Yellow Brick Road

What we have to do is deal with it when these individuals are young enough, if you will, to be saved, not in a religious sense, but not to constitute what this country at times calls their throwaway children.

We seem to be approaching -an age of the gross.

-We all have this idea that we should move up a little bit from our parents' station, and each, and each generation -should do a little bit better.

-Aight, come on, let's cut the bullshit enough. Let's get it started, let's start addressing this issue and open it up.

Let's take this shit back to the basement and we can discuss statements that's made on this tape and its whole origin of the music that we all know and love, the music we all enjoy, the music you accuse me of trying to destroy.

Let's rewind it to '89 when I was a boy on the east side of Detroit, crossing 8 Mile into Warren, into hit territory.

I'd like to share a story, this is my story and can't nobody tell it for me. You are well informed me, I am well aware that I don't belong here.

You made that perfectly clear. I get my ass kicked damn near everywhere from Bel Air

Shopping Center just for stopping in there, from the black side all the way to the white side. Okay, there's a bright side, a day that I might slide.

You may call it a pass, I call it hauling my ass through that patch of grass over them railroad tracks. Oh, them railroad tracks, them old railroad tracks, them good old

Notorious so well-known tracks.

So let's go back, follow the yellow brick road as we go on another episode.

Journey with me as I take you through this nifty little place that I once used to call home sweet home.

Come on, let's go back, follow the yellow brick road as we go on another episode.

Journey with me as I take you through this nifty little place that I once used to call home sweet home.

I roamed the streets so much they called me a drifter.

Sometimes I'd stick up a thumb just to hitchhike, just to get picked up to get me a lift up 8 Mile and Van Dyke or steal a goddamn bike from somebody's backyard and drop it off at the park.

That was the halfway mark to me, Kim, Matt to walk back to where Mom was on Chalmers after dark to sneak me in the house when I'm kicked out my mom's.

That's about the time I first met Proof with Goofy Gary on the steps at Osborne handing out some flyers. He was doing some talent shows at Center Line High.

I told him to stop by and check us out sometime.

He looked at me like I'm out my mind, shook his head like white boys don't know how to rhyme.

I spit out a line and rhymed birthday with first place, and we both had the same rhymes that sounded alike.

We was on the same shit, that Big Daddy Kane shit, but compound syllables sound combined.

From that day, we was down to ride.

Somehow we knew we'd meet again somewhere down the line. So let's go back, follow the yellow brick road as we go on another episode.

Journey with me as I take you through this nifty little place that I once used to call home sweet home.

Come on, let's go back, follow the yellow brick road as we go on another episode.

Journey with me as I take you through this nifty little place that I once used to call home sweet home.

My first year in ninth grade, can't forget that day at school.

It was cool 'til your man MC Shan came through and said that Puma's the brand 'cause the Clan makes troops.

It was rumors, but man, goddamn, they flew. Must've been true because man, we done banned they shoes.

I had the new ones, the Cool J Ice Lamb suede too, but we just threw them in the trash like they yesterday's news. Guess who came through next? X-Clan debuted,

Professor X and Glorious, exist in a state of red, black, and green with a key, sissies. Now with this being the new trend, we don't fit in.

Crackers is out with cactus albums, blackness is in.

African symbols and medallions represent black power, and we ain't know what it meant.

Me and my man Howard and Butter would go to the mall with them all over our necks like we're showing them off, not knowing at all we was being laughed at.

"You ain't even half black, you ain't supposed to have that, homie, let me grab that, and that Flavor Flav clock, we gon' have to snatch that.

" All I remember is meeting back at Mannix's basement, saying how we hate this, how racist but dope the X-Clan's tape is.

Which reminds me, back in '89, me and Kim broke up for the first time.

She was trying to two-time me, and there was this black girl at our school who thought I was cool 'cause I rapped, so she was kinda eyeing me. And oh, the irony, guess what her name was?

Ain't even gonna say it.

Plus, the same color hair as hers was and blue contacts and a pair of Jockes. The finest goddamn girl in the whole school.

If I could pull her, not only would I become more popular, but I would be able to piss Kim off at the same time. But it backfired.

I was supposed to dump her, but she dumped me for this black guy, and that's the last I ever seen or heard or spoke to the old foolish pride girl.

But I've heard people say they heard the tape and it ain't that bad, but it was. I singled out a whole race, and for that, I apologize. I was wrong.

'Cause no matter what color a girl is, she's still a. . .

So let's go back, follow the yellow brick road as we go on another episode.

Journey with me as I take you through this nifty little place that I once used to call home sweet home.

Come on, let's go back, follow the yellow brick road as we go on another episode. Journey with me as

I take you through this nifty little place that I once used to call home sweet home.