1. |
Respect Politics
04:29
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[intro]
code-switching yeah we code switching
(flipping the switches)
yeah we, yeah we, yeah we
[Chorus]
code switch when
politics blend,
respect expectation,
cede mouth over win
x3
code switch when
politics blend,
respect expectation,
over mouth
cede win
[Verse One]
There’s a good pastrami deli in the north of Timbuktu.
but Hasidic zealotry prefers a rye tuna bleu.
In Nunavut, Greenland I’ve seen it all come true
while watching court side with the one that flew Cuckoo.
Wycherley hands the rock to Vonnegut,
his ankles are broke,
that poetry in motion,
hoop and writing in the spokes.
One wrong move, yoked and poked, Will/Bill takes no notes.
Victoria is on the Jumbotron without a cloak.
Huxley decline post-game comments.
Orwell and he were traded.
They stayed on the floor,
Put up shots, got soma-faded.
I “double thinked” then double blinked.
A wormhole closed, I found a drink.
Gelatinous pink overwhelmed that icy rink,
but the story of the puck is for a longer mature brink.
(and I suggest you just think)
Of words far less circuitous,
where explanations are a must,
where I can dig under the crush.
On C.P.T.
I never rush.
[Chorus]
[Verse Two]
semblance to the sewers,
rakes muck,
what the fuck:
idioms, expletive, jingoism, yellowed news, yolk
thrown up
(bounty lips,
commercial absorption,
taglines trace the foreskin,
precede the pill,
activation for endorphins)
storming, free warring
north end, aisle 6,
steel cut porridge,
headline the morning latte:
“oats go well with an orange”
man coughs god bombs,
Yahweh’s steel, open arms,
pretext,
testament,
glaze over the talk show,
donut psalms.
instead,
“lawn jockey, hockey puck, the verandah is a slut,”
redressed in exposés, cotton cloth,
in God we bluff (yeah),
in God we bluff (yeah),
in God we bluff (yeah),
fund is to trust
as sum is to us,
consumed sans the crust,
napkins stained enough,
those in need of proof can check the green lips of the higher ups.
It’s half past brunch y’all
(it’s half past brunch).
[indistinguishable]
[Chorus]
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2. |
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breaded cutlet
circa Thailand town
Phuket;
Siamese joined bucket
for that appropriative
luggage
Tea parties,
diet fascism,
and neocon light.
catharsis politics,
altruism:
Postmodern Delight
Mayans hunted, death squad puppets,
Guatemalan head cheese buckets,
commanders in Nantucket,
and in Thailand poor say, “Phuket”
the hills are disappearing, those on which the masters crafted,
their paintings, their musings, replaced by strip mall cancer.
Scott Walker’s a pole dancer,
rides a long chain of command,
contrived before the tale of the trance on Congo sand;
gigahertz and Mister Kurtz, Apple TV, orange irks,
washing away the Jersey Shore, no work for more net worth.
Mothafucka, I was birthed by the hearth in the earth, moms had mirth.
Just that one year-old, chattering, flattering, splattering, staggering.
Childhood sing, my innocence would ring,
until the whole world became a Carpenter’s Thing.
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3. |
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frame 1: close up,
Black behind the ears,
effaced the “I”,
drunk off triple distilled
bottle of white tears.
trailed off and picked up
on a surgically-repaired knee,
reference point: Suburban fantasy
Mr. Miyagi
found who I was projected as
chilling with Edward Said,
finished drafts of post-colonial raps,
playing Cooking Mama on my Wii
at the close of Eid,
figured innovation as a symptom
of postmodern greed
actually well,
devoid of linguistics, subaltern speech,
regaled with economic theory,
singular narrative genes,
trauma supposed only allele, as so to speak,
Schedule One nine-to-five breaths
rise in the east and rise in the yeast
with some
Obligatory Techno-Orientalism
cleared the sample and
adjusted to that 400 meter rhythm,
ran out of time to share my
clickbait anachronisms and
deposited my liberal outrage
in a dingy prison
profit margins scribbled with all those
investor stock options,
excel spreadsheet recurring dreams
with all them groups watching,
esoteric cold sweat mornings after
flip-top macbook hyperlinks to
transracial cookbook chapters
well,
Rachel takes the California role,
doles it out to Kylie Jenner who’s
patenting her own stripper pole
cast in that refashioned remake of that movie,
(what?) Friday,
G-Eazy’s playing Cube’s part
while Felicia’s gone Miley
well, prefer this next digression avoids
addiction to media res,
but I began my story in the middle and
auto-didacted off a ledge
lyrics cliffhang at behest of some of my
racialized appearance,
and I’ve dredged with Mr. Jones,
muckraking trash inside my River Spirit,
yeah.
