1999: A Hip Hop Poem

Prince was a prophet with 1999
The year before hip hop flatlined
Ok, maybe not as dead as Nas said
But definitely catatonic and comatose

Lying there like a ghost,
Waiting to be kissed back into out-loud
Ever since the Y2K letdown
My ears and mind have had to travel back in time

Because the boom-bap of the present
Sounds more and more like a death rattle

So I'm going to where she used to be
Back to Jamaica where the hills and halls first gave her birth

On portable turntables, speakers on steroids
Whatchu really know about the Herculoids?

When we stole juice from streetlamps
Like we stole the cool
From hydrants on hot afternoons

Back to Russ and Run--Public-Enemy-Number-KRS-One

Back to where she grew up and blew up
Spread out and bled out
Over east and west coast
Beef bullets and beats

Where all we could do is celebrate
Bad Boys making it to Death Row with little to no limits

Me and Hip-hop rocked international
Like cross colors
And there was nowhere she didn't go
Underground, gangsta and commercial

But as the decade approached a close
Things began to go
Really really wrong
Like when killing off Bigs and Pac
Was the only way they could get along

Dichotomy bred and spread with animosity
Soon crack sales shook hands with record deals
And the hood got Versace, platinum chains and spinner wheels

And we could finally afford to take H.E.R. out on expensive dates
But if I spend, she better give up skins
Or get her named dragged thru the streets
Like Dee Barnes got treated by Dre Beats

Watch me crank-dat on her back and throw on a bed sheet,
Superman that ho ‘til she don't want me no mo'
We party and bullshit
She stays sad and silent 

While tiny-talent rappers 

pop fake bottles in even faker videos

These niggas aint really sayin shit
Except nigga-that and nigga-this
But I guess there aint much left to rap about
After you get a 6-figure bank account

Today the voices of rage have turned into drones
Suffocated by skinny jeans and implanted silicone,

Purple syrup and molly
Make us forget about things like poverty
Or treatin our girl properly
Now me and hip-hop are estranged with a legacy of pain...

So I think I am going to leave...
Catch a midnight train back to Bronx-borough
Going back to where she used to be
And dig in crates and listen to mixtapes

That are actual tapes.

You know, the ones re-recorded over
with that piece of tape covering the corner;

Back to crews and posses speaking in native tongues
Back to shell toes, Pumas and Air Force ones
African medallions and and hi-top fades
Back to when I first fell in love with a young Mary J,

Back to illmatic-dungeon-fam-g-funk-X-Clan

Back to when the message and the music
Were synonymous and congruent
When the beats rhyme and life were real
And we all felt and knew it

Right now SHE don't got no life -
Any intellectual impact is unnoticeable
Can't even recall a contemporary hip hop quotable
Hell, for that I gotta go back to an Eazy E lyric
Cuz today, these softbatch boys still aint really sayin shit...

So, now you know where to find me:
Lampin back in he 90s
Stacks of WordUp!, Source and Vibe right beside me

I'ma find my old Motorola startac
To call up to heaven and ask J-Dilla for a remix
Of a Prince track
Laced with a break-beat
Guaranteed to move any crowd...

So I can put it on the lips of Hip Hop
And kiss her back to out loud -

And it'll be okay, if she doesn't wake up right away...
I'll be partying while I wait,

Like it was 1992...
...To 1998