1. |
Flight or Fail
01:55
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Open my eyes and rising/ Woke up my soul and I’ve been
applying pressure/
Guess I’m refining my coal in diamonds/
Learning as newer scholars/ earning pursuing honors/
Grew up with bluer collars and knew what we do for dollars
is turn the given to greater/
Taking the lo-fi and making the most by aiming the scope high/
Shoot for the stars/
I’m off in pursuit for the cause/
No running from shortcomings, finding truth in the flaws/
In my ear I’m hearing Lucifer’s calls/
The other side, I’m hearing the cries of an angel like its music through walls/
Never could make the words out, I freestyled the rest of it/
And reroute and rebound if we found a precipice/
Seek out the best of us/
peeped how the lesser was a label that we carried and buried
Alter perspective
As I rose higher when hope and desire been frozen and mired in colder environments/
Throw fire and light a trail/
so whether it’s flight or fail, we might avail/
Understanding follows the feeling like we’re reciting braille/
I write a tale that’s deeper than blood and bone/
Of those seeking a peace so they’re reaching where wasn’t known/
People keeping a piece of defeat as another stone
to build on the base as a feature of how one has grown/
So I’m opening eyes and rising/
whether we’re 9 to 5ing, or enterprising/
Yet still I find that we’re improvising/
but made a way through grinding/
The day to day providing, redefined it/
and made an art form out of surviving
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2. |
LO FI GLORY
02:25
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Krylon colored over the cracks in black pavement/
The days spent riding the train in fact raised him with/
backpacks and cans/
Vandalism to a man arisen
with a canvas and hands in rhythm/
Visions of his youth when he'd only see heroes on the wall in the rest in peace murals he'd recall/
So he draws with the greys in the smoke cloud
sounds that he saw when the shades in them spoke loud/
Red and blue hues in lights that the cops flashed/
browns in the rust on the tracks that he walked past/
Green and white from the product that was pushed often/
the gold trim on a wood coffin/
The old skin never could soften/
souls brim with a glare brighter than city lights they stood lost in/
Caused him to stay sober/ couldn't bottle his spirit/
Told the way but it was hollow to hear it
This is the glory/
that LO FI GLORY
I write the unheard,
eyes that drag baggage and blank stares/
Grey hair and the prayers sent from hands calloused/
The fam balanced on pop's shoulders/
kept the lights on to show love when he could not hold us/
Mom grew sick, body temperature dropped colder/
stayed at her side until she got over it/
12 but thoughts older/
All we had is us, always had enough/
alchemists turning rubble to pillars until it added up/
Penning lyrics after hospital visits and i could only find self when losing myself in it/
Felt limits don’t apply/
dove inside of the mental, mended below the mind/
So defining my truth/
flow in timing with love/
there's no dividing the fear/
they coincide in the booth/
Know the rhyme and its use was therapeutic to the human condition/
Pursuing beauty, making due with the given/
Been on a mission for the glory/
that LO FI GLORY
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3. |
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Even in darkness, still seeking to spark this/
and restart, feeling I need to breathe in a cartridge/
Driven by reason and heart/
see that I fought with old thoughts, I leave them in chalk/
Feet in my Clarks as I march on/
Living this art form/
and swimming harder with blood in water and sharks drawn/
Through my father instilling honor, it’s not long until I would follow the motto they hollered in Pac songs/
Locked on and learned more than what I hear in class/
my grandmama dropped jewels from an era past/
Studied on Killah Priest more than Kerouac/
and Mick Foley showed me how mankind can wear a mask/
Clear a path where there was none, up jumps the unsung/
Slung thunder under the humdrum and then some come alive/
And we call it a vibe/
so trust in what you feel and know it doesn’t lie
[Chorus]
City on a wave, feel it in the air/
Know it ain’t real if the feeling isn’t there/
It’s telling me, hey/
The vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie/
the vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie/
It’s all energy, is what it is/
and all that you get is what you give/
It’s telling me, hey/
The vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie/
the vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie
