Excursions - A Tribe Called Quest

Written by：Kamaal Fareed/A Tribe Called Quest

Back in the days when I was a teenager

Before I had status and before I had a pager

You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop

My pops used to say it reminded him of Bebop

I said well daddy don't you know that things go in cycles

Way that Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael

It's all expected things are for the looking

If you got the money Quest is for the booking

Come on everybody let's get with the fly mode

Still got room on the truckload of black boom

Listen to the rhymes then get a mental picture

Of this black man and black woman fixture

Why do I say that cos I gotta speak the truth man

Doing what we feel for the music is the proof and

Planted on the ground the act is so together

Bona fide strong you need leverage to sever

The unit yes the unit yes the unit called the jazz is

Delivering each year an LP filled with street goods

You can find it on your rack in your record store

If you get the record say your thoughts are adored

And appreciated cause we're ever so glad we made it

We work hard so we gotta thank God

Dishing out the plastic do the dance till you're spastic

If you diss it gets drastic

Listen to the rhyme cause it's time to make gravy

If it moves your booty then shake shake it baby

All the way to Africa the Motherland

Stick out the left then I'll ask for the other hand

That's the right hand Black man

Only if you are noted as my man

If I get the credit then I think I deserve it

If you fake moves don't fix your mouth to word it

Get in the zone of positivity not negativity

Cos we gotta strive for longevity

If you botch up what's in that a**

What

A pair of Nikes size ten and a half

We gotta make moves words

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

We gotta make moves words

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

We gotta make moves

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

We gotta make moves

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

Time time is a ship on a merciless sea

Drifting toward an average of nothingness

Until it can be retarded for its own destiny

Time is an inanimate object

Praying and praying and praying with no justification for relief

Time is dancing boogalooing away all memories of past

We gotta be a winner all the time

Can't fall prey to a hip hop crime

With the d**e raps and d**e tracks we move blocks

From the fly girlies to the hardest of the rocks

Musically the Quest is on the rise

We on these excursions so you must realize

That continually I pop my Zulu sh*t

If you don't like it get off the Zulu tip

So what can you do in the times which exist

You can't fake moves on your brother or your sis

But if your sis is a b**ch brother is a jerk

Leave 'em both alone and continue with your work

Whatever it may be in today's society

Everything is fair least that's how it seems to me

You must be honest and true to the next

Don't be phony and expect one not to flex

Especially if you rhyme you have to live by the pen

Your man is your man then treat him like your friend

All it is is the code of the streets

So listen to the knowledge being dropped over beats

Beats that are hard beats that are funky

They could get you hooked like a crackhead junkie

What you gotta do is know the Tribe is in the sphere

The Abstract Poet prominent like Shakespeare

Or Edgar Allan Poe or Langston Hughes

We gotta make moves

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

We gotta make moves

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

We gotta make moves

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

We gotta make moves

Never ever ever could we fake moves come on come on

Time is running out on black power advocates in the day

And white thigh supporters at night

Every time you see them they're chasing some white woman

With their tongue hanging out

Time is running and passing passing and running

Running and passing passing and running