Doomtree

by Doomtree

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Timofei Gerber
“Just as good as No Kings, powerful Hip Hop with great lyrics, yet my favourite remains Last Call, the melancholic one.”
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about

Features work from the entire Doomtree collective.

The first "official" record by the entire crew. By "official" we mean that this is what we mean—and have meant all along. After years of burying songs in the back yard or putting out False Hopeses that we could brush off as experiments, this is pretty much exactly what we've been trying to do. And we're owning up to it, son. Hate on it. Love on it. We certainly do both, and couldn't be more excited for you to feel feelings with and all over us. Yikes.

Seriously, this album has something you'll like on it. If it doesn't then you have no business calling yourself a fan of hip hop or popular music in general. Speaking of which, do you call yourself a fan of music often? In public? Like "I am a fan of music, and I do not care for this"? That's not all that cool, dude. Keep that shit to yourself.

credits

released 29 July 2008
Produced by MK Larada
Co-produced by Lazerbeak
Cocoa produced by Doomtree
Mastered by Bruce Templeton & Dave Gardner at Magneto Mastering
I Self Devine appears courtesy of Rhymesayers Entertainment
Crescent Moon appears courtesy of Kill the Vultures
Illustration, photography, layout & design by MK Larada
Additional illustration by Cecil Otter
Additional photography by Kevin Knight, awesome friends, & Chuck E. Cheese

tags

tags: hip hop hip-hop/rap indie rap doomtree Minneapolis

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about

Doomtree is a collective of seven friends who live in Minneapolis and make music together. They’ve earned acclaim for genre- defying recordings, explosive live performances, and their fierce loyalty to one another. Members include P.O.S, Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Lazerbeak, and Paper Tiger. The DIY outfit has built an international fanbase one city, one show, and one song at a time. ... more

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Track Name: Drumsticks
Cecil: We work the mics and rehearse the lines that life furthers / and curse the vines that you might have heard your rumors from / like it’s me verse a vice or vice versa / then I returned to the life that christ nurtured / come come now / You’re feet first in ice water / we’re feet first in fire / we reversed the modern and earned the checks / from the check one-two’s / the three-four-fives / and the right to watch the sun on the eastern seaboard rise.

Mictlan: Pack up the bags, eat / sleep for a second / then it’s back in the van / listen to beats for the record / Feel like it’s all that I ever knew / convenient procedure / all for the revenue / leave at my leisure / So coming soon to a college town near you / DTR here we are / holla atcha rap group / Incorporated so of course it’s hated / Write it, record it, order it, re-order it the more we make it.

Dessa: This is not a promise it’s a threat / the cigarette to your balloon / cue the gossip roll the tape I rock the room / say it’s a nose job / as in she got it cause she knows somebody / I’m paying dues in red blood and borrowed money / Son me if you can / lemme see your grand plan / a low-budget production bandada glamour on a handcam / Here let me sign your poster strike a poser / sleeping in my armour while you’re sleeping on your holster.

P.O.S: It goes get money waste / rather take money from a thing we need to a thing we see / Jake honey nothing’s free True indeed / open the seam / scribble the bleed / agitate seed to leaves / conceive Doomtree / Blood brothers / close shutters / they don’t need to see this beast / Prose sputters free / those other Joes peddle cheap / and shody work’ll bruise your body purple / Some folk’ll never lose a toe, but then again some folk’ll.

Sims: You say that hell is human / I say you break it you buy it and make the shell-toes move in on self-improvement quicker than you could sell the movement / Make the circuits mash across this circus act / two-thousand-something moving circa that / turn of the screwdriver / ghostwriter for hire / tie up the wires / I am the fire supplier of inspired rap / burn the empire back / it’s Doomtree live through the wiretap.
Track Name: Gander Back
Mictlan: Hardliner (streak), crack the felt-tip / Clock-winder (tweak), patch the velvet / Cap-gun Air-Soft electric / Eat the face off a centipede / I’ll Metroid your section / A bitter cold heart from a bit of slow start / Pivot on a shitter shitting out a Wonka Gold Card / Inka-drinka bottle of Aquanet / Hock a loogie at lookie-lous / And you? Jockin’ it.

P.O.S: Promise of stressin’ out / Them long days could snap / then split wrists with style like slap braclets / Stack cases
not murder raps but cases / fulla MPC’s, guitars, basses / drum machines, pedals, and crap to murder rap / Yeah, I don’t take a sec to breath I ain’t heard of that / I’m just here to press though / continue to rep Doom / and splinter mess from blow up the spot to wreck rooms.

Sims: Sims hopping in / mid-continent occupant / cold spot non-stopping it / from the stock locked old cops cocking it / who works for who is so obvious / So bend the barrel back / send the Herald that / Nothing but news for the numb with the thumb on snooze for the young / booze for the rest just to keep on pressing / You’re looking fresh but who you impressing?