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4. |
Handwavedraft1
03:37
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[Chorus One]
yeah, I ain’t never been this potent,
quantifying my involvement for a rap quotient,
long division, undue oceans,
carry decimals in that love potion,
number 9 for secondary motions
(check)
[Verse One]
check the hand wave for the papal states,
electrified clown car,
narcoleptic congressional jakes
fallate them stakes,
masturbate with what international relates.
I’ve watched the news,
ate Joad’s grapes,
paroled with parlayed, harangued greats,
whose P.R. funds,
yeah they ran out,
and that pay for opinion biz,
suddenly a tap out.
count to ten, tap on that mat,
suddenly that yogic flat in the hip part of town
ain’t where that ass at,
hit it just like that
[Chorus One]
[Chorus Two]
I push my ears to the seers,
translate my senses here
I push my ears to the seers,
translate my senses here
I push my ears to the seers,
translate my senses here
I push my ears to the seers,
translate my senses here
[Chorus One]
[Verse Two]
check that hand wave in the figure 8’s
traced on that styrofoam in the heap of waste,
decaying half-life ideas race
track stars incumbent with that ham for face
elected by a partisan majority place.
and I’ve seen my mind gerrymandered in the process of process,
over, stood, waiting patient for that end
to signal a logic,
endgame raids
they took me piece by piece,
allotted me a wallet,
and a stipend for every time I mentioned
I’m finishing college.
but then I closed my eyes,
ensnared in the senses of my lies,
omission of my self from all these letters exorcised.
yeah I’ve never been this potent
while the eyes have been this dry.
yeah I’ve never been that potent,
utilized so many “I”s
[Chorus Two]
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5. |
Jesus of Los Feliz
02:12
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undermining overthinking all the time
you know it’s through
(you know it)
lenses bifocal bifurcated
yours who is signed true
(yo, we signed true).
email game on fleek dependency
for decorum rule
(for decorum),
was finna complete my sentence,
fragments they will have to do
(they will have to).
application not submitted,
rejection in time is due
(it’s due).
haven’t updated resume or worked in a year or two
(in a year or two).
Linkedin profile twice a day notifies me of openings too
(they got openings?),
glaze of the eyes, hover the color,
of socialized media blue.
thousand likes, fickle social proof
(with the social proof);
facebook algorithm, indie rap truth.
mofucka I was Jesus of Los Feliz
before the sun gave you my noose,
was in my Black Temple collecting Illidan’s loot.
360 flips and hot cheeto fry chips,
skin tone comp corner grill,
and the park echoed across the way,
coming college grad culture fill.
raised them pitchforks before the move to Hollywood and Leimert
away from vegan breadcrumbs,
and non-fat free
white guilt trip rule of thumb.
performativity of onion bagels
along 125th,
acclimatizing yiddish politics at
upper west side dinner party trysts.
hair became becoming artifact
intact with tact,
outstretched pallid fingers
desiring to touch that “safe black.”
(don’t touch it, don’t touch it,
naw, naw)
birthing them same nervous poems
midnight oil turned to rap
(yeah we turned to rap),
gave way to conjunctive musings
of possibilities following that,
outrage made introspection
sans social media blast,
searching for the face to match
upon the Google gene pool map
(Google gene)
’til I returned home and saw that:
undermining overthinking all the time
you know it’s through
(you know it)
lenses bifocal bifurcated
yours who is signed true
(yo we signed true).
email game on fleek dependency
for decorum rule
(for decorum),
finna complete my sentence,
fragments they will have to do
(they will have to).
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6. |
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[Chorus]
bottle me in flasks made by kilns of blue skies,
alloyed metal mixed with ashes,
bridges burnt by eyes,
cyclops mule,
disparate tool,
the foil of aluminum demons
screaming macbook titanium
in darkest population’s organ,
break-beating sun
navy yard gun
shut down at a Cruz-in’ rhythm,
and then some
[Verse One]
jewelry tree
fruit strangely
with crystal clear flasks,
supremacist agribusiness cosigned
to a topaz contract,
subsidized inelastic,
supply rate of Herman Cain’s hood pass
purchased my Black Body Mass Index,
inverted the course crash.
101, tire blown, of the loud, with frequency thrown,
bent off the guilt-based miscegenation
in my family album,
as the middle of
Malcolm in the middle
of a window
holding a rifle and
talcum,
caked my ass white to
be privy to certain outcomes,
private mouthers got my soft curls on their tongues,
cotton lipped gin and tonic
as up-votes and like-thumbs,
a TED talk on Tumblr kids profiting from complexion,
degrees of ambivalence striking that mitochondria.
aggressively, ethnically ambiguous,
academically rigorous,
study me times,
limitless,
taxonomy your
perennial bucket list.
well notate it,
jot me down,
your contrived, prefixed pronouns,
speaking me into existence,
try to bifurcate my sound.
fuck it.
