RIGHT NOW [FEATURING BLACK THOUGHT OF THE ROOTS AND STYLES OF BEYOND]
Mike:
Someone right now / is leaving their apartment
Looking down at the street and wondering where their car went
Someone in a car is sitting at a signal
In front of a restaurant / staring through the window at
Someone right now with their finger in their teeth
Who could use a little floss / right across the street there’s
Somebody on the curb / who really needs a jacket
But spent half the rent at a bar getting plastered
Now he’s gotta walk / 14 blocks just to
Work at a shop where he’s about to get fired
Someone right now / is looking pretty tired
Staring at a laptop / trying to get inspired as
Somebody / living right across the street
Just wrote the best thing that she’s written all week
But her best friend is coughing up blood in the sink
He can’t even think what happened / feeling so confused
And he knows it looks bad but nothing he can do
I wonder what it’s like to be right there in his shoes
But
Yo, I’m just taking it in
Out the window of a hotel bedroom again
Tomorrow I’ll be gone / I don’t know when I’ll be back
But in this world everything can change just like that
Like that

Ryu:
Somebody right now is dropping his vote inside a
Box trying to not get shot in his throat for the act of freedom
Right now / somebody’s stuck in Iraq
Hoping that he gets shipped back breathing
In a war but he’s not really sure the reasons
So we show our support when the press mislead him
Though we mourn / remain proud / salute the troops
Get some / I know you boys got some work to do

Tak:
Meanwhile / right now someone’s 25-to-life-ing
Standing on a corner with their thumb up hitchhiking
Scratching off a lotto ticket hoping for a real winner
Sneaking through the border just to work and eat a real dinner
Right now someone wishes they were you and I
Instead of second-guessing fatal thoughts of quiet suicide
But right now I’m staring out the window at a fiend
With holes in his arm and / holes in his jeans
He pulled out a cigarette and sparked a light
And walked right around the corner just out of my sight
But
Yo I’m just taking it in
From a second storey hotel window again
The TV’s on and my bags are packed
But in this world everything can change just like that
Like that
Yo I’m just taking it in
From a second storey hotel window again
The TV’s on and my bags are packed
But in this world everything can change just like that
Like that

Black Thought:
Yeah / right now somebody’s sittin’ in the darkness
Tryin’ to figure how to put some heat in the apartment but
They got a little mattress / little carpet
And they appreciate it ‘cause some people on a park bench
You see ‘em rushing to get to the office
Wife ride by ‘em when she comin’ home from the market
Right now somebody comin’ out the pocket
Tryin’ to dump that rock / they runnin’ round the block with
Same time the cops is raisin’ the glock
With aim to fill your legs and your back with some hot shit
Right now somebody’s struggling to stop this
Man that’s kicking and punching and cussing at the doctors
Down the hall a child is takin’ its first breath
The doctors ain’t even passed him to the nurse yet / yo
I wonder if he understand what it’s worth yet
Life / the time spent while we here on the earth yet
The answers to the questions we all seek
Can be found / it depend on how free y’all think
Right now / it’s somebody who ain’t eat all week
That would kill / for the shit you throw away in the street
I guess one man’s trash is a next man’s treasure
One man’s pain is a next man’s pleasure
One says infinity the next say forever
Right now / everybody got to / get it together man
Uh I’m just taking it in
In another strange hotel lobby again
With my luggage on my back / I don’t know where I’m at
I’m in a world where it all changes just like that
Like that

Mike:
Yeah I’m just taking it in
Out the window of a hotel bedroom again
Tomorrow I’ll be gone / I don’t know when I’ll be back
But in this world everything can change just like that
Like that

FEEL LIKE HOME [FEATURING STYLES OF BEYOND]

Yeah

Mike:
These days are dark and the nights are cold
People acting like they’ve lost their soul
And everywhere I go I see another person like me
Trying to make it all feel like home [x2]

Mike:
Standing on the bridge in the dark and I’m seeing my breath
Trying to make it home without freezing to death
And my grandfather’s face / stuck in my mind and how
Seeing him tonight’s gonna be the last time
I should’ve brought a jacket
Blowing in my hands like it’s really gonna stop the chill
I buy a cup of coffee with a five dollar bill / thinking
Laying in that box people look so stiff
At times like these you start thinking
Your first breath in and the clock starts ticking
I’m not trying to bum anyone out
Not trying to be dramatic / just thinking it loud
Some defence from the cold that I’m feeing outside and for a minute
Escape with some rhythm and rhyme and
Get away from the grey
Just a bit of the time

