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 MCs 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 sk**s 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 Who trades his culture for dollars? The fool or the scholar? Griot? Poet? Or white collared? If my written word's slurs Then my speech correct Keep my meaning inferred to test your intellect If you remember Hip-Hop n***a, 'nuff respect Deadverse spoken with broken dialect 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 Who trades his culture for dollars? The fool or the scholar? Griot? Poet? Or white collared? If my written word's slurs Then my speech correct Keep my meaning inferred to test your intellect If you remember Hip-Hop n***a, 'nuff respect Deadverse spoken with broken dialect