzak that's wack

Plus you use that loop over and over

Claiming that you got a new style, your attempts are futile

Ooh, child, you puerile, brain waves are sterile

You can't create, you just wait to take my tapes (Bing)

Laced with malice, hands get calloused

From gripping microphones from here to Dallas

Go ask Alice if you don't believe me, I get in her visions like Stevie

See me ascend from the chalice like the weed be

Indeed we like Khalid Muhammad, MCs make me vomit

I get controversial, freak your style with no rehearsal

Au contraire mon frère, don't you even go there

Me without a mic is like a beat without a snare

I dare to tear into your ego

We go way back like some ganja and pelequo

Or ColecoVision, my rhymes make incisions in your anatomy

And I'll back this with Deuteronomy

Or Leviticus, God made this word, you can't get with this

Sweet like licorice, dangerous like syphilis, yeah

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean, Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do I rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do you rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Verse 2: Wyclef Jean]

I used to be underrated, now I take iron

Makes my shit constipated, I'm more concentrated

So on my day off, with David Sonenberg I play golf

Run through Crown Heights screaming out, "Mazel tov!"

Problem with no man, before Black, I'm first human

Appetite to write like Frederick Douglass with a slave hand (Bing)

Street pressure, word to papa, I ain't goin' under

One day I'll have a label and make deals with Tommy Mottola

Mama always told me, "You're one in a million"

Always watch your back, never tangle with Haitian Sicilians

Now I got a record deal, "How does it feel?"

I'm never gonna survive unless I get crazy like Seal

'Cause the whole world's out of order

So at night, the fiends dance on grease with John Travolta

One got slaughtered as he coughed blood from his mouth

The other tried to duck and caught a left with my Guinness Stout

Brother, brother, can't you get this through your head?

This is set up by the feds, they're scoping us with their infrareds

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean, Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]

How many mics do you rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do I rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Verse 3: Pras]

Too many MCs, not enough mics

Exit your show like I exit the turnpike

Dice and dynamite like Dolemite

Double-deuce delight, I don't Dick Van Dyke

Star light to star bright, the freaks come out at night

Like my man Wyclef (I wear my sunglasses at night)

And my panache will mosh your entourage

Squash the squad and hide their bodies under my garage

And when the cops come lookin, I be bookin' to Brooklyn

Leave the trails broken, flippin' tokens to Hoboken

A clean getaway like Alec Baldwin

Driving in my fast car playing Tracy Chapman

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Say, me say many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do you rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do we rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

How many mics do I rip on the daily?

Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Outro: Wyclef Jean]

Many, many, money, many, many, many

Many, many, money, many, many, many

[Interlude]

Yo, as I was sayin', look

Yo, yo, hold up kid, hol' up, hol' up (Yo, man)

Yo, ready or not, kid (Yo, yo, I gotta tell you somethin', man)

They gon' move on us (If they do, but, yo)

And we gotta get prepared

We gotta get the forces together, man (I gotta do what I gotta do, man)

We gotta get our family together (I'ma haul ass down to Mexico, yo)

Ready or not, man (Word is born)

Ready or not they gon' move on us

So I tell you what, better safe than sorry

Let's be ready