I Am Hip Hop

[Intro]
March with me now
Heads, march with me now
Heads, roll with me now
Heads, march with me now
(We are going, going higher and higher)
Yeah, march with me now
(We are going, going higher and higher)
Heads, march with me now
Come on, roll with me now
Uh, heads...

[Verse 1]
I used to think hip hop is what I do
Hip hop is what I’m into
Hip hop is how I come thru on top of instrumentals
I used to think it’s what I jot with a pencil
Or how best I can talk about what I been through
The metaphors I like
A set of thought I write
When I get applause on mics
I was never sure I was liked
I'm sure this hip hop has a better 'cause in spite
The little misconceptions said the voice inside
It can’t based on the language I rap in
Or that little pretentious twang in accent
I think those are just irrelevant semantics
I think Hip hop ladies and gentlemen are handpicked
It’s not whether you rap or write
Whether you're wack or tight
Hip hop is what you have inside
And it’s not my job to be here behind this mic
It’s not my hobby, not my career, this is my life

[Hook]
I am Hip hop, you are Hip hop
We’re soldiers in the true art of Hip hop
And you’ve gotta give props, it’s who you are
And not what you do that is Hip hop

March with me now, heads march with me now
March with me now, heads march with me now
We are going, going higher and higher
We are going, going higher and high

[Verse 2]
I used to think that hip hop is all about hits, hooks and mics Freestyles, battles, cripts, books the like
How difficult it is to spit and what it took to write
Till I learned hip hop is an outlook on life
I used to think it was all about the women in vids
Being driven in wips, getting rich living in cribs
Getting ‘em chips, occasionally spitting em hits
Turns out, for a minute I’ve had it twisted a bit
Okay a lot, I had it twisted indeed
I always pictured it be, picking the words out of a dictionary
Then convincing the streets to listen to this fiction I speak
I was a victim of the television imagery
I would wear a flag, a skull cap, and on top a doo rag
Fubu cap and two sweatbands to match
Jeans hanging at the thighs shorts sticking thought that
Walking cliché, hip hop’s got nothing to do with that, in fact..

[Hook]
I am Hip hop, you are Hip hop
We’re soldiers in the true art of Hip hop
And you’ve gotta give props, it’s who you are
And not what you do that is Hip hop

[Verse 3]
Before I realized hip hop was all of us
I used to think hip hop was in the States and the rest of us are followers
I was quite alarmed to discover how wrong I was
And quite relieved to discover that it belongs to all of us
Hip hop is independent minds, thinkers
You don’t have to write scriptures
Just subscribe to the principles
It’s not just the elements, the heads and listeners
Without us there’s no hip hop, hip hop lives in us
I used to think that hip hop is anything with ebonyx
That has an explicit lyrics sticker on it
I used to think that it was songs with the strongest language that were dishonest
A foreign culture that we adopted
I used to think that I could hear it
When I cranked up the sound but when I turned it down then it got clearer
And when I looked through the window I’d swear I was near it Hold on, it’s not a window, I’m looking in the mirror

[Hook]
I am Hip hop, you are Hip hop
We’re soldiers in the true art of Hip hop
And you’ve gotta give props, it’s who you are
And not what you do that is Hip hop

March with me now, heads march with me now
March with me now, heads march with me now
We are going, going higher and higher
We are going, going higher and high