Hook: Relax, ease back, breathe fast, read maps, breeze past speed traps / We don’t want that / We don’t take that / We don’t need that / save that act / You play the part, we play the blade / We scrape your heart / We came to take the mark.

Sims: And it seems that the heart is the heart of the problem / You want the view from the roof / don’t want to build from the bottom / Truth is we got ‘em / brick by brick over fist with or without ‘em / The road is slick but I steer through / push the pedal with the red-and-blues spinning in the rearview / Top Ramen jar-sipper, bar-ripper / I dig to build, they dig to fill the sifter. P.O.S: We’ll prolly never grow up into a Cosby sweater / Hobby better / yet ever quit / well prolly never / This is not a switch This is in my blood simple as spit / Never rich, never stressed, never poor, never sick / when’s that? / Prolly never / I’ll stick to simple shit / like the beat never left I’ma walk with a little bit of rhythm in my step.

Mictlan: We pocket the Polly, sully, then ollie the ox / rocket the broccoli probably obvi’, we didn’t poli’ the cost / Poppin’ off the collar? / Chilled heat / Call me Sake Bomb / Holla for hobby, all for the offer, now talk to me calm / The Boom-Diggi-Doom / the groove’s in me so move / If you with me then prove / break bread fam / Who emptied the room? / We brought plenty to move / We were too heavy for wombs and cracked diaphragms.

Hook

P.O.S: From the frost-bit center of America’s map / a couple cats tryna get a couple hands to clap / Tryna eat, tryna live a little /
Gander back / From the frost-bit center of America’s map / a couple cats tryna shake a little stress with rap / but hold up / We don’t breathe enough / Tryna beat these days but they’re creeping up.
Track Name: The Wren
Dessa: I’ve got this music in my head / I’ve got this hole in my chest / I’ve got this bird in my hand that looks like it’s been crushed to death / But it’s a player’s game / ante up and pick your token / keep one beneath your tongue for when your best gets broken / I swallowed my tongue / I bided my time tryna get just this one thing right / by the book but the hook descends I’m shook / God knows I’ll always bite / Cause part of the fun is the road rash / feeling the gravel go past / and I don’t care what they say / there’s no such thing as a clean break.

Sims: You’re too smart to say what you think and I’m too real not to say what I feel / But when it starts to sink I grab the wheel I keep on steering for you.
Re-route the end if I could / She wants revenge and wants good / she wants my head up on wood / lop it off the
chopping block / Should’ve stopped and watched them red flags coming / now the red legs are running / all these heavy drops to the the floor / I’m locking the door / then that’s it / Don’t let her in / old veteran hello though / the l-o-vogue in bold lettering then I’m back in her bed again / latched to her skeleton / old friend relax and just settle in / enjoy that bad medicine / Push it to the limits / good beginnings are the toughest ones to finish.

Dessa: Well I found your pale-faced blue-lipped god / beneath the kitchen table / starving and eating paper / He told me what you wrote and what you’d asked / Love nothing can live on prayers like that.
It’s not vengeance / it’s not bloodlust / justice is just a rule of law / so hold down the magician / the beautiful assistant should get her turn with the saw.

Sims: Percocet, gauze / she’s working the claws / only purpose to draw more bad blood / That’s a sad war love / You know that though / you know those chains were self-imposed / Your words must sting your molars / sing it slower cursing while your world is sinking lower.

Dessa: Rewind and watch it go backwards / from last lines to first words / The flash goes back in the camera / the flask back in the handbag / Don’t ask how after one phone call / he hit two lovebirds with only one stone wall.

Sims: Valentine’s day at the dead letter office / looking for my girl like Yellow Ledbetter 2-14 / She said she left to find the meaning of life / whatever that means / I wonder where she’s sleeping tonight.
Track Name: Gameshow Host
Hook: We’re playing ghosts in the graveyard / float / frozen in eight bars / choke / now you’re hoping to make ours / cry for you / If i were you / I wouldn’t hope / We’re playing ghosts in the graveyard / hide / frozen in eight bars / die / now you’re hoping to make ours / hope for you / If I were you / I wouldn’t try.

Mictlan: I splinter these wood teeth on a silver tongue / Sing hymns to sinners and sit in when the dinner’s done / Dirt on the collar / butcher / blood on the cuffs / My good foot’s in a grave / the other one’s a leg-up / No lady o’ luck / I ain’t stuck in her “lap of luxury” / No fast tracks or slow ones either / detached from suffering / The mask is under me like the past is under me / My own conscience will the first and last thing to fuck with me / The Boy met the Man and the ways of the World ain’t it a peach? / Nah, dig deep, it’s a pearl / Sold on solitude like my soul is solid gold / We told them soldiers to hold / but never showed ‘em a common goal / Don’t follow robots in a suit and tie / and don’t trust robots on a soapbox with a “SHOOT ME” sign / I see they drew the line / bang bang / I walk it like Cash and all you do is divide.