Ryu:
Yeah / kinda funny how this world can treat you
Like a freak in a sideshow / a carnival creature
Climbing outta cans / I’m a diamond in the sand
But you can’t tell the difference on a beach full of rhinestones
My life’s trying to swallow a pinecone
It’s tough when you live fast / just to die slow
Talk to dial tones / my dreams are far fetched
It seems / so I sleep underneath this park bench
I know it don’t make sense
And I don’t expect for you to know what it’s like
Smoke / drink / piss / sniffing everything in my sight
Push rocks in a pipe
Liftoff / I keep puffin’ ‘till my lips turn white
And my chest gets tight
But who the fuck really cares / when you’re
So far left that even death looks right
All I can do is hope for the best and pray
That it gets a little better than yesterday

Chorus

Tak:
Yo pardon me / I think I’m next to url
Too many problems going on / that’s why I left my girl
Packed my bags and I travelled with a pen and my notepad
Pissed that I was broke and all the things that I don’t have
But still
I try to find a way to escape
From all the hate planted in my head which lead to mistakes
But now I’m breathing the mold / see I was patient and calm
Many sleep in the rain / but I’m awake in the storm
Writing my life in a short film / The Rise and Fall
How I managed to scorch hills / and climb the walls
Pound pavement / aimless in this cold existence
Even though thangs are changing / I’m going the distance
Overcoming the doubt that had controlled her so long
And put it all behind me / ‘cause life still goes on
Now I’m much stronger and know where I stand
While lost souls search over and over again

Mike:
These days are dark and the nights are cold
People acting like they’ve lost their soul
And everybody’s trying not to cry / trying to get by
And trying not to feel out of control
And if you look hard enough
Sometimes you’ll find a place that might just remind you of home
But if it doesn’t feel like home
You can do what I do
Just pretend you don’t feel so along

Feel like home…

IN STEREO

Jay-Z:
“That beat is hard”

Mike:
This is how it goes
Welcome one and all to the show
We’re wired up / fired up / fucking ready to go
In the back of the parking lot outside of the bar
Twenty deep / twenty feet from the boulevard
Black hoodies
Black caps
Black label in glasses
Previewing the new shit before all the masses
‘Cause the first thin I need when I’ve got a new beat
Is to see how it sounds / echoing off the street
I just take it for a spin
Pop the CD in
Slide it up to ten and get that rearview shaking
Then / play it again so there’s no mistaking
San Andreas the block
Get this bitch earthquaking like
Oh

Chorus:
Oh / ready for it here we go
We got the whole block rocking in stereo
We’re taking control / letting everybody know
And if you feel it / let me hear everybody go

Mike:
You’re not ready
I got plenty cuts for twenty months dropped steadily
Plenty tracks to empty on your wack pedigree
I’m backed heavily while you’re back peddling
Forget the chitchat on me homie / kick back
I’m on that shit that can get your homie bitch-slapped
So zip you lip back / listen and watch
We got the whole block rockin’ off the way the beat knocks
You don’t have to warn the people on the corner / they know
That if you’re standing on that corner then you’re getting that show
World premiering you’re hearing that Machine Shop flow
San Andreas the block
Get this bitch earthquaking like
Oh

Chorus

Turn the key / turn the volume up to loud
Roll right / roll every window down
Let the whole block know what this is about
Turn it up y’all

Mike:
Burn out that system like,
Oh!

Chorus

Mike:
Let’s go ahead and test out the speakers
You ready?
Let’s go, like this!

