[Intro: Macklemore]
Ladies and gentlemans
This an ode to the B-boys, B-girls
The people out there who do it for the love
And believe me I'm not dissin' anybody out there who's trying to get paid
I'm trying to get paid too!
But I got one question
[Verse 1: Macklemore]
Whatever happened to the heart?
That pumped the passion into the art?
The entity that gave you the energy to wanna start?
Breakdancing, I'm battling, doing it at the park
Where the mission was expression, not only to top charts
I don't know what happened, wanting to blow rap
You lose soul and passion for the flows and the tracks
Radio's lacking, controlled by fascists, assholes doing damage
But we're gonna take it back
Before beats to a hundred G's a pop
All you needed was a tabletop and a beatbox
Hip-hop without the B-boy is like shelltoes only having two stripes
Hip-hop, we're freedom-fighting, graffiti-writing, party types
That recite and organize and revitalize our rhyming
'Til the group of the moneymakers systems
Knows that the industry can eventually get served
Breakers of my verses spinning up a revolution throughout our words
If you really want it, come on get it, cause I've got it
I'm honestly paying homage to forgotten pioneers of this culture that are giving them props and learn
If you wanna earn your stripes
You gotta be able to rock this mic and set cyphers alike
The feeling to put in everything you got in the circle
Will never be documented in the Coke commercial
[Hook: Macklemore]
We be the baddest
[Verse 2: Macklemore]
Now B-boys, B-girls
Bring it back to the block
Lemme see you get ill, for real, pop and lock!
If you record without thought then stop
Because I'll serve your whole album with the goddamn beatbox
Without thought it just happens
If you gotta think to feel, that's not rapping, that's acting
I'm from a land of backpacks and fat cats
MCs with sick raps who serve those that are wack
It's a way of life
I put all my energy into the melody
On the mp3s until the death of me
Record exceptionally, especially
Whenever I be monumentally, grammatically, killing the mic
I tell my DJs, cranking that music, keeping 'em moving when the beat plays
Staying into it, breaking and grooving, and MCs they
Thinking that you should always pursue in what their dreams make
Taking from lucid to really do it
All the people gotta make their money
And the way to make money is to get inside of the industry
Take it on the radio, flow
So you can go blow, we get a car
And a crib up on MTV
But in the end what's classic?
Radio bubblegum? Or a voice filled with passion?
To my real hip-hop heads, please stand up
Cause the only people that can preserve this art is us
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