Baba Brinkman - Genesis lyrics

In the beginning I was just a kid
Listenin’ to Slick Rick maestro Fresh Wes
Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince
Rewrite the lyrics and recite ‘em
To my best friends
But, I was just a copycat and
This was just a hobby that
Would probably pass after I’d exhausted
All my sloppy raps
And got the laughs I was after
Typical little bastard
Privileged middle-class mischievous
Little rascal with a ticket to sit in the
Back row at a rap show
I listened to Fat Joe, Method Man, and B i g
And imagined livin’ as a V i p
Though I didn’t have a plan, just a fantasy
But, I could still pass exams
With ease and plant trees
To get cash for books, tuition fees
And rap CDs and I had a chance to


Read classic Greek tragedies
I’ve always been addicted to words
So I just immersed myself
In English Literature but, I was immature
And these were fickle times
Between classes I would listen
To rhymes and find
My lips whispering lines as
If in the background
Then at nineteen I wrote my
First original rap down
I go back to the Genesis Eden Garden
When I was a teen in love with freestylin’
That’s when I learned techniques for rhymin’
And started redesignin’

I can still feel that
Prickle of initial excitement i figured
"It’s official y’all this is enlightenment!"
I pictured myself cypherin’ with the
Likes of Big Pun
Whippin’ punks into submission with a
Flip of the tongue i did it for fun I
Was ambitious and irreverent
I figured I was clever enough
To get the better of any competitor
‘cause I was verbally first rate
My early verses were based
On discursive wordplay
With no breaks, no separated parts, no bars
No hooks just page after page past
The margins of notebooks
So far so good I built my skills gradually
And kept on track with the bachelor’s degree
Actually, I considered droppin’ out
To get respect but, I figured more options
Would mean less regrets and besides
Some rappers were comin’ differently
I discovered Blackalicious and Talib Kweli
MCs who could rip the beat descriptively
And then in my second season
I had this epiphany
"Rap is poetry!" and ever
Since I’ve represented it
Openly through my position as an academic
Get It? I go back to the Genesis Eden Garden
When I was a teen in love with freestylin’
That’s when I learned techniques for rhymin’
And started redesignin’

Next semester I convinced my teachers
That Hip-Hop lyrics would be
My thesis research
I thought I would be the first
To study it in depth
Reality check the library index
Already had a long list
Of Hip-Hop scholarship
Steps that I followed in
David Foster Wallace and
Tricia Rose and Brian
Cross got acknowledgments
And props they taught me Hip-Hop history
And I started to approach
This culture realistically
And the next step for me
In this MC trajectory
Was for me to freestyle obsessively
On road trips I was a motor-mouth motorist
I learned to flow sick on a solo tip
Rockin’ Dr dre beats – Xxplosive
I was blowin’ doors open
People started listenin’
Hip-hop for me was a form of discipline
Born Again on the discman, studyin’ flows
Whadaya know? When I was
Just twenty years old
I hit the tracks runnin’ my
Mouth like a bloody nose
And took my first steps down
This long dusty road oh!
I get lethargic and reminisce
In the darkness return to the days
When I learned to spit marvelous
And give props to those who started this
HipHop, I love being part of this