Show Lyrics

Mars ILL - the Abolition of manCHILD
(from the album Raw Material)
© copyright Uprok Records/Sphere of Hip Hop Records/Mars ILL

Verse 1:

Double down stroke, pound my head on concrete til it cracks/
Double take, doubled over from this double cross on my back/
Doubled my pleasure and pain with the quickest double timing/
On the double, single out these cats that’s having trouble rhyming/
Triple threat vet, set it straight while rookies muddle through/
Just call me the 23rd letter because I double you/
Knuckle through other crews with jabs, hooks, uppercuts and combinations/
Patience, you can’t get inside the levelheaded throroughbred/
The one who sets the foundation for movement like a riverbed/
Don’t subscribe to gun talk, so I give a what what your trigger said/
Spit leaded graphite, keep my heart in my hand so that I can grasp life/
Police the depths of my soul with a billy club and flashlight/
That’s right, the underworld has numbered my days/
The track plays as I stumble across the stage/
And rage against my rage in the sight of fleeting time/
Because it’s not the grapes of wrath that produce the sweetest wine/
I bleed rhymes when I’m wounded, seems to happen more and more/
Lie face down in a puddle of my own metaphors on the floor/
And my heart pumps the art, so what will happen if I pass on/
They could never last long, so the band plays my sad song…

Verse 2:

Soul Heir the manCHILD 2001, dead on arrival/
Skin beneath his fingernails points to a struggle for survival/
Clutching doubles of his vinyl with rigamortous in his throat/
In his mouth, we found the words for the greatest song he never wrote/
He was stabbed, choked, hung, burned, drowned/
Strapped to the ground, forced to listen to thug rap gagged and bound/
This manCHILD took hip-hop where no one else could take her/
For that he was dragged for 40 blocks behind a Lincoln Navigator/
Until it crashed into a pacer, flipped and landed on his neck/
Blasting Gloria Gaynor’s “I will Survive” from the tape deck/
A blank check inside his pocket because you can’t cash respect/
In a word, his dental records spun at 33 1/3/
Keeping his word through pain and death through static and distortion/
Defeated 333 emcees post mortem/
So, check your local listings to see his body on display/
Soul Heir the manCHILD survived by his family and his dj…
Verse 3:

Look through the eyes of a manCHILDless world so I can see/
I don’t like the way my beloved artform looks without me/
A barren wasteland, artists afraid to face fans/
Where they seek and destroy b-boys, forbidding them to breakdance/
Where no one takes a chance because the patterns stand in place/
Follow the formula, play the part, and you’ll get more than you can take/
Where they raise hell to be a man and no man searches for the answers/
Without me, it’s all just hype men, dat tapes, and back up dancers/
Hold my banner for knowledge, wisdom and understand integrity/
Every city Mars ILL goes, I leave another piece of my legacy/
And if I thought ya’ll would benefit, I’d paint manCHILD out of the picture/
They fall and keep it to themselves, so I’ll stand and deliver/
Consider this, I understand this game is hit or miss/
Whether graf writer, b-boy, turntablist or lyricist/
This is serious, like water to a flame, able to cain/
If you stopped doing what you do today would hip-hop stay the same?/
If your name never graced a marquis, what are we losing?/
If nothing changes in that world then tell me, what’s your contribution?/
Do you emancipate enslaved minds, or you just want to feel free?/
It’s not easy, but manCHILD’s here because you need me…