Sims: So I see you’ve got your war paint / all suited up / shoot ‘em up / You drill it until the core breaks / chew ‘em up, use it up, then you move the rub / So leave ‘em like the people in your life / the Desert Eagle is your life / Your pride drives drove you to nowhere / now you’re stuck, feathers ruffled in the cold air / Another scuffle / bad company / can’t cut it clean
so use the hollow tips / pass the poison and swallow it with glass / followed with a laugh for all the holograms that passed as real / Now all that solid land has got a plastic feel / so take another drag of the smoking gun and bolt / Your story’s fabricated though you spoke it under oath / gameshow host.

Hook

Cecil: Twenty-five / medium well-rounded with a working man’s halo / I served five years in the circus / and I’m about to land pay-roll / But some swear I’m hell-bound / along with the serpent and the rainbow / but I ain’t working for the devil / or searching for no angel / I’m working all the angles in this book of human languages / I let the world I know graze the lips of that palm reader / She’s calling me the crying uncle / saying I’m so blind that I’d cuddle / with a serial time-killer who leaves her victims with a sign of struggle / I might get shuffled in to that haunted house of cards / but I’ll just sit there / playing with the queen of hearts / It’s no different than being in a crowded bar / saying “you play the wounded fish, and I’ll be the shark” alligator / half man / getting back to nature with an eight-track Tascam / Task at hand / I mean flask-in-hand / leaving one set of tracks in the sand / and no tracks in my arms.

Hook
Track Name: Dots & Dashes
Dessa: I’m on a vision quest at the Best Western / the best-dressed wreck in the hotel lounge / found out that message in the bottle’s the booze / that my braid is a fuse / but I’ve get shit left to do so / So keep waiting / So just be patient / I’m not sure when or how or from whom / but I got this funny feeling I’m in for big news / Took a walk to cool off to come down to collect clues / Sky rests on the overpass / cracks the foundation / passersby’s faces / they don’t look like mine to me / though I’ve been told that we’re related / that we’ve got the same fear of death / the same basic debts / that we’re branded with a secret in a language we can’t read / on the courting spirals of a coupled double helix.
Panic in a phone booth / love in a parked car / broken bottles like corpses of the fallen stars / and valets are the only ones that in modern America / remember how to run.

Hook: It goes Delta / Epsilon / Sigma Sigma Alpha / Is there anyone there?

Dessa: Distress message comin from the city kids / I read it in the smoke signals from their filtered cigarettes / it’s all boredom
and bitterness at the Ritalin pill that does a legitimate business makin kids keep still.

P.O.S: But still ain’t motionless / Test the restless hands for shakes / and see the flutter when the patience breaks / I keep time Keep my step with the crickets in 4/4 and gangster lean / sirens in 3 / the trouble speaks beats.

Dessa: The double dutch sounds a bit like dots and dashes / I sit for a minute tryna understand the pattern / But that’s not Morse code man / Y’all just double-handed.

P.O.S: Trouble landin’ tricks so roll / fuck it / whatever gets your blood up / Rip that sidewalk sounding like a click track cut up Wind speaks to wall makes the frame creek / Ghost in the house wakes the baby / Math.

Hook

P.O.S: Never better / Thick skin, thin sweater / spinnin’ grins at a dirt whistle wetter / Flirt / this’ll get her / hurt / this’ll sever
worth / stop pop lock the fuck out / Duck ain’t got a buck / like the luck’s out (dang) / Who makes a living giving plasma? Nickle-thin kids spilling smoke up out the asthma / Anyway who paves the way / when you can save your slave / and make a dollar out your veins / He times it by the weeks / Patterns for the sheep / sleepwalking to the beat / Keep talking to the loose leaf / Silence to the creeps / violence from the beef / teach tryna find a new leaf / Science of time defined by / climb up and recline / Speech / Fine / whatever / Ain’t nothing but a rumble in that belly / but your starving’s what you’ll tell her / Me? / Oh I’ll be on the corner eating nothing a la mode / staring at the stoplights trying to break the code.
Love in a phone booth / panic in a parked car / static in a signal / scars a communique / All day / in every witch with sitcom wit / handle the sitch hit the switch / It goes.

