Know what I'm sayin, in 1979
I was a two year old kid from Adelaide
I wasn't a performer
It seems to me that in 1999 Hip Hop's a business
In 1979 it was a culture
And I miss it
You're so fake its plain to see who you truly are
Looking less like a b-boy, more like a movie star
Forget the funk and go hook up those disco breaks
Sit down punk and take a look at what you make
It's not hip-hop, it's something more sad, sick and seedy
What's Popping that Coochie got to do with graffiti?
And your R&B dance-steps, what about finger-popping?
B-boy electric shocking, windmills, body rocking
So body-body rock, body-body rock, I'll take you back
Break your back, realize b-boys aren't faking that
Funk that you've forgotten hoe, how could you have gotten so far gone?
That you could never stop and go
Back to the roots, nineteen seventy nine
Birthplace of the scratch, birthplace of the rhyme
You'll feel it in your spine like your first taste of wine
We'll make it back; it'll just take some time
Remember Kangol hats, fat laces and lino mats
Kids spinning on their backs to the sugar hill wax
Now the sugar hills collapsed and the sweets turned sour
Moneys walking my culture through its darkest hour
Now I wanna take you back, walk on through time
I was two years old in nineteen seventy nine
But it's a time that I miss; you ask "what's the difference"
Hip-hop was then a culture, now hip-hop's a business
You started b-boying as a form of expression
To channel youths stress and their aggression
Now through the suggestion of record companies
MC's are pumping these problems back into your section
And isn't it ironic?
But not the sort that makes you laugh
Cause MC's are building futures by raping the past
Taking a glass of Chardonnay and putting it to your lips
I'd rather take a razor blade and put it to my wrist
Than sell records on the basis that I have to promote
Sniffing and selling coke, toting guns and smoking dope
You're all weaving the rope that you'll hang yourself with
My only consolation is within the hip hop nation is
B-boy elements that can still get me open
Like Graff mags from Berlin, mix tapes from Oakland
Breakers from Whitsetty, plus anything from Tribe
And old school New York that's still got the vibe