The Echo of Events Unknown and It Held Meaning - Beans

Hip hop is the greatest

I love it so much that I hate it

I haven’t been in it in a minute to win

Ok, so let’s begin

When I first hit the scene as a struggling MC

Doing shows at The Fez underneath the Time Cafe as rap meets poetry

Made enough loot for train fare

I had no car to get there

So I’d leave the party early

I was stranded, sleeping in Grand Central

If I missed that last 138 train heading up to White Plains

I could be wrong but I believe

This took place around the years early '94 or '93

Heard Nas on Main Source when I lived in Atlanta

Before my first time touring overseas with Vernon Reid

When Sayyid was a writer for URB

Before I quit smoking 'erb

We used to get high outside across the mall by the library

While a local MC from White Plains named Top Quality

Put out an album called «Magnum Opus»

When he signed a record deal with PMD

Back then I was a cashier at a clothing store

While my man Dead End came to visit one day

Said he’d be right back

Then turned around and robbed the video store right next door

I only soared in '95 and '97

Antipop had to be distinctive in it’s approach from those (?) kids

I always considered it essential in art

Forward thinking and plus

(?) keep it real

And held it against me as a minus

Back then we had no support and nobody was behind us

Which meant Stretch and Bobbito would never really play us

And Rawkus would never really sign us

Before (?) gave the world’s first orientation to our single «Disorientation»

Before the (?) Blues Remix

Before The Isolationist with Vadim

Before Antipop was performing at the Soundlab as The Blank Slates

Before Priest got arrested, posting up stickers he made working at Kinko’s

Promoting the Consortium mixtapes

After Original Flavor from New Rochelle dropped «Can I Get Open» with Jay-Z

I recorded my first verse ever on an album by a female MC

Named (?)

When Gang Starr was two MC’s

Still together was EPMD

I was influenced by Sadat X’s freestyle tapes

Before Brand Nubian’s first album hit

That my man (?)

He was the first to say to me, «Don't be a DJ, you’d make a better MC»

Occasionally I’d go to Lyricist Lounge

That was the first time I saw Biggie

I was in the crowd, I stood a few feet away from him

Then I saw him again during New Music Seminar

Sharing the stage with 2Pac at the Palladium

I’m a golden era 80's baby

PE raised me

I’m here to stay, I ain’t for play

A blank page to a pen is a sin

(???) when I cancel your grin