Know what I'm sayin' In 1979
I was a 2 year old kid from Adelaide
I wasn't a 14 year old kid from the Bronx
It seems to me that in 1999 Hip Hop's a business
In 1979 it was a culture And I miss it
You're so fake its plain to see who you truly are
Looking less like a b-boy more like a movie star
Forget the funk and go hook up those disco breaks
Sit down punk and take a look at what you make
It's not hip-hop it's something more sad sick and seedy
What's Popping that Gucci got to do with graffiti
And your RB dance-steps what about finger-popping
B-boy electric shocking windmills body rocking
So body-body rock body-body rock I'll take ya back
Break your back realize b-boys aren't faking that
Funk that you've forgotten h*e
How could you have gotten so
Far gone that you could never stop and go
Back to the roots 1979
Birthplace of the scratch birthplace of the rhyme
You'll feel it in your spine like your first taste of wine
We'll make it back
It'll just take some time
Remember Kangol hats fat laces and lino mats
Kids spinning on their backs to the sugar hill wax
Now the sugar hills collapsed and the sweets turned sour
Moneys walking my culture through its darkest hour
Now I wanna take you back walk my way through time
I was two years old in 1979
But it's a time that I miss you ask what's the difference
Hip-hop was then a culture now hip-hop's a business
Zulu started b-boying as a form of expression
To channel youths stress and their aggression
Now through the suggestion of record companies
MC's are pumping these
Problems back into ya section and isn't it ironic
But not the sort to make you laugh
Cuz MC's are building futures while raping the past
Taking a glass of Chardonnay and putting it to your lips
I'd rather take a razor blade and put it to my wrist
Than sell records on the basis that I have to promote
Sniffing and selling coke toting guns and smoking d**e
You're all weaving the rope that you'll hang yourself with
My only consolation is within the hip hop nation is
B-boy elements that can still get me open
Like Graff mags from Berlin mix tapes from Oakland
Breakers from Rock Steady plus anything from Tribe
And old school New York that's still got the vibe
Remember Kangol hats fat laces and lino mats
Kids spinning on their backs to the sugar hill wax
Now the sugar hills collapsed and the sweets turned sour
Moneys walking my culture through its darkest hour
Now I wanna take you back walk my way through time
I was two years old in 1979
But it's a time that I miss you ask what's the difference
Hip-hop was then a culture now hip-hop's a business