1. |
The Emergence
03:47
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2. |
Library Dreams
04:04
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Beat drops and I try to get a clap goingBlank stares like these kids have never seen a rap show
This is Yale, guess they've never seen a rap show
If I can't move the crowd, well then what do I rap for?
Catharsis or fame? AmI harboring my pain
Am I trying to change the world or just marketing my name?
Am I shameless, impatient forsaking how mom's raised me
When finally my pain ends at least I'll know both satan and
St. Joe know what my name is, and let's face it
They'll probably fight over me, Maimonides please
What, can you tell me, I'm feeling like farina
Exotic dancers might have the best answers
But sorry girl, I'm not a cancer, I'm a cancer
and you're not me heroine, you're my heroin
Opaque box where I put all my heroes in
So if you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna keep rapping (in the)
One day I fell asleep with my face in a book
I was reading Foucault, I was reading Foucault
One day I fell asleep with my headphones on
John Coltrane, playing John Coltrane
One day I fell asleep with my face in a book
I was reading Borges, reading Borges
One day I fell asleep with my headphones on
Listening to Pete Seeger, Pete Seeger
If I'm gonna be a stoic can I still like music
I'm questioning devotion to the search for where truth is
Hoping when I grow up, I'll find out what the use is
Cause with Oceans so abusive, my music just seems useless
I'm captaining this ship but my two bit crew skipped
and truth is, only I might exist
Close my eyes and I don't even know if you persist
so give me a second, just give me a second
But just for the record, I don't believe in time
I'm not waiting for the messiah, he won't be here in time
I like sunshine, but don't need gold stars
And I'm not talking about a planet when I reference mars
So keep your kudos, and eat your accolades
Don't be surprised to see me read Foucault backstage
and I'm fascinated with the curve of your lips
But way to existential to remember your name girl
One day I fell asleep with my face in a book
David Foster Wallace, David Foster Wallace
One day I fell asleep with my headphones on
Playing Bob Dylan, Playing Bob Dyaln
One day I fell asleep with my face in a book
I was Reading Howard Zinn, go read Howard Zinn
One day I fell asleep with my headphones on
Playing Miles Davis I was feeling kind of Blue
Spiritual quest for lyrical epiphanies
Simply stated I can't hide in the symphonies
Dystrophy overwhelms as I'm riffing
How can I fit the whole Iliad in 16? I'm
Drifitng as I'm writing Poseidon
Where the fuck you taking me? what Island is this?
I'd rather be with sisyphus, I'm kind of getting sick of this
My stomach's getting sick from this, where's calypso?
she's my blues chick, it proved useless from the
start, but truth is, like miles I'm abusive
shoeless, I'm wandering, I'm wondering if all these girls
dress so nice, why don't they want to talk to me
Honestly, I want surprise like Gillespie
Surrounded by so many folks whose only care in life
is looking sexy, so sorry babe don't text me
I'm trying to sell out buy everyone just wants rent me
One day I fell asleep with my face in a book
I was reading Edward Albee, have you heard of Edward Albee
One day I fell asleep with my headphones on
Listening to Atmosphere, ATMOSPHERE
One day I fell asleep with my face in a book
I was reading George Orwell, Reading George Orwell
One day I fell asleep with my headphones on
I was playing dispossessed.
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3. |
I'm Alive
04:12
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I'm alive
I'm alive like I breath air and eat food
I'm alive like I drink water
And hate coke cause it tastes fake like something a zombie would drink
And I hate zombies, cause they try to eat your soul, but I won't get eaten because
I'm alive like I was always told I couldn't sing so I take showers just to have a place to belt it out and sometimes I forget to even wash myself, but you know what I smell as good as ever
I'm alive like I still think dinosaurs are cool,
and when I drink water I think about how my 8th grade science teacher taught me that the water I'm drinking is the same water a dinosaur drank before it died and the same water that eroded it into dust or, a fossil. It's the same water that achilles, or gandhi drank before it eroded them into dust or heroes. The same water my zeda drank before it eroded him into dust or a patriarch. The same water that will turn me into dust and you into dust and make dust of all of us, so the question confronts us why fuss with the poetry and shit if it only lasts the second of air vibration before it slips away and I'm only a blink of the universe before my day is up and I'm dust
But fuck that,
I do it because I like it and because
I'm alive
like I like running naked in the rain
And I'm alive like I actually GO running naked in the rain and don't just talk about it in poems and you can consider this an open invitation to join me the next time god starts to cry tears of joy, nudity not optional, we'll party like the serpent hasn't come yet
I'm alive like I can combine 29 lines at a time rhyme light speed no sign posting for my kind audience sitting wide eyed now eyeballs go dry until blinding sets in but I pay no mind because you don't pay me so it's all the same and poetry is free, but not free of pain and it doesn't matter anyways
Because you're all still picturing me naked in the rain
But that's fine cause
I'm alive
like I still yell and cry and throw things and obstinately argue and roll around in the grass and mud, naked when it's raining, and get lost wandering and ask too many questions, and play with puppies and have messy handwriting and call how I feel about girls "a crush"
I E
I'm alive like a child
And no child dreams of growing up to stare excel spreadsheets because that's obnoxious
and excel is all boxes
and fuck boxes
I'm alive like I can say platitudes knowing you're all judging me but I feel that I must say them anyways because one day you'll all just be dust and right now
I'm alive like these zombies want me to think their colored paper will bring me fulfillment but I'm alive so I know it won't. A pen and paper are five bucks, friends are free ad the sun shines on everyone, so why would I need to be a millionaire?
