The Artistic Integrity

[Intro: George Costanza]

Okay, uh, look. If you wanna just keep doing the same old thing, maybe this idea is not for you. I for one am not going to compromise my artistic integrity. And I'll tell you something else, this is the show. And we're NOT gonna change it

[Verse 1: Wale]

Never will I ever utter 'never' to myself

Fall in love with defeat, throw my endeavors on the shelf

I never back up like Cleo Lemon on myself

Lemonade connoisseur, life's lemons coming out

When life gets sour, know I still devour

I remember Peabody mice crawling up the shower

Now it's motorbikes, warm nights out in Maui

And white bitches and light skinned women be smilin'

DC star, a PG legend

MoCo phenomenon, holmes, I'm all of it

Yeah, they all love it though critique Jon Lovitz

And whack hoes hatin' on Key out in public

See, welcome to fame where most of us is gon' change

If you never do, still niggas look at you strange

Niggas mostly assume, niggas make up they news

Once you made it, you cool, they label you brand new

Really in subconscious

They see a star, no longer the underdog

So nobody wanna walk with ya

They all talk like you, think you was a god n'shit

But you the same that you always is

Yeah, they all convinced but all for shit

This all be different if you had an office key, yeah

And I'm the same, on e'erything I love, or everything I love

Please pardon my integrity

[Clip from Seinfeld]

What were you thinking? What was going on in your mind? "Artistic Integrity"?

Wh-where did you come up with that? You're not artistic, and you have no integrity

You know you really need some help, a regular psychiatrist couldn't even help you

[Verse 2: Wale]

Check it, so, my chin's high like a Japanese pilot

They frontin', they Charles S. Dutton movin' garbage

And what you callin' that so-called hard shit?

None like me, like I, founded a convent

To contend my content, I'm on ends meet like a vegetable omelette, see?

So the more you see, it's few niggas speakin' like me

So they put me in the box with he, and he

And them which is more of a circus than a fair

They work to get there so to work to get theirs

I'll be nothin' but a replica lookin' in the mirror

Respect still there but ya boy's right here

We apples and oranges but everybody pears

They say I'm Lupe, they say I'm Lil Wayne

They say I'm too Jay to portray new-lay

They say I'm too nice to be a rapper

The prerequisite is gun clappin' so what happened

They label me a backpackin' nigga on fashion

I laugh at 'em, though Mr. West I ain't mad at ya

See, he in his soul mode, I'm in my go-go

Only thing in common is these fuckin' Matsumotos

Yeah, live from the SoHo, and Hov told me I'd blow Joe

See, I rap like a lifetime blown nose

All I know is I'm merely at Allah's nose

Meaning I'm lesser than a god but higher up than y'all

A lion in form, Matt Leinart when firing the ball

Pause, Maya Angelou spawn, abandoned and raised by Nas

Raised by the sharks but I'm swimming with the prawns

I found my own lane, meet Mr. Folarin