THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES

* Testify

The movie ran through me
The glamour subdue me
The tabloid untie me
I'm empty please fill me
mister anchor assure me
That Baghdad is burning
Your voice it is so soothing
That cunning mantra of killing
I need you my witness
To dress this up so bloodless
To numb me and purge me now
Of thoughts of blaming you
Yes the car is our wheelchair
My witness your coughing
Oily silence mocks the legless
Now traveling in coffins
But on the corner
The jury's sleepless
We found your weakness
And it's right outside our door
Now testify
With precision you feed me
My witness I'm hungry
Your temple it calms me
So I can carry on
My slaving sweating the skin right off my bones
On a bed of fire I'm choking on the smoke that
fills my home
The wrecking ball rushing
My witness your blushing
The pipeline is gushing
While here we lie in tombs
While on the corner
The jury's sleepless
We found your weakness
And it's right outside your door
Now testify
Mass graves for the pump and the price is set
Who controls the past now controls the future
Who controls the present now controls the past
Who controls the past now controls the future
Who controls the present now?
Now testify



* Guerrilla Radio

Transmission third world war third round
A decade of the weapon of sound above ground
Ain't no shelter if you're looking for shade
I lick shots at the brutal charade
As tha polls close like a casket
On truth devoured
A silent play on the shadow of power
A spectacle monopolized
The camera's eye on choice disguised
Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?
Or for the vultures who thirst for blood and oil?
A spectacle monopolized
They hold the reins and stole your eyes
The fistagons bullets and bombs
Who stuff the banks
Who staff the party ranks
More for Gore or the son of a drug lord
None of the above fuck it cut the cord
Lights out guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
Contact I highjacked the frequencies
Blockin' the beltway
Move on DC
Way past the days of bombin' mc's
Sound off Mumia guan be free
Who gottem yo check the federal file
All you pen devils know the trial was vile
An army of pigs try to silence my style
Off em all out that box it's my radio dial
Lights out guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now
All hell can't stop us now



* Calm Like A Bomb

I be walkin' god like a dog
My narrative fearless
My word war returns to burn
Like Baldwin home from Paris
Steel from a furnace
I was born landless
It's tha native son
Born of Zapata's guns
Stroll through tha shanties
And tha cities remains
Same bodies buried hungry
But with different last names
These vultures rob everything
Leave nothing but chains
Pick a point on tha globe
Yes tha pictures tha same
There's a bank a church a myth and a hearse
A mall and a loan a child dead at birth
There's a widow pig parrot
A rebel to tame
A whitehooded judge
And a syringe and a vein
And tha riot be tha rhyme of tha unheard
Calm like a bomb
This ain't subliminal
Feel tha critical mass approach horizon
Tha pulse of tha condemned
Sound off America's demise
Tha anti-myth rhythm rock shocker
Yes I spit fire
Hope lies in tha smoldering rubble of empires
Back through tha shanties and tha cities remains
Tha same bodies buried hungry
But with different last names
These vultures rob everyone
Leave nothing but chains
Pick a point here at home
And tha picture's tha same
There's a field full of slaves
Some corn and some debit
There's a ditch full of bodies
Tha check for tha rent
There's a tap, tha phone, tha silence of stone
Tha numb black screen
That be feelin' like home
And tha riot be tha rhyme of tha unheard
Calm like a bomb
There's a mass without roofs
A prison to fill
A country's soul that reads post no bills
A strike and a line of cops outside of tha mill
There's a right to obey
And a right to kill