Hook
Track Name: Game Over (Go Big Or Go Home Boy)
Mike Mictlan: Welcome to the future! / Rap won’t save you! / Can you hear that? / RAP WON’T SAVE YOU! / You want the truth? / You can’t handle the truth / You want Phantom sun-roofs, Armadale 80 proof / From shake to shook to shuck / from cake to cook to cluck No hustling backwards / that’s the labor of luck / Gander back / holla front / Fuck a Mack of the Month / Where the Zag? / Roll the blunt and chill the fuck out (chill) / But you better / chunk ‘em up doggy / sweep the leg Johnny / what it do whoady? / Hit ‘em up homey / Get ‘em up off me / Walk away talking shit and acting cocky / He ain’t gon’ harm me / Bob Marley / better off kicking rocks with his army / Wet ‘em up OG / simmer down Rudy / settle back mommy / saddleback booty / I’m a Dogtown b-boy / low on the see-saw / from the shore to the sea floor / De la Doom (huh?) / from the Tree (oh!) / oak medallions (what?) / No bling. Youwentthewrongway/downaoneway/Onewayout/onewaytowin/Gobigorgohomeboy/Goallin/Ahhhyeahget ‘em riled up / Game over / Game over.
It’s all this coke, it’s all that liq / it’s all the fame / It’s all been done, it’s all been fixed / it’s all the same / I got no time for games, lames or dames. / Time.
Time for some rearrangements / Take the Independent Railroad / we gonna get ‘em out the slave whips / til they’re wireless and chainless / Are those the Faces of Death / or just stages of being famous? / It’s the monotone, monosyllabic mono-stereo solid zone cold static / Malachi York looper / Stuck on Lucifer Big Boss Koopa/ Super Downloader Bros. down low / Until the suture opens / choke on hookah / turn the cheek / and make a nuclear war head / arm-legga-legga-arm-head-lock / suicide smart bomb I say my name “Mictlan” like an “X” in Islam.
I got no time for games, lames, or dames.
It’s all this coke, it’s all that liq / it’s all the fame / It’s all been done, it’s all been fixed / it’s all the same / I got no time for games, lames or dames. Youwentthewrongway/downaoneway/Onewayout/onewaytowin/Gobigorgohomeboy/Goallin/Ahhhyeahget ‘em riled up / Game over / Welcome to the future!
And if you’re sick of the world / well I’m sick of the wording / and I could be sick of it all / but I’m just sick from the earling / If you don’t stick to wall / you better stick ‘em up early / If that ain’t stickin’ at all / then just stick up the birdie / like hush...
It’s all this coke, it’s all that liq / it’s all the fame / It’s all been done, it’s all been fixed / it’s all the same / I got no time for games, lames or dames.
Rap Music.
Track Name: Last Call
Dessa: Just another story of the CC / trying hard to drown on dry land / That way they say is easy / but when day breaks she’ll wake on the sand again.
Like a fish out of water that’s pumping music through her gills / like a fish out of water.
There’s blood in the water / money on the table / the poolsharks take the bait / hook line / sinks her eight ball on the break.

Cecil: She’s got that porcelain drunk doll face / and a taste for the girls / just want a cup of confidence kept confidential / so remember to keep ‘em coming / Up and up she’s rushing orders in order to crush the torture that weighs her down / She’s cut off then off she goes to cut the corners / boy she’s taken now / Loud with lust and trust issues / but she’s bound to bust into a crush with you / Must have been through a thousand loves that loved to move / and loved to move alone / She loved the story when it started / but the ocean was the author.

Both: And the end came as a cold shock / to a pocket full of rocks / to a mouth full of water.

Dessa: She feel asleep with a pen in her hair / woke with ink in the sheets / fell asleep with a name in her mouth / woke with
an ache in her teeth / both soles of her feet still wet / third time this week she’s dreamt of a drowning death / A drowning death She was baptized in bourbon / she would capsize for certain / Took a pull off the bottle / wrote a note in her careful cursive and let go / of a love letter written in ash and broken English

Cecil: It’s better to let her message alone.

Dessa: They say everything floats but it don’t / bottle broke and we sink like stones.

Cecil: Angel fallen starboard into the drink / last call comes quicker than she thinks.

Dessa: The water weighted her wings / feathers like anchors and she / let go of a ghost and a burden / they float so close to the surface / she knows, knows...

Cecil: better than betting that heaven is sending a life boat now

Dessa: There’s no use charting courses / the current forces where the small ships go / and it’s always the same fortune pulling petals off the compass rose.

Cecil: She was cut off, off the cuff / cut down, down enough / couldn’t amount to much / wasn’t aloud to love. Both: The water weighted her wings / fathoms pass by in a blink.

Dessa: Like a fish out of water / that’s pumping music through her gills.