Cigarettes
I love this rap game
Mainly cuz its cool
To add a little spice to the life you’ve been through
Everyone exaggerates a tiny little bit
To make that shit sound more gangster than it really is
You cant appear weak man
We wanna hear street
Wanna hear you spit your thug over this here beat
Don’t take it as sarcastic
I can’t get enough
I’m telling you
You can call my bluff
If it’s not rough, then I really don’t need it
I’m not even ashamed
I got too much reality that’s filling up my brain
so sell me on that chronic, I’m addicted to the game
Suck it up like a cigarette, light it up

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Once in awhile but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody’s really fooled
I don’t want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Let me tell you something that I realized tonight
My hip hop radio is like Marlboro lights
They’re both selling stories and they sound about the same
Cigarettes say their safe, wrappers claim they really bang
We don’t care if it’s true when we lay the money down
We don’t believe the words, we just love the way they sound
They’re acting like we’re idiots, They’re lying to our face
Maybe we are idiots, we buy it anyway

I’m runnin out to get the next rapper’s CD
Just suckin up the guns, drugs, and misogyny
The same way that I suck up all the stories
When I breathe that little bit of death supposedly cancer-free and
Everything they say’s got the truth twisted up
But twisted up’s what I want man, I can’t get enough
Cuz even though we know it’s all just a big bluff
We just light another up, what
We don’t give a fuck

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Once in awhile but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody’s really fooled
I don’t want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Over and over but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody’s really fooled
I don’t want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Listen to the words, Listen for awhile
Lip Service radio, don’t touch the dial
If you’re in the car
Turn up the track man
Give the whole neighbourhood some second hand rap

Matter of fact
Listen to the words, Listen for awhile
Lip Service radio, don’t touch the dial
If you’re in the car
Turn up the track man
Give the whole neighbourhood some second hand rap

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Once in awhile but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody’s really fooled
I don’t want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do
Over and over but between me and you
Its just like a cigarette Nobody’s really fooled
I don’t want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Get Me Gone
The dude, he said that, like, when we were making the first Linkin Park record
He was like,
«Yeah you know, I don’t know about the rapping like, I don’t know… maybe you

should just be a rock band.«You know what I mean, like, trying to change us
like they signed us as an act like what we sound like and then he’s like
«Oh I don’t know maybe you should just play keyboard»

Before the first song that you heard me on
There were people already tryin’ to get me gone
Tellin? me to quit rapping
«Just play the keys»
That my band had a singer
They didn’t need me
But my band had my back
So we did the tracks
Put out the album and the talk went flat
It was funny at first but then the humour faded
When some magazines printed that our label made us
We were to be good to be true
Some were saying ghost writers were writin’ all that we do
So we had to disprove it
We spelled it out to the detail how we do it when we’re making this music
After that I made it a rule
I only do e-mail responses to print interviews
Because these people love to put a twist to your words
To infer that you said something fucking absurd

Oh, did I lose you at infer?
Not used to hearing a verse that uses over first grade vocabulary words?
People used to infer that we were manufactured
Now I?ve got the interviews on file
Which people said what
Which number to dial
So now every enemy screaming insanity
All they’re ever gonna be’s another big fan of me
Bitch

Kenji
My father came from Japan in 1905
He was 15 when he immigrated from Japan
He, he… he worked until he was able to buy this patch
And build a store

Let me tell you the story in the form of a dream,
I don’t know why I have to tell it but I know what it means,
Close your eyes, just picture the scene,
As I paint it for you, it was World War II,
When this man named Kenji woke up,
Ken was not a soldier,
He was just a man with a family who owned a store in LA,
That day, he crawled out of bed like he always did,
Bacon and eggs with wife and kids,
He lived on the second floor of a little store he ran,
He moved to LA from Japan,
They called him ’Immigrant,’
In Japanese, he’d say he was called «Isei,»
That meant ’First Generation In The United States,’
When everyone was afraid of the Germans, afraid of the Japs,
But most of all afraid of a homeland attack,
And that morning when Ken went out on the doormat,
His world went black ’cause,
Right there; front page news,
Three weeks before 1942,
«Pearl Harbour’s Been Bombed And The Japs Are Comin’,»
Pictures of soldiers dyin’ and runnin’,
Ken knew what it would lead to,
Just like he guessed, the President said,
«The evil Japanese in our home country will be locked away,»
They gave Ken, a couple of days,
To get his whole life packed in two bags,
Just two bags, couldn’t even pack his clothes,
Some folks didn’t even have a suitcase, to pack anything in,
So two trash bags was all they gave them,
When the kids asked mum «Where are we goin’?»
Nobody even knew what to say to them,
Ken didn’t wanna lie, he said «The US is lookin’ for spies,
So we have to live in a place called Mandinar,
Where a lot of Japanese people are,»
Stop it don’t look at the gunmen,
You don’t wanna get the soldiers wonderin’,
If you gonna run or not,
’Cause if you run then you might get shot,
Other than that try not to think about it,
Try not to worry ’bout it; bein’ so crowded,
Someday we’ll get out, someday, someday.

