Brother Ali just dropped his latest album, Us, so I was thinking of who I should put him up against for this week’s Freestyle Friday. I thought Q-Tip was an interesting choice!
The idea of Freestyle Fridays is to battle one another with your favorite verse from either of the two competitors. You’re essentially battling other commenters in this thread by using the words of Brother Ali or Q-Tip. We’ve been doing this feature for a little over a month now, but if you don’t remember how it goes, hit the jump for a few rules and then jump in on the comments!
Before we start, let’s see if we can keep the thread in order today, by following a couple simple rules:
1. Please don’t drop the lyrics to a whole song. No more than one verse!
2. Please stay in order…. Brother Ali, then Q-Tip, then Brother Ali, etc. If you want to drop an Ali verse, wait until someone has dropped a Tip one. The idea is to go back and forth. It’s possible that more than one person may be trying to drop a verse at one time… we’ll just keep moving on.
I’ll start this thread off with a verse from Tip:
“Zulu Nation, brothers that’s creation
Minds get flooded, ejaculation
right on the two inch tape
The Abstract poet incognito, runsss the cape
Not the best not the worst and occasionally I curse to get my
point across, so bust, the floss
As I go in betweeen, the grit and the dirt
Listen to the mission listen Miss as I do work, umm
as I crack the, monotone
Children of the jazz so, get your own
Smokin R&B cause they try to do me
or the best of the pack but they can’t do rap
For it’s Abstract, orig-inal
You can’t get your own and that’s, pitiful
I know I’d be the man if I cold yanked the plug
on R&B, but I can’t and that’s bugged”
-Q-Tip, “Buggin’ Out”
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Brother Ali is Two Hundred, Fifty Pounds of Piss and Vinegar
Few try to sit me down, they missing limbs and
I got nothing on, but a lifestyle, black tuxedo
An Arethra Franklin record, and Im rockin Captain Ego like
‘Dun Dadda, Shit, Ya Done Poppa’
There’s only three reasons Ali would need a Ramada
One; to move the bowels, two; to steal the towels
Three; Shave, shower, pray for my spiritual power
I can handle this, if my man Ant would just
Give me a chance to splatter semantics across his canvases
Damage is unavoidable at this point
I twist joints till they pop lock, too loud and get ya knot rocked
Im too proud to let you hop scotch through
The section of the Earth that I occupy, without making you testify
Best that I could do for you, is ingore you
Cause Id probably conquer you if I explore you
Words from the Brother.
- Brother Ali “Star Quality”
I wanted to leave an Ali verse but someone beat me to it so ill drop a Tip one
Back in the days when I was a teenager
Before I had status and before I had a pager
You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop
My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop
I said, well daddy don’t you know that things go in cycles
The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin like Michael
Its all expected, things are for the lookin
If you got the money, Quest is for the bookin
Come on everybody, let’s get with the fly modes
Still got room on the truck, load the back boom
Listen to the rhyme, to get a mental picture
of this black man, through black woman victim
Why do I say that, cuz I gotta speak the truth man
Doing what we feel for the music is the proof and
Planted on the ground, the act is so together
Bonafied strong, you need leverage to sever
The unit, yes, the unit, yes, the unit called the jazz is
deliberatley cheered LP filled with streeet goods
You can find it on the rack in your record store (store)
If you get the record, then your thoughts are adored
and appreciated, cause we’re ever so glad we made it
We work hard, so we gotta thank God
Dishin out the plastic, do the dance till you spastic
If you dis… it gets drastic
Listen to the rhymes, cuz its time to make gravy
If it moves your booty, then shake, shake it baby
All the way to Africa a.k.a. The Motherland (uh)
Stick out the left, then I’ll ask for the other hand
That’s the right hand, Black Man (man)
Only if you was noted as my man (man)
If I get the credit, then I’ll think I deserve it
If you fake moves, don’t fix your mouth to word it
Get in the zone of positivity, not negativity
Cuz we gotta strive for longevity
If you botch up, what’s in that (ass) (what?)
