When I rock so eloquently
 Put the beat on and let me
 Kill another wack emcee
 Can't trust them  never test me
 I practice and study
 But I'm not in it for the money
 But to me they look so funny
 You can't test the teacher
 The teacher won't reach intact
 Through the speaker you're weaker  now sit your ass in the back
 My lyrical you hear it  you fear it  you can't get near it
 Cause the spirit eat Eric
 And Eric your rhymes is wack
 Like that, that, right back

 Check it out!

 Check it like this
 Just skills You know you gots to build just skills
 *A phone is dialed a man says hello and a woman starts speaking in
 Spanish*
 You know you gots to build just skills, uh come on get down
 Just skills You know we got to build just skills, come on get down

 Yeah, uh come on
 I got that rip track, flip that, underground rap
 When I kick back
 Most of what I'm hearin be weak
 So I speak through beats and the streets as I teach
 I impeach, through speech, each lyric leech I reach
 Have a seat in the lecture
 Nothin can protect you
 Hard is the texture
 Of the mic wreckin rock in your sector
 Better than ever remember I am no beginner
 I like to shout out Eric Skinner
 Just skills, you know we gots to build just skills, come on a get down
 Just skills, you know we gots to build just skills, come on a get down
 Yo, we livin in a world of private jets and limousine
 The fruit we eatin as we prepare tangerine to nectarine
 See everybody livin in the same routine
 We need the telephone, and yes, we need the fax machine
 You listen to the sound, well I think you know it's me
 Now, let me educate you with my concious poetry
 Me want, me want, me want, me want, me want no wack rap
 Me want, me want, me want, me want, me want no wack rap
 Me love, me love, me love, me love, me love it when it's bad
 See if you wack rap you ought be steppin out the back
 See emcees on the microphone forgettin that they black
 See hear them kick the lyrics that are holdin people back
 But when you hear the teacher, KRS will find the track
 You bound to see the light, and you don't want return back
 So listen very closely to the secret scientist
 I'm sending this one out to all my inner city kids
 Now you supposed to be apostle what you have inside your head
 Can make you more reliable, it can make you feel dead
 Now listen very closely to the way I say this rhyme
 It's the thing called the brain, and the thing called the mind
 But I'm outta time

 Chorus (scratching on the word "can"):
 Can I tell them that I really never had a gun?
 No, you can't cause now you bouts to get done!
 Can I tell them that I really never had a gun
 Never had a gun, never had a gun?
 Can I tell them that I really never had a gun?
 No, you can't cause now you bouts to get done!
 Can I tell them that I really never had a gun
 Never had a gun, never had a gun?

 On the block you just yap a whole lot
 About the clothes that you got
 Yo, or the gold that you got
 Everybody sees all the friends in your Benz, yo, it's fat
 But they ain't gettin money like that
 Word to my brother Kenny, jealous one envy
 The rich are few, while the poor, many
 But you got gold cuffs and cars and stuff
 You eatin well, but still in the ghetto you dwell
 You know it's hot, so you make it known about your glock
 To any perpetrator tryin to blow up your spot
 You grab the microphone and talk a good ramble
 You the hardcore outlaw, criminal, vandal
 Burnin emcees like a candle, but you frontin
 You ain't got nothin, with your life you gamble
 One day you gamble up snake eyes
 Talkin all that junk about you don't take dives, you take lives
 Nobody on the block tries, cause you claim you got powerful ties
 So at the red light you arrive
 And to your surprise you get heffed up with just two steak knives
 You're terrified, they take your Benz, and what makes things worse
 You ain't got gun the first

 Chorus