The Roots: No Great Pretender

[Malik B]
Check it out, one two
M-illi-tant
I be the, alias Malik B
Internationale rationale
All the people up 68th Ave.
and across Broad Street
or Silk Lane in South Philly
And on, et cetera
Check it out, check it out

[Chorus: The Roots]

Here on this agenda, there is no pretenders
So when we begin to assassinate your cast members
Here on this agenda, there is no pretenders
So when we begin to assassinate your cast members

[Verse One: Malik B]

Dig it, cool calm collect in my perspective
Search the premises, I leave no clues for detectives
My verbal impact across your back slap
You talk about you see me, but your vision's full of cataract
It don't matter that, your glass house I shatter that
Bad luck I walk under now show me where the ladder at
Pull up the urinal organs up in your bladder cat
Approachin you with shriller rhetoric, as if you had a sac
Now crews down for it, your gas pedal floor it
with ammo and artillery and stash spots to keep and store it
I used the banner of a slant with a zort
Change your strategic plan, my man's getting bored
Your vocal chord is fraudulent, and not the true porcelain
I bring the fire, earth, and the source of wind
The force of sin will endorse the pen
We all search for sanity, but I think that it was lost again
Now which stick of artists, can be the smartest
My beam of sunlight shines the brightest in the forest
Regardless, artists dislike because I'm ?
Control the temper, makin MC's whimper
I tilt the Earth from off the axis in the center
Next I'm in the womb like a placenta
M-Illi-Tant the city ninja, uplift
cause I'm the soul avenger, remember I'm no great pretender

[Chorus 2X]

[Verse Two: Black Thought]

Strategis, I bet y'all niggaz can't believe this
I read you like a whole avenue that's filled with meters
parked, fuck your back talk, I watch how niggaz cat-walk
over my pit of venom and send em to the asphault
For inquisitives, who wanna try to test me
What protects me, will make you shake like epilipsy
Plague your neighborhood with lyrical le-prosy
Stimulate more than Ecstasy y'all niggaz check my recipe
Dig it, I must observe it, analyze when I'm chillin
Peep out who's the villain then make your whole pavillion
of a Sicilian, excuse the greed don't want a mill'
I want a zillion - stacks of Franklins to the ceiling
I counts stacks imported, fuck the yacht and the mansion
I want Pluto and Jupiter, political, universal expansion
Buy out Tommy and Halle Hanson
Kidnap America, ? you hold it for ransom
Pass it down to my grandson, I got no time to be romancin
Only time's for mental food and advancement
This game of Life is strictly chancein - get to know
the nature before I get know the nigga while I'm glancing
Enhancing, is my mental - I play in the midst
a squad a team most crews is not in the halfs of rentals
My utensils, display a whole variety
Even when in the cut niggaz can't cut they anxiety
Peep, I fill your brain with suspicion, pay attention
like you paid tuition, and stop all your bull-ishin
The rap chemist in the lab to the finish
The mic is my apprentice, cause I can't stand
courts or tennis, my pigmentation is the menace
That's why the system's always tryin to pursue with a blemish
Pale asses, think a nigga in this
My flow's tremendous, for the meal you can't replenish
The question you ask me, situation get worse
Fam I won't befriend ya, cause I'm no great pretender

[Chorus 2X]

[Malik B]
It's like that, one time for your mind
Fifth Dynasty, interwine and combine
M-Illi-Tant
The Bad Lieuten-ant
One hundred X, Bahamadia
Minds and souls, like that
Fifth Dynast', my man ?, P.R. Star
My man Slick Looka
Check it out, one time like that
Feel the Fifth
The One-Fifth attack
Your backbone and spine
Check it out
Brother Q.U.E.S.T.
South Philly, ?