All we want in this life is peace, prosperity and a little paper…
know the feelin, when you feelin like a villain,
You be havin good thoughts but the evils be revealin’.
And the stresses of life can take you off the right path,
Jealousy and envy tends to infiltrate your staff…
We gotta hold it down so we can move on past
All adversities, so we can get through fast.
The thing that men and women need to do is stick together
Progressions can’t be made if we’re separate forever
We got to mediate our greedy levels,
Cause the lust of currency can have us sleepin with the devil.
I am recognizing that the voice inside my head
Is urging me to be myself, but never follow someone else
Because opinions are like voices, we all have a different kind.
The world is kinda cold and the rhythm is my blanket
Wrap yourself up in it, if you love it, then you’ll thank it.
Back in the days when I was a teenager, Before I had status and before I had a pager, You could find The Abstract listening to hip-hop, My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop, I said, well daddy don’t you know that things go in cycles, The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin’ like Michael, It’s all expected, things are for the lookin’, If you got the money, Quest is for the bookin’…
I like music with soul and passion and the good of humanity. As long as it has those things, I’m all the way in.
We got to stay awake for all these lizards and snakes;
Some of them come as friends, some of them come as Jakes.
There’s divinity within because we come from the divine,
A force that’s not seen, but you feel it every time:
When the wind blows, and the world turns,
And the rain drops, and the baby cries,
And the bird flies, and the ground quake,
And the stars gleam.
Satisfaction, I have the right tactics… And if you need em I got crazy prophylactics.
How far must you go to gain respect? Um…
Well, it’s kind of simple: just remain your own.
Or you’ll be crazy sad and alone.
And even though we both fly
Give each other space and not the evil eye
One thing the music industry has taught me is to manage my expectations.
Shorty, let me tell you about my only vice:
It has to do with lots of lovin’, and it ain’t nuttin’ nice.
We all have our own takes on things. To being yourself. The abstract, the whole thing that I play with, seems to result in seeing through your lenses, and once you express how you see things to others, you start to see there are similarities between all people. It’s kind of like, no matter how far you go, you’re still where you started, in a way.
Genetics and beats? I feel like the drumbeat is a natural thing. Our heartbeat moves at a certain BPM. The drumbeat, being the first instrument, the platform for us, being that we all kind of come from that – it’s all beats.
Rock and roll to the beat of the funk fuzz
Wipe your feet really good on the rhythm rug
If you feel the urge to freak, do the jitterbug
Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug.
I grew up on the rough side of the tracks. If you looked like you were soft, you would be fodder for the wolves. I came up in my neighbourhood like, ‘I’m just gonna be me,’ and all the thugs just said, ‘It’s OK, he’s special.’ They knew I had the talent with the rhymes, so they kept me around.
For me with art and all that stuff – I like abstraction. I like contortion. I mean, it’s still truth. But it’s truth through the center of the individual. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s fallacies or falsehoods. It just happens to be one perception of what’s happening.
So concisely, musically we are the herb
So sit back and light me.
Inhale…
My style’s kinda fat, reminiscent of a whale.
I have a very connected history with Bilal. I heard his demo years ago. I heard all of the magic instantly. He’s a master at interpretation of song.
I’ll have you weak in the knees that you could hardly speak,
Or we could do like Uncle L and swing an ep in my Jeep.
Rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop…
For people who love Tribe, I’m the defector. They say, ‘You should get back with Ali to do the beats.’ But a lot of people don’t realize I did all the music in Tribe. In the first three albums, I did all the beats!
