Dead Money - Armand Hammer

They can’t bounce on that Marx and Engels

Get back ounce smooth Charles Rangel striking his bangles

Pockets got that Bobby Jindal jangle

Still say «I don’t got it» to Mr. Wendal

Raise the shirt colostomy bag strapped

That’ll get you a dollar where I live at

Bush weed and a feeling, I’m bringing New York back

Cardboard box, laid flat, spinning on his back

Show time, show time!

Street’s a yoga mat

Warrior pose at shows, free artisanal Negro flows, you won’t see up the street

Back stage roasting leeks, serving quiche lorraine

Nod politely to sample based beats peaked game

Nigerian chamber commerce wore it on the mantle piece

Were past the kill but can’t reach

Won’t move, don’t care

Slow week, old news, new scares, cold feet, hot shoe electric chair hair

Seaworthy or not, too late to stop, too far to turn back, too close to crack

glass water

Seaworthy or not, too late to stop, too far to turn back, too close to crack

glass water

Seaworthy or not, too late to stop, too far to turn back, too close to crack

glass water

Open swim, circling fins, drawer full of grenade pins

Grin like the lightskinned of rich tan white men

The lost Pouncey Twin, uh- triplet

Show up at your baby mother’s like hold this biscuit

Yup

He ain’t about shit, the roach clip hiss

Hawk, spit, kung-fu grip, black Farah Fawcett

Even beat she was gorgeous as she pass mother’s on porches

Wolf whistles on corners

Mangosuthu Buthelezi blow smoke in Mandela’s face like «fuck you, pay me»

Rap hands reiki, dash cam grainy, enter sandman

I did that Hammer dance looking for a wire but it was happenstance

Shoulders shrug, cold as studio thug over dubs

They found a piece in some shrubs

Microscopic droplets of blood

If God made the world, Motherfucker was wearing gloves

Seaworthy or not, too late to stop, too far to turn back, too close to crack

glass water

Seaworthy or not, too late to stop, too far to turn back, too close to crack

glass water

One man’s revolution is another man’s rhetoric

And my semi-slurred syntax isn’t a clear indicator of my intelligence

Yours either.

Radiant child, furious style, synthesize a divinity sound

Improvise my eyes reflect

Never face like Herman Blount, then heavy foliage

Joyful noise, blacksmiths in the brightest void

Built to destroy, not self-destruct

There’s a time and place to not give a fuck

But right now seems so critical

I wanna see everyone who’s been made invisible

Murmured voices leaving my ad-libs

In a house where sadness and wrath live

No room for rent, money came, money went

Her honeyed gaze cut like a dagger

Through open flesh at the heart of the matter

She put me on game but didn’t have to

I came like thunderclap followed by uncontrollable laughter

Life’s ill, spin the wheel, big buck, no whammy, t-shirt sam

My VANs still sandy me somewhere far from home

When you look up night sky

Like «is this the same one I know back in NY?»

Wise as a serpent, no compromising these verses

Work song, honest toil as the day is long

Word to my mommy, to the question «why?»

It’s at the end of a belt she replied

You’ll get that when you get it

I don’t move if I don’t feel it in my spirit

A lyric ain’t a lyric til I spit it