Both: Don’t touch or you’ll ruin the reef. / Catch just what you’re willing to keep.
Track Name: Accident
Sims: I read the New York times in these LA times / Doomtree fly them pirate flags high, hang ‘em dry / Ride with them rough bass lines while you’re trying to keep up with the cut brake lines / Kill the king leave the crown / spill the drinks on the ground Can’t you see the flames feeding off your sleeping town? / This city is oblivious / plugged in punch drunk / everything electric and hideous / Hollywood babies baby built on mass diversion / slash and burn the self-worth / children visit plastic surgeons / Live bait or so the signs states / we went from primates to inmates of the mind-state / But I sense a set-up through the bent antennae settling / federally approved amphetamines Ephedra peddling / Who works the levers and who dances for metal rings? / Which one working your strings? / How does that pendulum swing? / The condition of things fall apart / a call to arms / protect your neck / pull your head out of that shopping cart / My name is Sims I push the pins in your leather heart / pull the thread and stitch together all your severed parts

Hook: This is the life / this is the free nobody else gets / Scared that this is the life that you be left without / left behind / pressed aside / This mess was left it’s / lockdown 48 states wide / Just try / I don’t laugh cause I’m past the fear / I hassle masses that trade they rights for a life they hold dear / And this is real right here / And I will laugh in the face of anybody who wastes they one time and place / right here right now / There’s gonna be an accident.

P.O.S: When you feed the hungry guns / and knowledge of our funds / and suck up whatever runs / and power leaves ‘em with none / they pick up when you were done / with knowledge of our guns / and towers rumble to crumbs / You think that was an acci- dent? / And when your people seem shook / as you freely cook up the books / make ‘em greedy for second looks / stay deceiving and leave ‘em took / No retrieving ‘em off the hook / Leave ‘em bleeding on foreign soot / Keep ‘em reading whatever meaningless media you can rook / Well / there’s gonna be an accident / for the practicing passionate / Trap has been latched / kids are in it Menace and villains / The cynics don’t do nothing but climb up in it and whine / do they time / ready and chillin’

Hook
Track Name: Sadie Hawkins
Dessa: Oye cierra la puerta / la luche esta afuera / Puede esperar una noche mas / Baila antes de que te vas / Vale baila antes de que te vas.
Let’s douse the fire with our sweat / don’t get tired on me yet / you can rest when you’re dead / all hands to the deck / let’s make this send off go correct / Toast to the end of the world / ‘sposed to be soon now for sure / So kiss the bottle spin the girl / I forgot but reconfirm that life can be fine if you make sacred / maybe it’s a sermon a prayer / a folded note beneath my chair / but ready to go? / Never gonna know from over there / I’m sick of the sound of my voice / kickin around in this noise one of the boys says / I don’t know what you got but baby it looks bad / I don’t know what you got / but baby it looks bad Hook: If there’s a damsel in this dress / she’s too far gone to save / out of time / And it don’t get better baby / you can’t talk me down from this decline / you haven’t got a chance / But you can ask me to dance / you could ask me to dance
ask me to, ask me to dance / You could ask me to dance.
I need a drink a doctor a DJ / a shrink a locksmith a replay / to clean it up / seven second delay / or I’ll never get any radio play / Like pass on the right in a shiftstick / pass you a mic fulla lipstick / flash you a smile before I rip shit / this business’ll kill us / hope you’ve got other interests / Hold hands til the ship goes down / slow dance til the band gets drown / romance had it in the past / but I couldn’t make it last / so you best check lost and found / I’ve been here before / I know where it goes it goes down / So lost my mind my faith / found my voice my way / lost some friends some fights / found that that’s alright cause a little bit of melancholy / never really did hurt anybody / Even if it is a sickness / I’m oddly convinced at least it’s honest / When life gets so tragicomic / a mattress with no sheets on it / the fact is you have it / the task is to want it
I’ve been here before / I don’t know what you’ve got / I know where it goes / it goes down.

Hook
Track Name: Twentyfourseven
We be / all in the struggle, man / Grind hard / twentyfourseven, man / Need more leveraging / Down for whatever, fam.

I Self Devine
Finely diced in the cut chopped up / Stir fried in the wok like mock duck / “Whateva whateva” we say in the
mornin’ cause whatever gon’ pop without warnin’ / Peace to myself cause I need help / Hold a piece to the rich cause I need wealth / Blue collar shit / a few dollars spent / Violent product of my environment / Young G’s fiends to blow trees / Young teens with nails and hair weaves / Only build with the leaders / Check individuals hard without heaters / I believe in me freedom or death what I said to police / I’m the true and living ruler kicking jewels in the kitchen / I’m too driven.