These zombies fit nicely in their J Crew boat, shoes and Suits and think I dress funny but I'm alive I strut my style like prince Harry was also rocking hand me downs, thrift store gems and t - shirts won at track meets
I'm alive like I'm still dazzled by Emerson, Borges Thoreau and Fenimore and I'll have plenty more adventures before I stop climbing sycamores and start riding elevators
These zombies want me to think that in 3 years its 100k or bust,
and if it were, I'm alive, so I'd choose bust, like bust a move or bust a rhyme like busta rhymes or bust a nut in a zombies face and feel great
But to be honest these zombies are pretty smart
Look at Clinton Gates and Buffet, Money is power and power is money and the flowers dried up in the 70s
I won't listen
Pocket change won't change the world
I won't listen
You're a hipster and you're going to be homeless
I won't listen
Go to law school, go to med school work on wall street
I won't listen I won't listen I'm trying not to listen to anything but me but my heartbeat to remind myself that
I'm alive like I only drink Minnesota lake water, I only breath Colorado Mountain Air and to be honest I love chicken tenders
I'm alive like I can feel your heartbeat
I'm alive like I like to smile at strangers on the street and sometimes people will say do I know you? And I'll say, well you do now, my name's Jacob
and I'm alive
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4. |
Chaco Music
01:34
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5. |
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(Clip from American Beauty)
Everyone's asking me to write a fun song
Put this down in order to right wrongs
Love songs, drug songs, how to get a along songs
This one here is a live your fucking life song
Call it movement and I made it for the movement
Beyond the politics we've all gotta keep moving
Losing faith in all our problem solvers
Moving cause it's all we've got
All I've got is a roulette revolver
Staring down an army now here's my shot
Gotta stop boxes being locked on my conscious
Take away my fists I'll still fight with my conscience
Wars abroad and ignorance at home
We've got less jobs than wiretapped phones
We're ubiquitous, claim the land as our own
Militants in demilitarized zones
Chorus (Jamie Bogyo):
You can't be healthy in a world that sick
Shutting our doors and our keys don't fit
All paths blocked and it might feel like it's useless
All we can do is keep on moving
Want to be a person? personification
Expect in the end he won't end up blameless
He's grown so big, he's found himself shameless
All about the gun, he couldn't even aim it
Focus on the Gs, greed and gluttony,
Growing up his mind was only on one thing
No time for love when you're money lusting
He got what he wanted, nothing wrong with envy
He grew grew grew and never looked away
Crushed all the rest so now he proclaims
All his greatness and everything he lifts up
Probably can't see everything that he's ripped up
Now he's gone viral and got us all infected
He can't stand the sloth, got hungry and left it
Infested the earth, can't stand in his path
But now we're gonna dance as the only way to fight back
Chorus
Socialist, no I'm a global localist
Focusing on what it's not fun to be noticing
No direction and what we do is useless?
You're taking what you're taught taught as if it were intuitive
Imbibing ideas of what to strive for
When your light's pinched out you've gotta ask what you're alive for
Placeless spaces we lock them tight
Sedated in place its a double edged kit
Making it harder to keep us out of sight
Don't ever try to put a price on life
Our feet are drumsticks, this town we run it
Streets 808s and its beats we make
Chants a chorus, try to ignore it
Thoughts are lyrics, it's what they're fearing
Stars and streetlights make nice stage lights
The world's the audience and we ain't about to play nice
Chorus
This one's for those who don't accept what they're taught
Question preconceptions and believe in free thought
Dance till we sweat and the labels slip off
Middle finger is a greeting to the people that we piss off
Ripped off, of our share of humanity
Global collapse in the name of vanity
Irrationality is not insanity
Cause we're all insane in a crazy society
Can't find it in me w/ this daily anxiety
Drown all the facts and I'm striving for sobriety
I'm not yelling yet, but I think that it's time to be
I don't believe in speech when all you do is lie to me
Chants a chorus, try to ignore it
Thoughts are lyrics, it's what they're fearing
Stars and streetlights make nice stage lights
World packs the audience and we ain't about to play nice
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Yaakov Minneapolis, Minnesota
Sexy Abstract Political Folk Rapper born and raised in Minneapolis, MN and currently living in New Haven, CT at Yale. Part of the dispossessed.Records Collective and a member of Yale's Teeth Slam Poets.
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