DESSA
I took it for a kiss, but it couldn’t have been, could it? / I see now what it is, we were just biting the same bullet / You called it in the air / it landed it on its edge / when the crowd gathers around / you turn tail / I turn heads / Shavin down the puzzle piece / tryna make a clean fit / Take what is lovely / leave before the rain hits / It’s a heartbreaker for starters, as you age not too much changes / practice doesn’t make perfect, just makes the game more dangerous
STEF
Start repo / negative sleep nauseous / barf party for sure / intelligent creep stalking awkward / Flush flustered rush for doors / advance fire-plan / handy with the way out / routes explored / Cover catching up / careful with your care / We don’t go there, naw / We keep locks and keys steadily swallowed / never be followed, none of em dare / Channel up your anger leave it here / kindly disappear / Mind your mannerisms / I can’t be flattered back / The patterns the concern / lessons prolly turned to fact / By now you’d surely drown yourself before you’d help me with this sail / I’m in the wind / crossed fingers for the win / Up to ten til they hammer in the very last nail / Challenging like every last stalemate / Deal with it / No mission ends / Precision lack of friends / Happily recommend nothing to no one, ever
CECIL (Hook)
I know, I know / I know wake up, wake up / But I don’t go there, go there / She knows the way home
CECIL
You know your way home? / You gonna be all right? / Yeah, but I had faith that you’d see the light / and ride with me or kiss me goodbye / Now you got me feeding kites into the night sky / Covered them with nightlights, like, did you see the beacon? / I swear I let those kites fly around all weekend, no? / Well someone must have cut the lines or something, no? / Or maybe something, oh, you weren’t looking / Ok Plan B just panic / run up the stairs and shut the door to the attic and don’t come up for air / until you’re torn from her fabric completely… / and just like magic, you’re all in one piece again / But, I’m nothing like I used to be… / elusive and reclusive / Now I’m just both times a hundred…exclusively / Truthfully, I was blind to the deep end / until that piece of us went and died that weekend (Hook)
SIMS
Then it flashed forward, but I asked for it / Rip out the doubt, I’m way too south / I gulped it up, I laid back / peeling off the layers / the mantra saying “fear can’t stay here self see you later” / Fire chakra dissolve to ether / I have to meet her, I know she knows the way / I’ll have to die twice, no novocaine / See the Eye of Horace, I am Osiris / I meet the devil, it ain’t the first time / He kills me quick like I am nothing / Scream St. Peter, I need you now cousin / I see the owls coming, they float me safe / I learn their grace, they help me heal / I’m under stars peeling off my skin to rid my scars / it’s the first time I am reborn, but I am not me / No identity, and I am finally free / I am my brother, I am my father / I am the sun, I am the water / I am an ion, I am everything / I am the vapor, a cloud of smoke / I am a cheap laugh, but I get the joke / I am a brief flash, the abstract
credits
from No Kings,
released November 22, 2011
Raps: Dessa, P.O.S, Cecil Otter, Sims
Beat: Cecil Otter
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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