[Lupe talking:]
Grew up in Chicago, West side, gang lifestyle, the drug scene, the whole.. it’s like one whole universe of insanity
[Verse 1:]
Before I start, like to make sure I’m smart
Gather my composure, rather my swagger and my culture
Pivot my fitted, then begin to rivet, with a change of lyric
In other words, I reposition how I sit it
Then make you feel it like I mispronounced “filet”
On second thought, I can’t make you fill it
Like you digging your own grave, unless you can Kill Bill it
A night of the living passed away
Can you dig it? Why Emcee? Hey
I do it for my village
The pennin’ is John Lennon, the beat is the Beatles
Go together like Lenin and the people
In some fresh linens and some John Lennon’s fresh outta Seagle’s
The pen and the needles…
[Writing and mumbling upcoming verse]
[Verse 2:]
I’m back at cha, and I Pac like cap backwards
Like a hat’s backwards, you know, when the bats backwards
Yeah, like a bat catchers
The law gotta long arm like a back scratcher
But before I leave mine at home
Like a bad catcher, I think about my zone
Where pimps make scratch off the track like a DJ
Easy, that’s my zone rappers
It’s my deck
And if I catch u set trippin’ wit my cassette sittin’ in a zone rappers:
It’s not a threat
Cuz it’ll span ya where I roam rappers, where I hone my skills
They wanna send me back home the devil, is on my heels
The writing is Sting, liken the sequences, the Police, I repeat
We go together like the Beauty and the Beast
Writing is in my veins;
The ink is the diesel, the pen and the needles…
[Writing and mumbling upcoming verse]
[Verse 3:]
The word is mightier than the sword
And my serve is tightier than yours
Like year in St. Louis ya whole flow
I fear I sank through it…
It all became clear
Like a paramedic with an electric chest kit, YEAH
The gravity of the vocabulary is a caliber equal to Excalibur
Swung wit the grace of Agassi in his amateurs, THERE
There was a deeper depth, don’t know how I got here
I also had a hole in my flow
It appears I sank to it…
My swing, it couldn’t be seen
I apply some paint to it, the invisible man
Wrapped in bandages, in critical, CLEAR
The scriptin’ of Scorsese the score is Count Basie
We go together like, the original and the sequel
This is the end of the trilogy, ya feelin’ me?
The pen and the needles…