A pair of Nikes, size ten-and-a-half (come on, come on)
Q-Tip = Excursions
BROTHER ALI feat. SLUG
“missin teeth”
I step off in your hoola-hoop cypher with my eyes all aglow
Walkin tall enough to make your half moon whole
You don’t need to get duct-taped to the bathroom flo’
Cause I don’t think your shit is flavor – the rats do, though
You and your little bitch buddies think you’re Thelma & Louise
Cause you got a drum machine and you ( ? )
You need to respect a fuckin legend when he breathes
‘fore you get a K-Swiss logo embedded in your knees
Shock the body-body, rock the consciousness
Stagger the imagination, box your esophagus
The paradime, you stepped past the line
And I show you why the masterminds have got a fuckin axe to grind
Street magician like David Blaine with these songs
Crip-walkin through your mental corridor with metal cleats on
Slug got the weed smoke, Ant got the beats broke
And your fuckin eyebrows might grow back, but your teeth won’t
MAD SKILLZ feat. EXTRA P & Q-TIP
“extra abstract skillz”
Huhuhuhuhuhuh *shuddering sound* like the Doc Bruce Banner
Hit you with a ray which is similar to Gamma
Do you believe in miracles, ?
like I believe in myself, but I don’t believe in you
What you need to do is get faith
Take your spiritual, out your body, put it in a higher place
Cause I’ma bring out, the Holy Ghost in niggaz
in my lyrical church, and I be hostin niggaz, uh
Submergin bodies in water, you know you oughta
lose all the glitter and flash, and get raw ass
I’ve been ordained by the feeling, to keep the hip-hop
raw hoppin and the wack rappers reeling
I really like this part of Ali’s Shadows on the Sun:
I like the snares loud enough to make your eyes blink from it
Only male with the Holy Grail, drink from it
I keep an eye on heaven and a ear to the street
And spread a thick layer of blood, sweat and tears on the beats
My brain rest upon the hip-hop lexicon
That I acquired in the decade of work that people slept upon
I don’t rap, I recite the prayers of the inner soul
Of the slave ships’ human cargo
Seemingly meaningless rappers flood the market
With shit that make me pace in my room until I rip the carpet
I’m fit to start up this next millennium
Swingin the grappling hook at cackling crooks to finish em
As for tip, easy, my fav of him all-time would be his verse in Check the Rhime.
okay, if knowledge is the key then just show me the lock.
Got the scrawny legs but I move just like lou brock,
With speed. Im agile plus Im worth your while.
One hundred percent intelligent black child.
My optic presentation sizzles the retina.
How far must I go to gain respect? um.
Well, its kind of simple, just remain your own
Or youll be crazy sad and alone.
Industry rule number four thousand and eighty,
Record company people are shady.
So kids watch your back cause I think they smoke crack,
I dont doubt it. look at how they act.
Off to better things like a hip-hop forum.
Pass me the rock and Ill storm with the crew and …
Proper. what you say hammer? proper.
Rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop.
Not nearly a single solitary soul
Still put the kind of passion to the mic that I hold
One day it’ll have to be pried from my cold dead hand
until then the big man is gold
Got one lone reason to go on breathing
Climb into the zone of the evening, keep reaching
Just to pull more out the core of the deamon
The people need to see them pure human being
Blood, sweat, love, hate, life, death, joy, pain
Little child running wild striped to the raw veins
Rugged junkyard dog off the chain, barefoot balls out marching in the rain
Sacred war dance suspended in the moment
We throw the fuck down like our lives depended on it
Jaws of the streets with our heart on our sleeve
throwing shots at the law which is all I believe
Brother Ali, ”Truth is’
I be hatin sucka MC’s, and the sucka niggas
Posing like they hard when we know they damn card
what you figure, rhyme-wise, I do the figure eight
So concisely, musically we are the herb so sit back
and light me, inhale *inhalation noise*
My style is kinda fat reminescent of a whale
Young girls desires for the females dreams
I be the Abstract Poetic representin from Queens
Socially I’m not a name, black and white got game
If you came to the jam, well I’m glad you came
See, nigga first was used back in the Deep South
Fallin out between the dome of the white man’s mouth
It means that we will never grow, you know the word dummy
Other niggas in the community think it’s crummy
But I don’t, neither does the youth cause we
em-brace adversity it goes right with the race
And being that we use it as a term of endearment
Niggas start to bug to the dome is where the fear went
Now the little shorties say it all of the time
And a whole bunch of niggas throw the word in they rhyme
Yo I start to flinch, as I try not to say it
But my lips is like the oowop as I start to spray it
My lips is like a oowop as I start to spray it
A Tribe Called Quest- Sucka Nigga