Talib Kweli
"Down For The Count (Solo Version)"


[Talib talking]
Yeah play that guitar...
Kweli, Hi-Tek, Reflection Eternal
We count it down like...

1,2,3,4 - Stand up like a man get up off all fours like
1,2,3,4 - You ain't sayin' nothing I ain't heard before, c'mon!
1,2,3,4 - Still fighting this war, I ain't finished my tour
1,2,3,4 - Rockin' it for all of ya'll, c'mon!

I drop hard raps; building like cats with hard hats
Split your back like bullet impact from large gats
Stars chat with the bar-bats and get tipsy
Get car jacked from cats who hungry,
Get grizzly, get busy in they stomache where they hearts at
These are hard facts,
But I know the party's still with me when I start that..shit
Make everybody put up their right and rock that shit
When I see the mic, my thoughts travel at the speed of light
I get this on lock cuz my song's in the key of life
Like Stevie, blind as a fact, the rhyme on the track
Designed to attack, the mind of the wack
Or find it attract-ive to leave lines
on the black kid backwards in time
But they can't hold us back when we shine
Yo we get the people charged like African elephants
to run on the colonists and tear down they settlements

1,2,3,4 - Stay down for the count, you don't want no more
1,2,3,4 - Get respect when I walk in the door, all of y'all say
1,2,3,4 - Kweli and Hi-Tek, we rock shore to shore
1,2,3,4 - Lemme tell you who I do this for...

...I do this for the cats around my way
And the babies on the way
Y'all can wake up tomorrow but its on today
I feel stronger than a song can say
I'm born ready to grow heavy
Ban niggas from the game like strawberry
I'm all ready in activism
I attack comission, my baptism through fire
Muthafuckas is lackin' vision
I ain't talkin' about wailin' and goin' back to prison
Niggas try to survive- gotta get back to livin'
The track of rhthym attract pigeons to dance floors
The jewel in the rhyme give 'em somethin to stand for
Hands all up in the sky- for the eternalist
As soon as we rolled up, y'all niggas burnin' this
We politic in the street while we puff 'dro
Election in the news but we don't give a fuck though
Too much go on from dask to dawn with your krylon in vestibules
And cops arrestin' you with the guns drawn

1,2,3,4 - Stay down for the count, you don't want no more
1,2,3,4 - Don't need your authority, I follow God's law
1,2,3,4 - All my niggas posted up outside the corner store, say
1,2,3,4 - But a shot in the sky like you in the dance floor, like...

BUCK, BUCK, BUCK, BUCK
That's what I'm talkin' about
Crowd control when I walk in the house
Swine MCs talk like they got pork in they mouth, c'mon
I keep 'em runnin' like slaves to the north from the south
Flushed these cats out, the whole system like D-Blocks
Got the lava flow Hi-Tek drop heat rocks (WHOOO!)
Since I used to shop at weed spots and make demos at beat box
We've been rockin' and droppin' to make the streets hot
The beats got more heads noddin' than the corner in Baltimore Maryland
Soon as the needle drops you get a rush like herion
Fiendin' like junkie addicted to pain
Who get closer to God when he takes the Lord's name in vain
Niggas callin' my name, I don't deal with the haters
Treat MCs like trees and smoke nothing but the greatest
Wrote nothin' but your favorite shit- showin' you the way to spit,
Wait a bit, listen for the count, then say the shit

1,2,3,4 - Stay down for the count, you don't want no more
1,2,3,4 - I'm the illest MC you ever heard before
1,2,3,4 - Get up off the wall, everybody on the floor say...
say, say, say, say
1,2,3,4 - We appreciate the love that we get from ya'll, PEACE