My Wooden Tongue (Things I Remember)

I remember living in a one-room efficiency
Penning Feels Like Summer like it was yesterday
I remember recording 13 Daze only 10 years later
To have to give it away
I remember things like open mics, turntables
Beatbox, b-boys, b-girls
Emcees, SPs - 1200s, desk-drumming
Rapping just like DJ Run and them
Sampling beats with peeps back then I called my friends
Going to the studio just to hear your man and them
And jam with them
Talking about whose flow's the tightest
All nights it's just some fellas and a microphone
My man gets a call and soon we'll be headed home
Back then you'd get a beep
Didn't have a mobile phone
But nowadays it seems a necessity
In a life full of things that's stressing me
Lord, I hope they understand this

One thought, one word, one vision, one cause
Just to make a mark
Just to do your part
One person, one smile, one heart, one life
Just to light a spark
Just a work of art
One world, one goal, one dream, one love
Just to change my life
Just to make it right
If any man be moved then I have nothing left to prove

Listen, I remember Chuck D., BDP
Marvin Gaye and the Gap Band
When you wanted to fight you'd knock the dirt from his hand
Not yet a man, but you knew the code of the streets
Before small white rocks and A.I.D.S. knocked us from our feet
Funny thing is when we sing things ain't improved that much
We think it's better 'cause they let us drink from studded cups
But now what's up
You got rich when you started slangin' dope
But you ain't built us a supermarket
Seems when I toss my words get lost
Lost of the mind of young men
Who can't yet fathom the fight we must have had way back then
When action was education and education was the key
To be that "Talented 10th"/ To show that you had the strength
To show that you'd go the length and contribute to the greater good
It all got fucked up when rap went to Hollywood
It ain't all good so please stop saying that
I said and I mean "Bring that ol' thing back"

One thought, one word, one vision, one cause
Just to make a mark
Just to do your part
One person, one smile, one heart, one life
Just to light a spark
Just a work of art
One world, one goal, one dream, one love
Just to change my life
Just to make it right
If any man be moved then I have nothing left to prove

And through the village he sang walking
A wondrous sound he made
And to the ears of the others talking
Noise was all they heard
But one child would hear the sounds whose heart then filled with joy
A sense of purpose was born
The calling to love was heeded
And then he rest

One thought, one word, one vision, one cause
Just to make a mark
Just to do your part
One person, one smile, one heart, one life
Just to light a spark
Just a work of art
One world, one goal, one dream, one love
Just to change my life
Just to make it right
If any man be moved then I have nothing left to prove