I’ve been digging through my old notebooks lately. I’m looking to preserve any gems I might find while doing some housekeeping. So, I came across some songs and rap lyrics I wrote years ago. I’m sharing one of them here.
I wrote and performed verse 1 as part of a special one-year anniversary song for my church back in ’97 or ’98 with the brothers. I think I wrote the verse to the beat from Busta Rhyme’s Dangerous (I just found out on Wikipedia that the single itself sampled the 1982 song E.T. Boogie by the Extra T’s). But it fitted well with the upbeat chorus we had for the anniversary song.
After that though, I performed to the beat as originally inspired. It was well-received and became a song people requested a few times when they wanted to have a little groove in da house. I must tell you we had some good performances a cappella with that chorus or a friend beatboxing to it.
Was it okay to jam a church song with a secular beat? I let the guilt go because the music felt so good. And everyone loved it including the pastors. We were all young folks. The oldest among us, maybe in the mid-twenties.
At school, I also entertained the room or hostel with me or a roommate accompanying the rap with some table-drumming. Maybe I should have pursued a career in music. Those were the days I felt I could go in any direction and not go wrong… talk about being spoilt for choice.
The version here is mostly intact from my notebook dated 08/02/99 with the two additional verses I added to tell a little story. Here goes…
Verse 1
Reality. Actuality I’ll be representing till eternity Everything good comes from the Trinity We be staying strong in God in totality Now God needs Gs not just with ability But Gs who want to know what others don't care to see He’s a refuge for those who seek in futility For those between the devil and the deep blue sea Here God makes us who we ought to be Together we forge ahead in blessed unity So, let’s come to the holy place we reside in So we be representing till eternity
Verse 2
Eternity my mind thinks, I want to stay clean Sometimes I lose and want to merge with the green Can’t say how I feel but I know what I’ve seen Runaway from Gin but I don’t know where I been At the edgy brink, spirit's very lean, Give me self-esteem because I’ve become a stray g at level 19 Trying to get away from moving to the extreme Pay homage to the King, not to know any queen It's quiet in my soul and a sin's like a pin I'm just doing my own thing It doesn't look as it seems I deem it fit whenever I step to the gym Got to maintain prim so to join the team I need the holy cream plus the divine beam I got a will to win so I got to be mean I guess it's about time the chorus came in
Verse 3
In the very first verse I was talking much sanity Second was cool, clean, and now I’m back to be me Now that I’m back here in God's own love zone, back home, where from? Too far from the place where they deal with insanity Life a’int more vanity, I got a policy You can check out my identity, well equipped with this gift of gab I got And getting serenity from the Lord Kristi In my soul's vicinity A’int scared of no fraternity With God raising me high on reactivity Only deal out love as charity Never bend my spirituality I can't bear to lose to carnality I got arms wide open to brutality On the other level prosperity Anywhere I go mind’s high on fertility Me, I'm a living entity No dealing in relativity By God me I'm still talking much sanity That's my reality
What do you think?