There’s a war going on inside, no one is safe from/
formed in the mind to make it harder to break from/
I faced some, dealing with death and depression/
Day and time we’re communicating with less of a connection/
Mirrored in the music and we reject the reflection/ looking at the present like it was just a regression/
But Mos Def said it/
Wherever culture is headed would pivot on how we’re living because we project the direction/
And that’s home, outside’s the same/
where the forces abroad will outline it plain/
And lock down borders, caught up in sour times of Portis/
deported and shot down by orders
Cornered in the deeper divide/
and each side is either leading the blind or they’re feeding the tide
But I see it as the scenery for people to rise/
and word to Tribe we’re just keeping the vibe
[Chorus]
[Tremayne]
I ain’t afraid of the way that they talk about me/
I walked out of the fire with fire inside my eyes
My desire is to be higher than I and I/
deny what they’re giving me, man you’ve got to be kidding me
They’ve got to be feeling the kid/
Worth a bit, niggas ain’t worth shit/
Hit 'em on purpose/
got them all nervous/
Swaggin’ all over the motherfucker of lyricists/
Undercover I rap, but don’t wrap it up when I’m under covers/
She said she likes the way it feels, nigga/
the vibe got her pussy wetter than a dildo/
Coming in like a nigga got a major deal, ho, come again/
Like I give a fuck about your feelings/
I got a feeling this one gon’ piss some niggas off/
If it ain’t your beef, don’t get involved/
I did a lot of shit to make it to the podium/
so drape me up in furs that’s Mongolian/
And let me milly rock like Magnolia/
I thought I told you/
Spit bullets, but ain’t a gun in the holster, nigga/
Vibes
[Chorus]
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4. |
Cowbell
02:59
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Both hands clusty/
Dusty on the beat, the speech is what it must be/
Man, I’m just me/
never was a crack dealer, mass killer who traps and raps hella rusty/
No hate though, hope they stay fed/
rappers living a gimmick though kayfabe’s dead/
The melee spread, we enter the ring/
and intended to bring a change in the same pendulum swing/
I take aim then ascended to king, but to tread close,
see, the tears and sweat, we bled both/
Learned most from those who broke bread when dead broke, and praise the pain that bred growth/
So we toast to the builders, the ones who showed us what the real was/
Knowing that limitation will bring the innovation and brilliance/
But first had to find peace through the stillness/
Kids killed by cops, the reel filmed it/
seeing how the scales of justice been tilted/
It sends chills through the spine to find the many ways they define a crime/
It’s like 9 shots, call it murder attempted/
where the laws don’t apply and they’re further exempted/
The cause of the riot’s the verdict we’re left with/
And those serving protectors had heard the resentment/
I try to see it with the third of my lenses, though it feels like a blur to the senses/
Went from on the bench to a pensive entrance to intense and clenching pens in trenches/
Had to fight for it/
quite forward, I write more than a hype chorus/
In the zeitgeist of bright lights, I’m like tortoise/
knowing that baby stepping is better than life dormant/
Head wrapped like 3 Stacks, see them issue a trife warning every morning I’m boarding a flight/
Talk back and we’re validating their fears though it’s clear they’ve been miseducated for years/
So we’re the new danger, blamed and drew anger,
skewed by the news, our names are viewed stranger/
Raised on Wu chambers and Southernplayalistic/
get in where you fit in, but I’m one to stay a misfit/
Thinking outside the box, so the only time that I’m in it is closed caskets
Flow packed with jazz and soul classics/
unique like Ol’ Bastard, no masters/
Rhyme cold as O. Jackson, sign death certificates, bringing the toe tags in
Throwback to Hennig catching his own pass/
so we’re only given the limits to blow past it
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5. |
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[Chorus - Vaishnavi]
I never knew a love could ever show me somebody like you/
I never knew a love could ever get this good/
Because it takes me and the trouble I bring/
and it frees me from these chains and things/
And it all comes down to you now that I’ve got a love/
I met her on ’09, was so fine/
no line could have won her over as I wondered the whole time
How to pursue her, I knew if I had my game tight
she would see right through it/
Viewed in the same light as these other dudes who are looping the lame type/
And I just ain’t smooth, who am I playing, right?
