Kae Tempest - Hip Hop lyrics

How can I describe the feeling inside
Of being 16 and learning how it
Feels to speak your peace through a mic?
Alright you're right I never looked the
Part but I never doubted
For a minute cause Hip-Hop was
In my heart and
My whole heart was in it Hip Hop it was the
Love of my life man and it still is
How can I describe headphones on
A packed train feeling
Worlds away from the monotionty
Of the everyday sitting in the back of
Class listening hard to
Whatever played cause I learned more from the
Words that I heard GZA Pharoe and Chester
Say then any fucking teacher at school
See we used to bang the walls
In the corridors and set
The cyphers up and at first I was mad shy but
Then hip hop help me find
My guts and the verses
I'd write and my room came to life in clubs
I be done at deal real
Every Friday night that's were
I saw the kinda stuff that should me so much
About the holy mysticism of dope
Lyricism this wasn't just
Any old fade of fascination
Man this was different
See I felt more at ease
Spitting over breaks than I
Ever felt before so I worked hard to find
My natrual pace and understand the
Dynamics of my flow and I took the rapping
Greats very seriously indeed
Me and my mates used to practice 8 bars
At a time freestyling on the bus
Home how can I describe how it felt
To have love shown by the
Rappers who my Gods after I had tracked
Them down at packed shows and spat
My manic bars at them and have them
Tell me that I have flows?
But still people seem surprised because I'm a
Rapper who's rhymes reference to littering
It was Hip Hop that opened my
Mind to my abllity to
Strive for the courage to strive
Towards what lives in me
The true knowledge to infinite
Life and relativity
See people seem to think that if you find
Peace and study that means you ain't
Hip hop I'm like fuck that hip hop
Taught us about nurgering our souls with
The wisdom of our eather above us and
The concerte beeneth our feets but God
Love us we had to watch our true
Love getting smothered by the industry
Putting out a message that Rap should be a
Simile for trash talk and
Negativity that mainstream
Keeps propagetting that imagery that
Hip Hop is
A love of form routed in stupidity
Why is this? I'm sure we can
Figure it out ourselves right?
We ain't got time to bitch and whine
About the state of things cause
Now we got our minds set on
Greater things something about
Changing things
Opening our hearts to the raging wind
You see people get fasincated
Cause I'm a woman on stage who's brain
Sings louder than her figure does
I feel like um I'm like my
Body is a storm cloud
Ready to burst and make
That shallow river flood
You see just cause I read up on the
Greats doesn't mean I won't rip it up
Or go diggin' throught the crates looking for
The bass to lift me up
See hip hop is a sacred place they
Can't irridacte because it lives in us
So look if you think rappers are all idiots
Man that's between you and your ignorance
Similairy if you think Blake
Aint' the illest shit
I beg to talk different
You see me I conversate with God's everyday
This is pure influcence some say
"Hi!"p hop is being killed I say
It saves it's true citizens
Mate I was listening to Jay Elec' in
The rain and I felt brilliance
Illuminating every cell in my brain I
Prayed isn't it strange how it
All fitting in the molds that they
Built to contain us because they
Saw it in it's true form it
Was raw and too dangerous
People turn around like yeah but
The misogyny is horribly overt
I tell em fuck it I I'm a true
Woman and I know my true worth
And when I write I give birth
To my words germinated by every
Greater rhymer and every great writer
That I educate in my
Famished mind with the work of Me
I sat and mediatated while
Lesser rapper jerked off and wonder
Why they never made it
The real art should be celebrated
And it should be elevated
Cause right now life isn't lived life is
Demonstrated you know everything
As a performer
Hip hop told me there was more and
Gave me warnings I absorb things
From the culture so important for my
Stature I fucking adore it mate
I was born to be a rapper and
You can ignore it all you
Like it doesn't matter cause it will
Perservere and the people who
Love it we can see our purpose clear
And true alright fam I'm nothing
Special I just know to let the
Essence speak through and be
A vessel no bravado right but hip
Hop did show me how to
Wrestle you over the edge if you
Try to threating my cargo
Or if you try to whisper the
Fear into my ear like Iago
Fuck it let's listen to the rhythms of
Our flesh aging and watch the stars
Flow mate be your real self show the
Things they say you can't show
Breathe deep in the boom bap
Of the beat and believe
What your heart knows let
Yourself be the light
In the dark and glow bright and let the bars
Flow right cause I love with pure energy
Hip hop taught me the importance
Of being geniune and heavenly
So I challenge anyone who tries
To question it's legacy