* Mic Check

To tha young r to tha e tha b to tha e tha l
Never give up just live up
Fed upon America
We be spittin' it up
Rippin' it up
For an even amount in each cup
To my brothers burning bare feet on black top
Whose curled 'neath tha shadows
From tha gaze of tha cops
Whose huntin' for 9 to 5's through factory locks
Is now hunted on this modern day auction block
Flexin' and mashin'
With complex text
Fast and in a fashion
That snap back necks
Quicker than a fed cash tha company checks
Come with tha fire only Marley could catch
This be tha flame in tha cellar beware
Nameless cold millions gaspin' for air
Those naked and wageless
Now scream within cages
They make you pull your shit
Just to get your share
With this mic device
I spit nonfiction
Who got tha power
This be my question
Tha mass of tha few
In this torn nation?
Tha priest tha book or tha congregation?
Tha politricks who rob and hold down your zone?
Or those who give tha thieves tha key to their
homes?
Tha pig who's free to murder one
Shucklak
Or survivors who make a move and murder one back?



* Sleep Now In The Fire

The world is my expense
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
So raise your fists
And march around
Don't dare take what you need
I'll jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
Or I'll drag you to your grave
I'm deep inside your children
They'll betray you in my name
Sleep now in the fire
The lie is my expense
The scope of my desire
The Party blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
And the fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire
For it's the end of history
It's caged and frozen still
There is no other pill to take
So swallow the one
That made you ill
The Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire



* Born Of A Broken Man

My fears hunt me down
Capturing my memories
The frontier of loss
They try to escape across the street where
Jesus stripped bare
And raped the spirit he was supposed to nurture
In the name of my in the name of my
Born of a broken man
But not a broken man
Born of a broken man
Never a broken man
Like autumn leaves
His sense fell from him
An empty glass of himself
Shattered somewhere within
His thoughts like a hundred moths
Trapped in a lampshade
Somewhere within
Their wings banging and burning
On through endless nights
Forever awake he lies shaking and starving
Praying for someone to turn off the light
Born of a broken man
But not a broken man
Born of a broken man
Never a broken man



* Born As Ghosts

The hills find peace
Locked armed guard posts
Safe from the screams
Of the children born as ghosts
Gates guns and alarms
Shape the calm of the dawn
Peering down into the basin
Where death lives on
Where young run foaming at the mouth with hate
Where burning batons beat the freezing who shake
Under the toxic sunsets they dine and toast
Their walls deny the terror faced by the children
Born as ghosts
Born as ghosts
One book and forty ghosts
Stuffed in a room
The school as a tomb
Where home is a wasteland
Taste the razor wire
And thought is locked in the womb
The tales that tear at the myth of the dream
A suffering that shocks the lives off the screen
Born as ghosts


* Maria

Tha sun ablaze as Maria's foot
Touches tha surface of sand
On northern land
As human contraband
Some rico from Jalisco
Passed her name to tha boss
She stuffed ten to a truckbed
She clutches her cross
Here comes tha exhaust
And it rips through her lungs
She's off fast to tha pasture
Like cattle she'll cross
Degree 106
Sweat and vomit are thrown
And she prays and suffocates
Upon tha memories of home
Of Yanqui guns for blood debts on tha loans
Of smoldering fields rape rubble and bones
Of graves hidden trapped up in visions of war
Of nothing no one nobody no more
These are her mountains and skies and
she radiates
And through history's rivers of blood
she regenerates
And like tha sun disappears only to reappear
She's eternally here
Her time is near
Never conquered but here
To tear away at tha mask
And now she got a quota
Tha needle and thread crucifixion
Sold and shipped across tha new line
of Mason Dixon
Rippin' through denim
Tha point an inch from her vein
Tha foreman approach
His steps now pound in her brain
His presence it terrifies
And eclipses her days
No minutes to rest
No moment to pray
And with a whisper
He whips her
Her soul chained to his will
"My job is to kill if you forget to take your
pill"
Her arms jerks
Tha sisters gather round her and scream
As if in a dream
Eyes on tha crimson stream
Numb as her wrists spit shots of blood to tha
floor
Of nothing no one nobody no more
These are her mountains and skies and
she radiates
And through history's rivers of blood
she regenerates
And like tha sun disappears only to reappear
Maria she's eternally here
Her time is near
Never conquered but here