New Museum

[Verse 1: billy woods]
Dropped to no reception
Empty exhibition white walls silence deafening
Negative space stretching
The internet every couple seconds refreshing
The same couple mentions
Merch boxes in the closet
Out-of-sight-out-of-mind but paid outta pocket
Couple friends at ya show them other niggas got a mosh pit
Day job in the morning just the thought makes me nauseous

[Verse 2: Open Mike Eagle]
Don’t put me with the rottweilers
Walk me in with the show dogs
Fool, I’m Nikita Koloff
So committed I never break character
Forget the fucking marketplace
I’m an installation, now where’s my carpet space
Jerk this lever, click my media
Do my own cuts, wik-wik-Wikipedia

[Verse 3: Elucid]
10 curated commandments
Lessons live from the Schomburg
Critic acclaim Hard earned
Full body knob turns
Enthralled blond birds
Hypnotized like Farnsworth
Milquetoast served by futurists in pom pom skirts
Fog Smoke and mirrors Give em something to talk about
Lukewarm rap wizard behind the curtain be fizzled out
Far from the source, the isolationist
Close Shave against the grain
Came full circle but what he saying?

[Verse 4: Busdriver]
Observe the piece to right of me
Completed in the late nineteen hundreds
It saw no praises from contemporaries
And generally had all the enlightened flummoxed
It cradled notions of art as crime
And developed wildly, set apart from time
But when buyers make decisions along the party lines
So harvest mine, they tarnish your shine
Hang like a varmints behind

[Verse 5: billy woods]
Bottled mineral water, live sampling bird calls
Back to the audience brass on the balls
Politiely inquired as to the loot
The Talented Mr. Smalls notwitstanding
Trailer to the video on Vimeo
Grandstanding
Instagrammed Wired covers got me backstage
Gladhanding
If you can sing a lil something might soften the landing
Have the fans American Bandstand dancing

[Verse 6: Elucid]
Murse ratchet
Flanked by wing dykes, you can't hack it
Bass akwards
Short of cult classic with kings Rations
Voted Most consistently average
Big budget mastering
Squandered passion
Pump action but still banging flaccid
NPR think pieces
Ex conscious rappers laid out to pasture
Blowhard circle jerkers chatter
Broad strokes from hands of irrelevant self described masters
Fractured patterns
Crooked paths to look back and laugh at

[Verse 7: Open Mike Eagle]
Wish I could eat offa brownie points
Who’s the next messiah the spectacled crowd anoints (Me, nigga!)
Put my dirty drawers in the glass cases
Make gasfaces at typos and backspaces (Stop fucking up!)
Get it right the first time
Micromanaging this class of interns
Hire docents to meet the required quotient
And keep your greasy fingers off my Kraftwerk

[Verse 7: billy woods]
Sip cafe-au-lait kaffiyeh, hoodie and tims
Knightsbridge pied-a-terre, friends of friends
Split through prescription lens
Richard Wright in Paris status
Damn right I wear my sunglasses at night
Hobbesian Savage
Egg white omelet carmelized shallots
Stockholm Syndrome
Cote de Rhone cleanse the palate
Checking account check the balance
Shelltoes and rope gold all he told the stylist
Bitter like old-timers when they hear that looped soul behind us

[Verse 8: Busdriver]
Murky depictions of dead pigeons
Given red ribbons at the local gallery opening
I gasp at the earnings of a cold chillin’
Even though I’m supposed to be sold for millions
Cause I’m more Jesse Owens than Owen Wilson
Cold chilling
On a placinated cell wall Bell Palsy body language
My deadened gaze is a tell all
And I’m not art, until I’m seen here
Sentenced for killing every turn of phrase during my teen years