Two of our names I would doodle in class /
Dreaming about the crib we’d move in like the future was MASH/
But the homies joke and say it’s futile to ask/
I’m plucking petals off a rose, hope it’s true to the task/
And I find it funny when perusing the past because back then, nobody knew it would last/
Fast forward to now, she’s the light I orbit around/
put at the centre like a chorus so euphoric in sound/
When the pain calls and the rain falls/
it just waters the seed that we bore in the ground/
Keeping her heart on her sleeve that she wore with her crown/
Ain’t nothing more than what I already found/
damn, I got a love/
[Chorus]
Pop said no love is thought to be perfect/
often it hurts but know the cost will be worth it/
Hard to resurface whenever you fall/
ain’t promised forever-ever homie, never at all/
Keeping sticking two together/
And though we might bicker and fight, sick of the sight, had to get it right with you/
It’s like I can’t picture this life before I met her/
broke it open and changed it for the better/
The way you trust deeper than faith/
head held higher than hope/ a leader with the key to your fate/
And you speak stronger than truth/
laughter as honest as youth/
And dream big, arms long as your roots/
My Bonita put me on to the proof, said herself you need to fill your own vessel or love is never felt/
So in better health or sickness, in hunger or bliss, I guess the gift is the one that I stick with/
It just fit so I know that I’m home/
and never put you on a pedestal, your throne is your own/
I got a love
[Chorus]
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6. |
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Second guessing the first step/
first breath of my second wind on my third set/
No assured bets, my courage incurred sweat/
with self-doubt on the route, I heard it and swerved left/
So I face the chase and I paint between spaces of embraced mistakes/
Because a dream’s worth diving in feet first, colliding with the bottom and designing your rebirth/
And we search for that first love/
one to share with and bare the best and the worst of/
Nursed up from the first heartbreak/
thoughts race on the late night/
Fade from a daily to a maybe to a grave site/
I paid twice for choosing to point blame/
Defense mechanism we use to avoid pain/
but now I soak in it/
Knowing the feeling we’re heartbroken is the only moment that’s serving to open it
[Chorus – Strictly Steele & Vaishnavi]
I’m searching, and I’m finding/
that you’ll never know, you just have to grow/
I’m searching, and I’m finding/
that you’ll never know, you just have to grow/
One time for the first generation/ raised within the west by the words of the ancients/
I came from both, framed them close/ and combined the first language with slang we spoke/
My folks arrived in ’79 with thoughts to set ahead of me a better design/
First world telling me I’m to shed and refine the identity to settle me although I know I’d never be mine/
So I’m feeling caught in-between the heart and the margin
Regarded and scene as too much or not enough/
so to trust your struggle with love is a must/
Break the cuffs and you brush by who doesn’t adjust/
not bad for some immigrants/
Labeled illegitimate but still made a seat at the table to fit us in/
Son of the working class, with no concern of whether first or last and made a way on the uncertain path/
[Chorus]
Still searching through peeled curtains/
we feel first and try to build with a will urgent/
But find that we shine if the mind is combining with heart/
Where pride will depart, no hiding the thought that we may never know/
So we try to hold on the control but it shows when we let it go
We have to grow, adapt whether fast of slow/
and master goals when I own the path I roll
[Chorus]
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7. |
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When I falter, I fall to the altar and call for a calm or departure/
Try to hold steady as the arms of an archer/
Until I break down, found face down, drowned in the thoughts that'll conquer/
Feel a shock to the system as if I had lost to the offense of Blanka/
Feel lit just pierce through the heart like I fought with the bosses of Contra/
Saw what the darkness will offer
but chose light even when I had no sight/
Contemplated the weight of taking my own life/
And though I made it another day and I hold tight,
know I'm unafraid of the fate awaiting a cold night/
I related to brothers knowing they sold white/
and related to others getting their soul right/
Though I see them both in the middle as a mirror to my face,
They're afraid to embrace like Rogue might/
The duality of man/
seeing all the greys that reality demands/
Feeling all the pain and it had to be the plan,
like I was given these chains so that gradually I'd stand/
And I stand taller than I ever did/
never meddling medicine with the sedatives/
It's imperative/
dealing with the devil on the level that you settle with, you dead him or you let him in/
In my head again, I plotted my escape/
Was running at a Stoudemire pace when I'm trying to get up out a dire place/
Though I hit the bottom, know I've got a higher faith/
eyes closed when i meditate, gotta lie awake/
Because sleep is the cousin of death/
so i play beats when I'm under duress/
Dig deeply up under the flesh
and find peace when i colour my text/
And light it up, never dulling the rest
[Big Rube]
Internalized/
the tipping prose forged in the flame of the tracks I murderize/
The shine of a king’s mind can bling queens to be fertilized/
While lackluster rap jesters infest the sound with clown noises/
It must sting when I spit, killing cats I’m like cobra/
Spitting ice venom/
found in mics, so precise when I strike, ice hit him/
When he’s up, he freeze up, he ain’t seize up, it’s ice in him/
I love winning/
before I be a slave I’ll be broke, don’t like bending/
We need struggle, for augmentation of the strength, it’s resistance that denses the muscles/
It’s the hustle/
slinging dope on a track that’ll get your mind high, keep your body out of trouble/
Addictive as the money, as the drugs, as the sex, but the text ain’t predictive/
First place only wins one race, if you want to be a legend, then you’ve got to be consistent/
You can come from the streets, still jump on the beat/
Reach one, teach one
ignorance is a sickness
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8. |
Speak Now
03:31
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Gain the world and lose your soul/
