Intro/chorus: lord jamar, grand puba Straight outta now rule, brand nu keepin cool We drop a j**el and never stoppin what we do Always do what we must, everything that we touch Is going platinum plus, comin thru in a clutch *repeat* Verse one: lord jamar, grand puba A lot of y'all n***as is 85th, on some shady sh** Bark is much worse than your bite like a baby pit In the pitch dark of the night you's afraid to get exposed Like the sunlight which rose in the morning Froze in a gunfight, forcing those who run with you to reevaluate Affiliations We salivate from hunger, placed in f**ed up situations And wonder when retaliation will occur Build destroy h-he or her It's time to fill the void, n***as k** the noise To the young boys, you f**in with a grown-a** man Watch your tone or get acquainted with the back of my hand Nubian brand steadily influencin fans For other rappers we gon' ruin your plans What we doin stands as a motto Like grace jones' nipple to the bottle We pioneer and never follow We're out for the lion's share now watch me take it there Yeah, my verbal clarity speaks for my popularity Sell 5 million cds and give the proceeds to my favorite charity Son, i ain't gonna super splash you with no fantasy island sh** I mean i work hard for what i got and i be thankful for what i get And if you practice, spit your verbs properly, not sloppily Like monopoly, you can end up with cheese, whips and property Oh damn, silly of me, i forgot to let y'all know It's one thing you should never do in this game and that's sell your soul I make a lot of sense then i go and make the dollars Work hard like blue collars, ghetto scholars is hard to follow n***as say it's real rough today and i say what you say They promised me 40 acres and a mule and all i got was a project and a Subway I stay positive, n***as mistake that for not hard n***a i'm god, walk thru north america like master farrad Me and my squad, separating the peas from the pod No bodyguard, f** around and roll a tank thru your yard Chorus Verse two: sadat x Yeah Man, these dick-in-the-bu*t rappers could get shot in the face Dragged thru the streets and probably left some place I seem shootouts in the park Ball games turned tragic, b**h n***as gettin smacked and smacked again In front of they girl, and she's throwing away that a** And i ain't really asked for it cos a lot of n***as tore it And yes, my man hav had bought me something from va I was gonna hit him with doe but he ain't reall want no shorts Cos we had worked together and he knew i was true blue Man, i swore i would never go to va again Until i found out who k**ed my best friend I can tell by the wind somebody's gettin ready to bend They lifestyle's bout to end I'm in these african cabs on stores run by the arabs With pictures of yen, seem like they schemin Herculoid cats get flattened and reduced to pitchin That girl gave you crabs but i can't explain those scabs [grand puba] ha ha, where we at? flash one-time Chorus (x2) Ha, '98, too soon Brand nubian, what?