Animal Circus

[Introduction]
From an ugly scene to a sad song
Soon I was singing phrases to myself
Suddenly I had a whole song
This is one song I can sing without failing any minute of it

[Verse 1]
Hip Hop's become a slipknot
Tied around the necks of the destitute imprisoned in sick blocks
They've stolen the voice of the streets
From these zip locks
Replaced it with Auto-Tune and lip gloss
Synthesizers and shit drops
Manufactured cyphers and R&B hooks
All the majors have stripped real lyricists from their books
CEO's are crooks
The industry's calling grime emcees rappers and pop stars emcees This shit is like a fucking disease
A cancerous cell which grew towards the end of the nineties when rap fell and it was stripped of its veil by corporate giants and capitalist titans
When they first saw this music they were frightened
They saw groups like Public Enemy call the government tyrants
They feared an uprising
The ghetto was wildin', but this music was plagued with gang culture and violence
So they took this negative element and magnified it, isolated it and rewired it
Switched it to autopilot
Its ripple effect was seismic
Now N.W.A. are telling niggers to go and fire clips and the dumb, death and blind seem to vibe it
By '91 crack was destroying the hood and Rodney King got both his eyes split
This was seen on TV even though they tried to hide it
This is when Hip-Hop entered the crisis
By '92 the trash was still balanced with the dope
We had Tribe Called Quest, Tragedy Khadafi and De La Soul
Still pushing major units and selling out shows, this age was gold
By '96 we had Iron Man and Only Built For Cuban Links
Both were heading for platinum discs
By this time Tupac was at his highest zenith, and "All Eyez On Me" was as iconic as Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff"
But some say just before he perished, Pac was about to turn fully revolutionary
On some Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis
Give us back our freedom or get your face slit
The industry knew his aunties were Black Panthers who studied Huey P
Banging on the front line or handing out pamphlets
When Pac died the world was plunged into anguish
Sadness, it's like the game back slid and was left to languish
He had a beautiful mind so they took it when the police delivered that bullet
Biggies' death the following year was also suspicious
They put it down to gang rivalry, but I know the FBI were the killers
In '97 Wu-Tang Forever dropped, the greatest double-disc CD I ever rocked
By '98 this shit began to dilate
We had joints with more singing than bars, and 99.99% of content consisted of iced out jewellery and cars
Over produced videos, celebrities and stars polluted this sacred art form of ours
By 2000 record execs were only handing out checks if your music would reflect fake thug R&G bullshit and gratuitous sex
All this club shit and faggots in tight tees flexing their pecs and middle-of-the-road niggas like Kanye West
The only classics in this era are few and far between, they were Ghost Face's Supreme Clientele and Dead Prez's Lets Get Free
By 2003 we had officially seen the death of a U.S. emcee, but by 2001 the rebirth of real Hip-Hop had begun
When I first heard The Return of the High Planes Drifter by Jehst, and Task Force's MFTC I was impressed
When I heard Lewis Parkers' Masquerades & Silhouettes I couldn't stop bopping my head
When I first heard Ricochet Klashnekoff's The Sagas
Man in the hood was wildin' out going bananas
I became a U.K. rhyme fiend
When I first heard Kyza's verse on "Nightbreed"
I was amazed at such levels of technical rhyme schemes
This inspired me to pick up the pen and write these street narratives and razor sharp darts
I don't do this for the fame, I do this for the art