Hook

Sims
Waking up to the head buzzing / blood pumping / No time for using the snooze / flip on the news / nah fuck it unplug it
Time to view something new / something to loosen the screws / no time for that / got to keep the mind intact / 40 hours of the spinal tap just to keep the spot I’m at / but that’s just how is goes / so the motto not just another spoke with lottery hopes Working man, dirty hands, sturdy plan / crush it through the hustle / trudge / I‘m a slow moving train / y’all just stutter-step don’t use your brain / I pass another test / I lend another hand while the rest would let ‘em fall like the other man / I take the upper hand / I’m calling up my fam / We’re taking over on the other hand / snap that rubber band / 1982 to a hundred grand.

Hook

Mictlan
It was a map and a hash pipe / a half-lit matchstick / One hand on a gas pump / we blazed til we passed out / The Blues and a Mag-Lite / a half-way highway patrolee / “Two hands on the dashboard slowly!” / I’m used to the downright no-good outlook / A few good men look out for the bad bunch / If only looks could kill / “Look ma’ no bag lunch / just a body bag and a magnum” / “Have Fun!” / They lash out and you whip your lashes / Another day, another kid, another campus / another human-interest story for the masses / cause to the rest of them it’s just subhuman madness / Take a deep breath The Struggle is indefinite / Take another breath / Our freedom is so irrelevant / but we don’t ever forget / that we won’t ever regret / that we all in it / We live, we die, we rise, because...

Hook
Track Name: Let Me Tell You, Baby
Hook: It’s been a long time coming / Lock stock / coming for the livestock / Running for their lives.
It’s been a long time coming / Lock stock / coming for the livestock / Running for their lives.
It’s been a long time / It’s been a long time / It’s been a long time coming.
It’s been a long time coming / Lock stock / coming for the livestock / Running for their lives, walk.
Metal to metal / the medals of honor pierce his chest / Kettle to kettle man / his heart is black and bleeds for the death / To all the rebels living off the laws that fear suggests / he appears a mess / but there’s a message he’s decoding / And he’s the envy of the unknowing / but all-willing to picture it all perfect / He talks into this mic with nothing in mind / the image is all worth it / No worship in his blood / no curses worth believing in / He’s up and he’s leaving a love for reason and / he’s making his rounds / He pounds his chest and hits the streets / He’s bad to the bone with bad bones / but won’t admit defeat / Visits the meek who inherently speak / from a well-oiled machine of a heart that won’t back off / Comes from a back-log of lost and tough luck / he’s completely punch drunk / but too exhausted to touch love, but / it’s kept tucked away with a new fade-proof innocence / that’s under-age and over-paid-attention-to / And since he’s destined to live without a destiny to rest into / he’ll just search for recipes from entries to exit-wounds / Sets the moonshine down and writes another victim’s tune / then washes the blood from his hands with drinks until his fingers prune.

Hook

He never had faith in god / only trusts the custody he seeks / and he’d just love to have you judge him by the company he keeps The company of wolves / customized and cunning / up, up and running “wild in the streets, running, running” / He’s cutting it close / He’s luxury class / He’s up in the smoke and ash of habits that had broke him fast / He’s crass, so don’t cross him / He’s wild in his sorrow / but he manages his emotions and lights another Marlboro like...

It’s been a long time coming
Track Name: Down The Line
Hook1:On and on and on down the line / you got ‘em strung on a vine but you’re living a lie / I said on and on and on down the line / you got ‘em strung on a vine but you’re living a lie.
Still I’m

Sims: Looking for a sign of a pulse / Sit back until the bridges collapse and watch ‘em play fault / They plot it all out / get the story holding water but forgot about the bottom dropping out / So don’t come running ‘round here when your sky falls / What goes round comes back round / one two three / Every day same waltz

Mictlan: One two / and if that soft shoe fits dance til the stage falls / With your lies in the background / truth in the forefront Two-step to the safe house / sweat when the storm comes / But we don’t do that step no more / God bless the dead and arrested war.

Hook 2: You sowed it so it fits you / And you know how low it get’s you / But you sowed it so it fits you / No matter what you do / it comes back to you.

Mictlan: And you know Bamf is ready / Yeah, that’s a given / The bastard’s in me / City slicker slip through the cracks of your city / I won’t sell my dreams / I keep the livestock fed / Clip the leaves before they turn and burn the field when the crop’s dead Plant feet / chop heads / to the vocal cord / You are not the tale-teller / this is not folklore / The Shape of Rap to Come resembles an open door / We’re wondering what the rest of the country had closed for.

Sims: I say that to say this / You can act innocent / fill your glass to the brim / with your back to the wind / but sooner or later its going to catch up / It all adds up / breaks the scales / you don’t match up / Parasite-like feeding off the others / then fighting for your life to keep what you stole / You hold yourself as the self-keystone, huh? / It’s a one-way road / Everybody pays what they owe.