As soon as war broke out
The  G.I came and they just come to the house and
«You have to come»
«All the Japanese have to go»
They took Mr. Lee
People didn’t understand
Why did they have to take him?
Because he’s an innocent labourer

So now they’re in a town with soldiers surroundin’ them,
Every day, every night look down at them,
From watch towers up on the wall,
Ken couldn’t really hate them at all;
They were just doin’ their job and,
He wasn’t gonna make any problems,
He had a little garden with vegetables and fruits that,
He gave to the troops in a basket his wife made,
But in the back of his mind, he wanted his families life saved,
Prisoners of war in their own damn country,
What for?
Time passed in the prison town,
He wanted them to live it down when they were free,
The only way out was joinin’ the army,
And supposedly, some men went out for the army, signed on,
And ended up flyin’ to Japan with a bomb,
That 15 kiloton blast, put an end to the war pretty fast,
Two cities were blown to bits; the end of the war came quick,
Ken got out, big hopes of a normal life, with his kids and his wife,
But, when they got back to their home,
What they saw made them feel so alone,
These people had trashed every room,
Smashed in the windows and bashed in the doors,
Written on the walls and the floor,
«Japs not welcome anymore.»
And Kenji dropped both of his bags at his sides and just stood outside,
He, looked at his wife without words to say,
She looked back at him wiped the tears away,
And, said «Someday we’ll be okay, someday,»
Now the names have been changed, but the story’s true,
My family was locked up back in ’42,
My family was there it was dark and damp,
And they called it an internment camp

When we first got back from camp… uhh
It was… pretty… pretty bad

I, I remember my husband said
«Are we gonna stay ’til last?»
Then my husband died before they close the camp.

Slip Out The Back
You know me
I used to get caught up in everyday life
Trying to make it through my day so I could sleep at night
Trying to figure my way through the maze of rights and wrongs
But like you used to say
Nothing feels like it’s really worth it

Forget perfect
I’m trying not to be worthless
Since I last saw you I’ve been looking for a purpose
Well, I met this kid who thought like I did
He had a weird way of looking at it
This is what he said

Slip out the back before they know you were there
And at the worst you’ll see nobody cares
Cuz you don’t wanna be around when it all goes down
Even heroes know when to be scared

Slip out the back before they know you were there
And at the worst you’ll see nobody cares
Cuz you don’t wanna be around when it all goes down
Even heroes know when to be scared

Now
I don’t remember where I met him or remember his name
But he walked funny like he was just too big for his frame
Just over five foot but he weighed a buck-fifty
And what he said seemed so right
It stuck with me

Listen
It’s like poker
You can play your best
But you gotta know when to fold your cards and take a rest
And know when to hold your cards
Hold your breath
And hope that nobody else is stacking the deck
Because

I don’t need to tell you that life isn’t fair
It doesn’t care
It arbitrarily cuts off your air
And like you I want someone to say its okay
In the truest part of our hearts everybody’s afraid

We’re just underappreciated and overwhelmed
Fighting so hard to hide our fear that we’re scaring ourselves
You understand what I’m saying cuz you always did
But it’s different in the words of a cowardly kid

Who said slip out the back before they know you were there
At the worst you’ll see nobody cares
Cuz you don’t wanna be around when it all goes down
Even heroes know when to be scared

Slip out the back before they know you were there
At the worst you’ll see nobody cares
Cuz you don’t wanna be around when it all goes down
Even heroes know when to be scared

And I’m no hero
You remember how it was
You know
All I ever did was worry
Feeling out of control
To the point where everything is going end over end
I’m spinning around in circles again
This is where you come in

All of this to explain to you why
I had to separate myself away from yesterday’s life
Please remember
This isn’t how I hoped it would be
But I had to protect you from me

That’s why I slipped out the back before you knew I was there
I know you felt unprepared
But every single time I was around I’d just bring you down
And I could tell that it was time to be scared

That’s why I slipped out the back before you knew I was there
And I know the way I left
It wasn’t fair
I didn’t wanna be around just to bring you down
I’m not a hero but don’t think I didn’t care