Album: Eardrum (2007)

Stay Around

Ladies and gentlemen
Kweli!

[Hook]
Won't you stay around with me?...
And please say the rhyme
Cause these rappers think that I'm
In love with your state of mind
Cause you a favourite of mine
And I know you on your grind
I don't want to waste your time
But baby won't you stay around with me?...
And let my love (and let my love)
And let my love

[Verse 1]
Kweli you should rap about this, you should rap about that
Any more suggestions? You in the back, yeah you
You should rap more on beat, you should rap more street
And never ever get your mack on please, how bout you?
I like the way you're melodic, it's cause you capture hypnotic
Portraits and seem to make the average exotic
Probably unite, I know you getting some love, but you can't spit like a thug
And you a blow, you make a hit for the club, word
I don't like your voice, I don't like your choice of beats
It sounds like it's forced, and what was up with "Back Up Offa Me"?
I ain't like that, man you should get with Hi-Tek
Now he got nice tracks, them other dudes is type wack
Yeah, people keeping it coming, I keep it bubbling
Like the heat from oven boiling the water and the hate
So they light my fire...
I got a mic empire, my own label
I had to emancipate me-me like Mariah...
At some point I might retire, on some bullshit
My legacy, horseshit like Mariah's...
Illest flow found in the game, soothing like the sound of the rain
It's the dude profound with the fame, I refusing to be sounding the same
Keeping the verses, deleting the curses, defeating the purpose
When the people go on strike, I'm in the street with the workers
Speaking the words from a pulpit like the preachers at churches
Raise my hand, all the teachers get nervous
Cause they know I air them out
And they ain't even really gotta hear me out
Keep it dirty like pigpen, voice in the warrior's head like ??
Clocking like Big Ben, old school slang still find a way to innovate
Pete Rock got em feeling great, the ladies say

[Hook]
Won't you stay around with me?...
And please say the rhyme
Cause these rappers think that I'm
In love with your state of mind
Cause you a favorite of mine
And I know you on your grind
I don't want to waste your time
But baby won't you stay around with me?...
And let my love (and let my love)
And let my love

[Verse 2]
Light the tip of the L, this heavyweight rap tipping the scale
And we never let the system prevail, real picturesque, missing the sale
Never that, it's forbidden like the candy sisters lifting the veil
I'm still leading the pack, these cats lacking
Just because you be having a dragon don't mean you got the fire...
It ain't nothing to play with, it's sacred
My pen is the paintbrush, and dipping in paint plus
Truth, love, joy, anger, hatred and anguish
That's the spectrum of colours I paint with
I don't feast at the banquet, cause freedom is the set that I bang with
Listen the conditions in my slum village is tainted
I grew through the pavement, like the flower the girl drew in the paper
The sky bluer and the ?eye's? save you
The rules of engagement that they use, attitudes of a slave
Man got me stressed out losing my patience
The moves that I'm making across waters
Through contraband that I'm taking across borders
Information never lost in translation
Too many new words to be learned, I'm spitting fire giving third degree burns
Giving them heat stroke, hotter than rocking a P cote
At ??, all these rappers super like me so, we go
Back in the days like reminiscing with Pete yo
Ladies welcome to the Kweli show
She goes...

[Hook]
Won't you stay around with me?...
And please say the rhyme
Cause these rappers think that I'm
In love with your state of mind
Cause you a favorite of mine
And I know you on your grind
I don't want to waste your time
But baby won't you stay around with me?...
And let my love (and let my love)
And let my love

[Outro]
Ladies and Gentleman, its Talib Kweli
Yeah, this Ear Drum y'all
B-B-B-B-Banging on your ear drum
We got the incredible Pete Rock on the track like...
I like that, I like that
I want to give an extra big shout to my man Dave Dart
Holding me down as always and as usual
And his new born son, Cannon, brand new to the world
He's now down with Blacksmith, Blacksmith is the movement
Jean Grae, Strong Arm Steady gang, Talib Kweli
It's what it is, yeah