Baba Brinkman - Black-eyed Peas lyrics

Don’t call it a remix, nah
Call it a re-enactment
I’ll teach you how to adapt
From amoebas to rappers
Just open The Origin of Species
And read it's chapters and study up on the
Impact of people’s actions
On farm animals, ducks, cows, dogs
Pigeons, horses, and domestic crops
They had wild ancestors
But somehow they went soft
Kinda like underground rappers goin’ pop
It’s all good
Right? One hand washes the other
We protect the cow
And the cow offers the udder
And that’s how we get a mouthful of butter
But in the wild, that cow is not gonna cut it
See, there’s nothing artificial
About domestication
Ant colonies keep domestic aphids


It’s still selection
Just with a different selecting agent
But, you can’t always predict
The best arrangement for instance
Humans domesticated black-eyed peas
In West Africa around 7, 000 BC
And now they got millions of mouths to feed
While their wild cousins just
Watch from the weeds
Too many MCs not enough mics
How many MCs wannabe MCs too many MCs
You play it in your system every night
Too many MCs how many MCs Wannabe MCs
Never be MCs every woman and man wanna MC
You play it in your system every night

There’s no intentional direction to
The selection in nature
It just patiently collects all
The best variations
And eventually species differentiate
But it’s open-ended
There’s no definite destination
And sometimes there’s none
In domestication either
You’re just listenin’ to my raps
Trapped in your speakers
But, if enough people just like
You plant my seed
Shit, you might turn me into a black eyed pea
You’re like ancient breeders
Rearranging the features
Of a species of sheep
Or increasing the sweetness
Of your peaches every season
When you choose to seed it
Or to feed it or to breed it or
To weed it out and delete it
‘Cause you just don’t see it as needed
The preferences in question
Could be for bigger chicken breasts or
Whippets with a thinner mid-section
Or it could just be an inner
Predilection to pick the best in
Any mixed collection
That’s artificial selection
You’re a farmer, that’s how it is
You can’t opt out of it
You have no choice but to make choices
You’re helpless
It’s cause time it'self is limited
It’s not selfish
It’s just the rap version of
The Doctrine of Malthus
Too many MCs not enough mics
How many MCs wannabe MCs too many MCs
You play it in your system every night
Too many MCs how many MCs Wannabe MCs
Never be MCs every woman and man wanna MC
You play it in your system every night

Okay, so maybe it isn’t all unconscious
Survival in rap is a non random process
‘Cause those who get massive responses
Influence
Those who aspire to get massive responses
So if you say I sound like an Eminem rip-off
Then I’ll probably get pissed off
And start flipping you off
And grabbing my crotch and acting obnoxious
And screaming "Fuck that, dawg
That’s preposterous!"
That’s right, I’m serious
I deny my inheritance
I invented myself from scratch
Like I’m parentless
So don’t let yourself get caught
Up in mere appearances
This isn’t just "imitation
Modified by experience"
Nah, I could never be one
Of the black eyed peas
‘Cause, I don’t imitate black guys, please
I imitate white guys who imitate
Black guys who lack IDs
‘Cause they’re imitations too
That’s my steez
I’m keepin’ it real, yeah, I’m innovating
My Darwinism keeps the
Bullshit disintegrating
You want authenticity? Well, this is it, baby
All it takes is ignorance
Of who you’re imitating