Baba Brinkman - Genesis lyrics

In the beginning I was just a kid, listenin' to Slick Rick Maestro Fresh Wes, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince Rewrite the lyrics and recite ‘em to my best friends But I was just a copycat and this was just a hobby that Would probably pa** after I'd exhausted all my sloppy raps And got the laughs I was after, typical little ba*tard Privileged middle-cla** mischievous little rascal With a ticket to sit in the back row at a rap show I listened to Fat Joe, Method Man, and B. I. G And imagined livin' as a V. I. P Though I didn't have a plan, just a fantasy But I could still pa** exams with ease and plant trees To get cash for books, tuition fees, and rap CDs And I had a chance to read cla**ic Greek tragedies I've always been addicted to words So I just immersed myself in English Literature But I was immature, and these were fickle times Between cla**es I would listen to rhymes and find My lips whispering lines as if in the background Then at nineteen I wrote my first original rap down I go back to the Genesis Eden Garden When I was a teen in love with freestylin' That's when I learned techniques for rhymin' And started redesignin' I can still feel that prickle of initial excitement I figured, “It's official y'all; this is enlightenment!” I pictured myself cypherin' with the likes of Big Pun Whippin' punks into submission with a flip of the tongue I did it for fun; I was ambitious and irreverent I figured I was clever enough to get the better Of any competitor, ‘cause I was verbally first rate My early verses were based on discursive wordplay With no breaks, no separated parts, no bars, no hooks Just page after page past the margins of notebooks So far so good; I built my sk**s gradually And kept on track with the bachelor's degree Actually, I considered droppin' out to get respect But I figured more options would mean less regrets And besides, some rappers were comin' differently I discovered Blackalicious and Talib Kweli MCs who could rip the beat descriptively And then in my second season I had this epiphany “Rap is poetry!” and ever since I've represented it Openly through my position as an academic Get It? I go back to the Genesis Eden Garden When I was a teen in love with freestylin' That's when I learned techniques for rhymin' And started redesignin' Next semester I convinced my teachers That hip-hop lyrics would be my thesis research I thought I would be the first to study it in depth Reality check; the library index Already had a long list of hip-hop scholarship Steps that I followed in; David Foster Wallace and Tricia Rose and Brian Cross got acknowledgments And props; they taught me hip-hop history And I started to approach this culture realistically And the next step for me in this MC trajectory Was for me to freestyle obsessively On road trips I was a motor-mouth motorist I learned to flow sick on a solo tip Rockin' Dr. Dre beats – Xxplosive I was blowin' doors open; people started listenin' Hip-hop for me was a form of discipline Born Again on the discman, studyin' flows Whadaya know? When I was just twenty years old I hit the tracks runnin' my mouth like a bloody nose And took my first steps down this long dusty road Oh! I get lethargic and reminisce In the darkness return to the days When I learned to spit marvelous And give props to those who started this HipHop, I love being part of this