[Chorus]
[Verse Two]
(warming down the instrument,
pen, lit, matched fabrics;
faberge atlas cracked at the mast’s lattice)
work, work,
put in work.
peon,
but the word’s pay dirt
(crafted for abstract assholes
with preferences for the earth)
grounded underground sound camps
pitching tent fortresses
at the speed limit off-ramps,
acumen of a pseudo-gramps
granted plus a whopper malt flask
(blast, my plans in the trash)
assonance to smash together atom ants,
subscribed to subterranean travel agents,
no scope,
crouch to avoid radar and a plastic black acronym yoke
(the rope around the spokes
of a CEO dope
groped taut
only to keep him afloat)
Published quote:
that masked vigilante elopes post-print,
reflecting on his namesake,
the modest,
induced chagrin
(plume fountain pen, been circulating
them trade winds,
astrolabe’s that bookmark
’til the drift translates his end)
fuck it
[Chorus]
[Verse Three]
shitting in the bathroom
on behalf of bad cabbage,
savage asterisk list, average,
means multiply the corn,
flake, ranges, domain
of border equations
on the porcelain
flushing hydro-gentrification,
stain streak racing,
pant leg aviating,
(vegan gas station,
free trade diesel)
dial lather for a preview,
Sunbelt exit,
congressman in situ
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7. |
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hydrophile mutants,
may your warm sands
lead you to roads
and insurance claims
the desert took me in,
yeah I was swallowed by the landless
finna bury my chest in dunes
of unmarked desert,
street view to pass along,
under mine and over pleasure.
face was tanned leather
while the pretext was the weather,
the whirls of cyclones
disassembled me better.
lacking water, last straw,
stripped camel’s back and law,
sweated over cold steel
while hands gripped, raw.
sun beat down; I felt the sound.
distance to the spring felt profound.
collated my palms with the distance.
traded last leaf of hibiscus
for the passage out of camp,
under darkness,
cover, listless
ain’t trying life with them bandits,
for when she left that night, yeah I was stranded
my coffer vacated to be just a shell of what she had branded:
skin was raised,
sensitive to light,
burnt to the touch for a fortnight,
keloid kept the 20/20 hindsight,
skipped the seance in the canyon for what just might
headlong toward horizons,
the cracked glass,
perfect timing, read the hands.
my sweat swallowed the dust,
tallied captain’s log, and
I surveyed the land
This excess nightfall strikes me
as forces beyond my control
brandishing their egos:
I am not afraid,
never have I been so
felt a brooding presence and so I sped forth.
by the sky format, stars, I supposed north
the blowing, rising earth had consumed my torch,
but darkness had always been my sport
against the wind held on,
trudged through dunes to where I felt no map would chart from.
and at point I dug myself deep,
closed my eyes until I felt the heat.
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8. |
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post-mortem shucking,
pre-natal jiving,
lifetime networks got me in a place
of coinciding
my noose been lying,
résumé been hanging me from the wire,
the tap been dancing as the blood percentage
is for hire
the sale of death man
who was freighted out of context,
they took the staff of life
and hired faculty for progress
posthumous albeit,
board of directors gave them seals,
diversity initiatives
to reinvent wheels,
360 degrees for appeals,
carting them phrenological frills
and petting zoo arrangements for
negroid follicle party favors,
off-shore account deals
fortune 500 fetus,
casket inlaid with white jesus,
pyre sponsored by adidas,
undertaken with a treatise,
scribed for reasons to say needless,
estate executor regards my colored view of reason as—
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9. |
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freudian slip
on black ice,
in a state north,
hit the doctrine
through the pipe,
was offered opportunities presenting neutral elements,
preferred that corner taco bell
where spirits took residence
tape shut the attic
tape shut the attic
tape shut the attic
broke mind,
plastic
innocuous, free form
wisps of a bottle
in which
collective lips buss
hallowed breaths,
indents on flesh.
bouquet of tourniquets,
vase for coffee table novels,
warped folds,
glued spines,
watershed brothels,
free apostles,
discounted suppers,
liquidation coasters
between estranged brothers
tape shut the attic
tape shut the attic
tape shut the attic
broke mind,
fabric
psychology half-opened
on top shelf,
warning label liable to socialized health
aluminum, half-covered rye,
bisected pastrami melt,
background check
of clustered dishes,
sink, whole (body)
to the belt-
marked neck,
face
parades facades,
shades intersect when
head’s drooped in dialogue
tape shut the attic
tape shut the attic
tape shut the attic
woke mind,
static
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Rhys Langston Los Angeles, California
From smoked salmon to freshwater microphones.
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