Hook 2, and then what the hell, Hook 1
Track Name: Kid Gloves
Mictlan: I don’t fight just to bleed / I won’t / I wear my stripes on my sleeve and keep my heart where it’s supposed to be / I know my enemy / Me / Only let my friends close to me / Cleared my head / awoke myself from your broken dream.

Dessa: It gets hard doesn’t it / like love and war is redundant / both demand strong hands strong stomachs / I rock brass knuckles over my kid gloves / like you wake up with busted teeth but know you felt real love.

Hook: You felt real / you felt real love.

Mictlan: She’s got that swagger now / dagger in the back / Flashdance / and frantic answers to questions of fast cash / The
face of an angel with the eyes of an alcoholic / Lookin’ for love but always drunk when it’s callin’ / Got that last call chasing a dream weaver and that’s all / Those lips look like love to lip readers / but up close it’s the worlds deadliest venom / Girl playing woman swimming through men / liquored up to the linen / Daddy’s little under-ager, undercover agent / aging under the covers of a hundred lovers’ faces / but let’s face it / That make-up is wasting her beauty that’s basic / Filling a void, but evasive and vacant / I tried to avoid / but she stays patiently naked / crying wolf to this pagan / until her Maybeline faded into her necklace and bracelet / It made her painless and jaded / I hated to chase her / hated it more when it came to dating / I rock glass fronts over my bare teeth / like you wake up with broken dreams but no you felt real love.

Hook

Dessa: Babe it’s work to whistle / if it’s love it’s labor / I’m the first to issue an admission of my bad behavior / I’m a mouthy
little drunk / and I’m a tyrant when I’m angry / clumsy with company / careful with family / Break bones before promises throw stone before towels / I get nervous at parties but I’m like bedrock at hospitals / So fuck my birthstone / what’s my blood type? / Let’s do this thing with a little bold nerve and a little foresight / ‘course I expect the shit to get rough cause it always does in life and love / Best you can do is try to find other survivors / take flight or get fried to wire / they light the briar but
I got your back when you’re feet to the fire love.
Both: Real recognize real like counterfeits rejected / Come correct or kindly leave the table now / Fold your hands but your pocket’s not protected / It takes one to know one and two to double down.
My blood is thicker than liquor / Your skin is thinner than money / I’ve seen a ghost in every picture you’ve taken / This love is hidden in scripture/ My pen is splintered and bloody / I hear a ghost in every record I’m making.
Track Name: Liver Let Die
Hook: We don’t even talk no more / Never seemed to really anyway / Just repeated single-serving interactions / Best wishes on your way / Can you see how we speak right through each other?

P.O.S: This scene is scenic but I’ve seen it / These scenester cats seem pleased to see me / dreamy eyes through Beam / so I don’t think they mean it / So I don’t blink I’m leavin’ / Right on the brink of heathen / Waiting for life to fuck me up so we’ll be even- Steven / Blowin’ my chest out screamin’ / my broken throat box bleedin’ / Logic and reason is a ghost / I feel just like the machinist / But in my chest it’s beatin’ / I know it’s there but where / I just picture puncture / So messy just life just leaking just everywhere.
Sticky on every surface / A purpose a point that cuts cause I’m not / hardened I bleed when I’m got / Sharpened I’ll eat when I’m not / Starving I’ll sleep when I rot / See this is a little city / so twisted this village be / it’s a wonder nobody ever just told you to leave me be / See the misery feeders / keep us so comfy with company / we stay clumsily drunken / bumpin’ them guts but not loving ever / Hugging that pride like it’s safe / Funny how lonely ways can help us save face / but conversation is out / We don’t speak without that drink in our mouth / Oh messy lives.

Hook

This scene is scenic / scenery vivid / Dull it / sip it, strip it, lean it / Tippin’ on something / quick to Visine / Speak up you’re mumbling / Clean it / Meaning keeps crumbling / Oh tumbler talking / I’ll tell that story choking / sorry / Walking away / stop when I’m skating / Hell’s frozen-est lakes / Broken like damn / check was in braille / You could feel the stakes rise / See but this time this guy nose dives / The check’s in the mail I swear / Numb that sensation / social KY / Slide into conversation say hi Focal point scattered over same ol’ same ol’ patterns / Battle the battered bloody / She say she loves me but the Valium rattles so I don’t trust it / To me it’s fuck it / stay busted / adjust to the rusted hinge / Oil the squeak / sleep / Enjoy when the week ends Sleep / mend / sleep in / sleep it off / We too lost to give off nothin’ but shove off / Now get lost.

Hook
Track Name: I'm Talking
Sims: It’s time you tied the knot around the rock / we not in sync / Got me to stop and think / you ready to die for that link? / Is that check worth the ink? / Spell the word emergency in burgundy / next to the dishes in your kitchen sink.

