Canibus

Poet Laureate II

Lyrics

Producer: Stoupe
Time: 7: 19

(James Dickey sample)
Uhh, I don't understand how a writer
could ever get writer's block, so-called.
My problem is having too much... and being unable to get it down.

Lyrics continue below...

(Canibus)ba
Yo, why is the Ripper so ill?
That would be an unpardonable breech of confidence for me to reveal
He said, "One of these days all eyes will be on me
When they look up in the sky and see the neon C"
Rhymes inscribed on a nickel disk encased
in a glass with an ion beam for longevity
For more than ten centuries, impressions and memories
The first time-machine inventor will mention me
Canibus was a visionary indeed
He believed light could travel in multiples of C
The organic supercomputer that solved the mysteries
of Klein-Kaluza with two blue metric rulers
Liked Cool J but thought Steven Jay Gould was cooler
And he never liked to propagate rumours
Smoked Canary Island cigars
Liked American luxury cars and beautiful Asian broads
He had a strong mind, he used to philosophize about rhymes
while he was pruning his bonsais
He claimed that he had written the 'Greatest Rhyme of All Time'
But he would never take it out his archives
He wrote two songs per day
And was constantly experimenting with his wordplay
In his youth he did a report on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
He got a 'F' but he deserved an 'A'
I followed his career from the first day
It seemed the lack of support contributed to his inert ways
I've seen him put in twenty-four hour workdays
With deferred pay, undeterred by the worst shame
Public humiliation was the worst pain
He was spinning out of control like a class five hurricane
He said he wouldn't want another emcee to suffer the same
Especially when there's nothing to gain
He was the illest alive but nobody would face it
He spit 'til his tongue was too torched to taste it
Properly funded corporations Carbon-dated his latest creations
To extract the information
They found it utterly amazing
They claimed the body of his work was
the same thing as a priceless painting
Never mattered to him the art galleries hated him
Cause Thomas Kinkade called and said he would take ten
Complete enigmas wrapped in puzzles encrypted in language
With sound but without shape or signature
Kept files in his garage on MS-DOS
in a fireproof pod, we thought it was odd
Outside there was a shed with an Oppenheimer lock
He apparently kept more wax than Madame Tussaud
We were in total awe cause it blew our minds
So many rhymes that were intricately designed
He was Poet Laureate of his time
And if you don't mind I'd like to share some of his rhymes
Alone in my room looking through the 32x telescope zoom
Adjusting the focus of the Moon
One should not assume the philosophy of David Hume
is nothing more than a subjective conclusion
What is the maximum field rate application?
The runaway glaciation surrounding the ocean basin
Affects the population fluctuation
on a continuous basis but that's just the basics
The juxtaposition of Can-I-Bus's position
The precision of something no other has written
Way above and beyond what was intended
The unparalleled malleable enunciation of a sentence
You didn't go to college, obviously
I can tell by your ungodly unintelligible terminology
Your remarkable odyssey, the rhyme's at modest speeds
When the brain orders the body not to breathe
Your competency is not up to speed, you're not in my league
You couldn't possibly be hotter than me
Or oppositely at minus twenty-five degrees
You'll squeeze but the condensation makes rifle barrels freeze
Allow me to speak figuratively, nigga please
My intellectual property's about the size of Greece
Your counsellor advised you not to speak
My counsellor advised me to keep rhyming until they stopped the beat
In the words of Joseph Heller, "I learned how to write better,"
even though it sort of irked me
He said he didn't understand the process of the imagination
but he felt he was at its mercy
Which exploits my point perfectly
And certainly reinforces the reason
why nobody's probably ever heard of me
Couldn't understand what I mean by 'ill'
Lest you try to translate what I print to film
This is the line of wheel, the circle of time
The cycle of eternity, the emergence of one line
Academic phonetics render critics tongue-tied
The personified dry humor of cum laude alumni
A wise man sees failure as progress
A fool divorces his knowledge and misses the logic
And loses his soul in the process
Obsessed with nonsense with a caricature that has no content
My style is masterful, multilateral,
I could battle a fool and be naturally cruel
Words of scorn are a disastrous tool,
From an existentialist's view I'm a better rapper than you
Grab the mic and rip your physical fabric in two
My attitude is messed up but admirable
'Different methods interpreted into different forms
From entirely different perceptions and
seen from different norms ' (Ouspensky, 1949)
Not just spitting a poem, there's much more involved
There's much more pieces of the puzzle for you to solve
Forty Eight Orders of Mechanical Laws
And Rays of Creational cause enhance the cadence of my bars
Maybe I am self-absorbed, but that's the effect
To find the cause you should ask my A&R
Today is what it is but only because yesterday was what it was
Permitting you've heard of Beelzebub
A tale of demons and drugs, pissy drunk in the club
With the DJ doing the needle rub
Chances are you'd never see me, son
Yeah, I know my name's Canibus but I can't help you if you need a dub
I came to holler at some big booty bitches
and listen to the speakers thump, where'd you get conceited from?
I'm so nice on the mic they want to beat me up
It's deep as hell, I ain't seen it all but I've seen enough
Really unbelievable stuff
There's a lot of times when I want to speak but I'm stuck
I should leave this rap shit alone
And kick my incredible rhymes in the privacy of my own home
My imagination is my own
The liberty to speak freely lyrically on the microphone
With a pen in my hand I bring motion to the Enneagram
and become Can-I-Millennium Man
Engrave my back with the Emperor's Stamp
Been spitting scientific rap since the seventeenth century began
Trying to escape the wicked empire of Def Jam
In the land where lyrics are bland and heretics hang
Every warrior has an axe to bury,
But he has to learn to discern between enemy and adversary
I said to myself, 'Germaine, this is insane,
It's suicide, it's controlled flight into terrain"
I fought to regain control the plane, but went up in a ball of flames
And got banned from the Hip Hop Hall of Fame
For two bars I kept hearing in my head over and over again
It cost me everything
I'm convinced now that more than the truth is at stake
Where people create language that pretends to communicate
Euphemisms are misunderstood as mistakes
But it's a byproduct of the ghetto music we make
From an extroverted point of view, I think it's too late
Hip Hop has never been the same since '88
Since it became a lucrative profession there's a misconception
That a movement in any direction is progression
Even though the potency of it lessens
Big money industries writing checks to suppress the question
And nobody gives a fuck no more
No one goes to the bookstore ever since the confluence of Moore's Law
But I stay in the lab like Niels Bohr and his son Aage
Edward Lorenz and Leo Szilard
Lyrically I took rap music and turned the knob
To the right full-throttle and added panache
Why would I argue with my own conscience over the truth
That's like me telling myself, "Don't tell me what to do"
Dialyses and analyses of battle emcees
Sometimes I say things I myself can't believe
My lyrical is so skilfully elliptical
I can understand how it makes you miserable
You wonder why I never let you play your beats for me?
And why I keep my studio enshrouded in secrecy?
You wonder what's my infatuation with Alicia Keys?
Canibus, why don't you speak to me?
Yo, I meant it when I said no one can shine on a song that features me
That's why I said it so vehemently
You need to replace the hate with respect
I'm probably the best yet, Poet Laureate!

(Sampled James Dickey)
Generally I take... I go with the given.
ya know with what comes to me over... the celestial wireless.
Whenever it comes, you're lucky when you get it