How Many Mics

[Intro: Wyclef Jean]
Pick up your microphones, ha-ha
Pick up your microphones, yo

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean, Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Say, me say many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Verse 1: Lauryn Hill]
I get mad frustrated when I rhyme
Thinkin' of all them kids that try to do this for all the wrong reasons
Seasons change, mad things rearrange
But it all stays the same like the love doctor, strange
I'm tame like the rapper, get red like a snapper when they do that
Got your whole block saying "True dat"
If only they knew that it was you who was irregular
Sold your soul for some secular muzak that's wack
Plus you use that loop over and over
Claiming that you got a new style, your attempts are futile
Ooh, child, you puerile, brain waves are sterile
You can't create, you just wait to take my tapes (Bing)
Laced with malice, hands get calloused
From gripping microphones from here to Dallas
Go ask Alice if you don't believe me, I get in her visions like Stevie
See me ascend from the chalice like the weed be
Indeed we like Khalid Muhammad, MCs make me vomit
I get controversial, freak your style with no rehearsal
Au contraire mon frère, don't you even go there
Me without a mic is like a beat without a snare
I dare to tear into your ego
We go way back like some ganja and pelequo
Or ColecoVision, my rhymes make incisions in your anatomy
And I'll back this with Deuteronomy
Or Leviticus, God made this word, you can't get with this
Sweet like licorice, dangerous like syphilis, yeah

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean, Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do I rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do you rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Verse 2: Wyclef Jean]
I used to be underrated, now I take iron
Makes my shit constipated, I'm more concentrated
So on my day off, with David Sonenberg I play golf
Run through Crown Heights screaming out, "Mazel tov!"
Problem with no man, before Black, I'm first human
Appetite to write like Frederick Douglass with a slave hand (Bing)
Street pressure, word to papa, I ain't goin' under
One day I'll have a label and make deals with Tommy Mottola
Mama always told me, "You're one in a million"
Always watch your back, never tangle with Haitian Sicilians
Now I got a record deal, "How does it feel?"
I'm never gonna survive unless I get crazy like Seal
'Cause the whole world's out of order
So at night, the fiends dance on grease with John Travolta
One got slaughtered as he coughed blood from his mouth
The other tried to duck and caught a left with my Guinness Stout
Brother, brother, can't you get this through your head?
This is set up by the feds, they're scoping us with their infrareds

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean, Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]
How many mics do you rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do I rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Verse 3: Pras]
Too many MCs, not enough mics
Exit your show like I exit the turnpike
Dice and dynamite like Dolemite
Double-deuce delight, I don't Dick Van Dyke
Star light to star bright, the freaks come out at night
Like my man Wyclef (I wear my sunglasses at night)
And my panache will mosh your entourage
Squash the squad and hide their bodies under my garage
And when the cops come lookin, I be bookin' to Brooklyn
Leave the trails broken, flippin' tokens to Hoboken
A clean getaway like Alec Baldwin
Driving in my fast car playing Tracy Chapman

[Chorus: Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill]
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Say, me say many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do you rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do we rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many
How many mics do I rip on the daily?
Many, money, say, me say many, many, many

[Outro: Wyclef Jean]
Many, many, money, many, many, many
Many, many, money, many, many, many

[Interlude]
Yo, as I was sayin', look
Yo, yo, hold up kid, hol' up, hol' up (Yo, man)
Yo, ready or not, kid (Yo, yo, I gotta tell you somethin', man)
They gon' move on us (If they do, but, yo)
And we gotta get prepared
We gotta get the forces together, man (I gotta do what I gotta do, man)
We gotta get our family together (I'ma haul ass down to Mexico, yo)
Ready or not, man (Word is born)
Ready or not they gon' move on us
So I tell you what, better safe than sorry
Let's be ready