Mictlan: With a short breath but a deep lung / I’m talkin’ each four bars when the beat come / How come he comes with an outcome / and other ones talk to hear talk / Huh? / Can you hear? / Who’s that? / Speak up / Voice that violence / Opinion is not choice / So choose your shhhh...

P.O.S: Chilly through every season / Silly crew breathren beefing / Killing this midwest region / spilling my breath and leaving / My thoughts on a page hot / Talk’s cheap / No sleep til the pen drop / reap til the beat stop / til my heartbeat stop / til my feet stop pressing on.

Crescent Moon: Yeah, lay me down lay me down / down with my pride / In a crate of instrumental demo tapes as proof that I tried Better not forget my / my true love / put her by my side / throw my guitar in the back / before we ride.

Sims: When noone’s hearing it / Lost in the gloss and the mirror / get caught up in appearances / You thought you heard the truth / My god you must be hearin’ shit / In a new suit / you knew who’s year it is / Three cheers for the spiritless / Still talkin’ but no one’s hearin’ it.

Mictlan: What? / What about me? / Sail this asphalt like the Black Seas / Pontius Pirate / Hide this cross in the backseat / Black sheep / hand me the bad blood laughing / That’s sand in a bath tub / No man is an island / and there ain’t no message in that bottle it’s hollow / Exactly.

P.O.S: I’m talking but no one’s listening / Pissed and put off and whispering / stuck distancing self from a life with a lot of love Gotta hide from a lot of trust / Need a guide through the rust / liable to bust / Style of a child gotta hush / Just need to push Never been the type to shush / just brush dust and walk.

Crescent Moon: I’m talking ‘bout different times / I was a different man / Five brothers, different skin colors / whatever’s the plan St. Paul kings tagged in a Murderap taxi / Hit the brakes in D.C. / and we finally crashed in Cali.

Sims: To a blank page / just filling in blank space / Why do we depend on these relationships to fill in that blank space? / I hold the weight up for ransom / I take it cause you take it for granted / Pull the leaves until they’re breakin’ my branches.

Mictlan: I came, I saw, I played Contra / You sang the song / we saved the saga turned opera/ The world is off-beat / My heart is right-on / but the beat don’t stop me / It goes on the backbeat / Born to the concrete / Watch me / keep walking.

P.O.S: Yelling, screaming / demons leaving / Needing release / so please let these expelled appease / Telling / treating life like reading / Needing release so please let these expelled appease / and give a shout if it’s hell you see.

Crescent Moon: I’m talking right now to the all night / my boys around / While the midnight oil burn down / and the beat ain’t gon’ get turned down / Wine bottles, magazine models / and records on the ground / Four minds collide get a mic up to the sound.

It goes on...
Track Name: Jaded
Dessa: Pose with a cigarette just to see who lights it first / Aw love you didn’t think the pirouettes would lift your skirt? / On the phone with a close friend who’s name you don’t know / Something bigger came up baby / so sad you can’t go / It’s amazing what they let you get away with in dim light / and it’s crazy watching you go pale in stage lights / The handbills the fan mail / the photos that they shoot / you show up just to look at them lookin’ at you / You’ve got that gold touch / you’ve got that mad rush of the bored and over-lonely / adored by young strangers / a stranger to old friends / you came up quick and now you’ve got the bad bends / Can’t remember which houses you live in which ones you visit / Business is different than what you envisioned, isn’t it? / All this cause and not an effect yet / just gauze and Percocet / Bump the set til God can hear it / and quell this fear that I’m feeling that heaven is quite deaf.

Cecil: And all I hear is king me, love me, watch me / did he love me / honey kiss me / is she off me / naughty you’ve been naughty ladi dadii move your body / Or use your body language / A: because it’s easy to read / B: because you’re stuck in anxious-ville C: you don’t speak easily / Yeah, we can be mind-fuck buddies or the beast with two backpacks / You just got to trust somebody after you suck somebody into your laugh track / Your audience is crying / and I know you’ve noticed / You’re focusing in circles dear / I see your lips moving but all i hear is / Does he still love me? / Why don’t he know that I’m in pain? / Why don’t he still need me? / Why don’t he know that I can change?

P.O.S: Take steps like I don’t wanna wake ya / Not a sound from the floorboard / four more steps to the door / don’t look back don’t get shook / don’t crack / don’t act so took / Don’t tack another sorry on / time is gone for that just go / Maybe cause the time was wrong / up in the head but the heart’s a strong one / That’s what I shoulda said / Woulda coulda but the door still creeks Just leave / please just don’t speak / These dreams need sleep and I woke / to a need to relieve not cope / Hope don’t float hope sinks low / Hope breeds free with the demons below / Faith is a razorblade you can raise to the face of any hangman that gives you the rope / Just go.