Trying to see what the future holds but looking back to check if the suture’s closed/
Knew the road that I walk is often a lonely one/
Younger feeling in awkward in solitude, though it so becomes a lifeline/
And more essential as I grow with age/
finding peace in the silence deeper below the days/
Me and Magic would rhyme and keep up the flow to raise hell when we blow the stage/
You know the praise is all coming from heart/
Summon the spark, fan the fire, plan empires, call you my brother above the art/
Live parallels as well we’re both raising nieces/
And both found queens, somebody mama could meet with/
Don’t hide when I’m at my weakest, I showed her that side/
For the hardships, no man would have shoulders that wide/
Told her that’s why, it’s known but now I’ve gotta say it
that it’s because of yall I found my way in
[Chorus]
For the times when I should have said the words they deserve to hear/
And for the times that the feeling was more than what we’re feeling to share/
But this is for the time that we’re given/
find that it’s never too long before the given is gone/
So I’ve got to speak now, and I speak now/
Say the words, give them life, they deserve to hear it so live it right
Bit my tongue a thousand times/
Didn’t know how to find the words to let you know that you were out of line, doubt I’m blind/
Saw my sister leave with the kids and the bags packed/
But you’re collapsed up in the crib, too drunken to glance back/
I loved you like an older brother, so she’d never blow your cover
Never spoke of your other side, hoped we won’t discover/
So it’s tougher because she suffered alone/
kept appearances of parents, but this wasn’t a home/
Played the mother and the father figure/
Hard to picture how we never heard a sound as you drowned in the darkest liquor/
She said she needs a partner with her/
Felt safe in the storm and made it the norm, crazy how head and heart can differ/
And I know you’re hurting because nobody’s walking with you/
But you talk as if only you can be thought the victor/
and there’s no winners/
So either rebuild, or let her go, but know it needs to be real/
[Chorus]
Cried when my grandma passed, the ash scattered/
we last chatted about her childhood and laughed/
Bad as it seemed to see her weaken on a hospital bed,
Those are moments that I cherish, giving solace instead/
Because I really got to know her just talking, combing her hair/
She knew that death was calling, no stalling, go with a prayer/
But never dreamed she’d leave in summer/
Saw my grandfather weeping, he would then fall asleep in the deepest slumber/
8 months later, but shed no tears/
dead those fears, a story that I read so clear/
It’s just the universe at work/
didn’t understand it, feeling disenchanted/
But had to shift to a different vantage/ because life is made of give and take, interplay of high and low/
Work and rest, birth and death, learn then it’s your time to go/
So for every meal and minute that they gave us,
we’re better for having their hands to raise us
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9. |
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I reminisce on the last words you spoke in the final meeting between us/
How the energy had changed and the day had came when you’d leave us/
Freed of the pain and all that you asked in return
is weather storms and never mourn/
Your passage is earned/
still it happened sudden
Never saw my father cry until he had to summon everything inside of him to let you go/
Stolen moments I hold on that path that wasn’t/
didn’t get to meet my wife/
So I write this to let you know we’re still grieving your presence, but receiving the lessons/
Seeing your essence breathe in my niece is a blessing/
Because as the sunshine follows the moon,
as one dies then a young mind is brought into bloom/
It’s all in tune/
So as the cycle repeats and the light and you greet,
I shed tears of joy as the voyage of life is complete/
And see the only way to repay you is carry on living
because every farewell is a new beginning
[B Magic]
Too many goodbyes, too many farewells/
we lost a couple angels so we don’t fear hell/
I woke up to the news that you had left us/
blessed us with every meeting/
Now you upset us like why’d you have to leave without a warning?
Spilling out a 40, the only way we know to mourn him/
Shit, it was yesterday that we were shooting hoops/
On the block balling, he would come through and round the troops/
God needed G to run the point guard/
we try to heal but I know a couple boys scarred/
I’m just trying to hear his voice, God/
they say the good die young, you had no choice, God/
And we’re going to watch out for your brother/
He be doing good, he’s trying to watch out for your mother/
And the only way to repay you is carry on living
because every farewell is a new beginning
[Scotty IV]
I seen a picture of Sam and I thought it was me/
I wondered if life was everything he thought it would be/
Blessed him with a wife, beautiful like his 2 daughters/
He left the world with a son then he had to move farther/
A true honour, I guess this is me/
a legacy of strength and honour that I’m set to repeat/
He made his mark on the land, I’ll be glad to make the same/
I only live to tell my pops he never passed away in vain/
I know that he would’ve said don’t forget what you seek/
Telling me that my aim should be set for the peak/
Telling me get respect and reflect what’s unique/
Telling me instead of tears let the sweat wet my cheeks/
Life is like the cycle of the rifle,
I’ve become the gunpowder that’s the light to his ash/
My first year of life was his last,
so I say my farewell and start anew, following his path
[Chorus]
For the past and the present we left/
still holding on the last of the memories kept/
You’ll be on your way/
only leaving with everything that you came with/
For all you gave and the days spent/
This is for the past and the present we left/
still holding on the last of the memories kept/
You’ll be on your way/
only leaving with everything that you came with/
For all you gave and the days spent/
Farewell
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Noyz Brampton, Ontario
Noyz is an MC, author & producer. He has performed at festivals including SXSW & TIFF, and has been featured on platforms such as Vice, NBA India & Complex. Noyz plays an active role in his community by facilitating hip hop + mental health workshops.
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