Ladies and gentlemen

Kweli!





Won't you stay around with me?...

And please say the rhyme

Cause these rappers think that I'm

In love with your state of mind

Cause you a favourite of mine

And I know you on your grind

I don't want to waste your time

But baby won't you stay around with me?...

And let my love (and let my love)

And let my love





Kweli you should rap about this, you should rap about that

Any more suggestions? You in the back, yeah you

You should rap more on beat, you should rap more street

And never ever get your mack on please, how bout you?

I like the way you're melodic, it's cause you capture hypnotic

Portraits and seem to make the average exotic

Probably unite, I know you getting some love, but you can't spit like a thug

And you a blow, you make a hit for the club, word

I don't like your voice, I don't like your choice of beats

It sounds like it's forced, and what was up with "Back Up Offa Me"?

I ain't like that, man you should get with Hi-Tek

Now he got nice tracks, them other dudes is type wack

Yeah, people keeping it coming, I keep it bubbling

Like the heat from oven boiling the water and the hate

So they light my fire...

I got a mic empire, my own label

I had to emancipate me-me like Mariah...

At some point I might retire, on some bullshit

My legacy, horseshit like Mariah's...

Illest flow found in the game, soothing like the sound of the rain

It's the dude profound with the fame, I refusing to be sounding the same

Keeping the verses, deleting the curses, defeating the purpose

When the people go on strike, I'm in the street with the workers

Speaking the words from a pulpit like the preachers at churches

Raise my hand, all the teachers get nervous

Cause they know I air them out

And they ain't even really gotta hear me out

Keep it dirty like pigpen, voice in the warrior's head like?

Clocking like Big Ben, old school slang still find a way to innovate

Pete Rock got em feeling great, the ladies say





Won't you stay around with me?...

And please say the rhyme

Cause these rappers think that I'm

In love with your state of mind

Cause you a favorite of mine

And I know you on your grind

I don't want to waste your time

But baby won't you stay around with me?...

And let my love (and let my love)

And let my love





Light the tip of the L, this heavyweight rap tipping the scale

And we never let the system prevail, real picturesque, missing the sale

Never that, it's forbidden like the candy sisters lifting the veil

I'm still leading the pack, these cats lacking

Just because you be having a dragon don't mean you got the fire...

It ain't nothing to play with, it's sacred

My pen is the paintbrush, and dipping in paint plus

Truth, love, joy, anger, hatred and anguish

That's the spectrum of colours I paint with

I don't feast at the banquet, cause freedom is the set that I bang with

Listen the conditions in my slum village is tainted

I grew through the pavement, like the flower the girl drew in the paper

The sky bluer and the? eye's? save you

The rules of engagement that they use, attitudes of a slave

Man got me stressed out losing my patience

The moves that I'm making across waters

Through contraband that I'm taking across borders

Information never lost in translation

Too many new words to be learned, I'm spitting fire giving third degree burns

Giving them heat stroke, hotter than rocking a P cote

At 

Back in the days like reminiscing with Pete yo

Ladies welcome to the Kweli show

She goes...





Won't you stay around with me?...

And please say the rhyme

Cause these rappers think that I'm

In love with your state of mind

Cause you a favorite of mine

And I know you on your grind

I don't want to waste your time

But baby won't you stay around with me?...

And let my love (and let my love)

And let my love





Ladies and Gentleman, it's Talib Kweli

Yeah, this Ear Drum y'all

B-B-B-B-Banging on your ear drum

We got the incredible Pete Rock on the track like...

I like that, I like that

I want to give an extra big shout to my man Dave Dart

Holding me down as always and as usual

And his new born son, Cannon, brand new to the world

He's now down with Blacksmith, Blacksmith is the movement

Jean Grae, Strong Arm Steady gang, Talib Kweli

It's what it is, yeah