Grandmaster Flash - Beat Street

Beat Street Breakdown, Raah!

Hip Hop!



Beat Street

The king of the beat

You see him rocking that beat from across the street

And Huh Huh!

Beat Street is a lesson too, because you can't let the Streets beat you!



Well a picture can express a thousand words to describe all the beauty of life y
ou give

And if the world was yours to do over, I know you'd paint a better place to live

Where the colours would swirl and the boys and girls can grow in peace and harmo
ny

And where murals stand on walls so grand as far as the eyes are able to see, Ha!

I never knew art til I saw your face and there'll never be one to take your plac
e

'Cause each and every time you touch the spray paint can

Michelangelo's soul controls your hand

Then serenades of blue and red and the beauty of the rainbow fills your head

Crescendo of colours hang in tune, Man why oh why d'ya have to die so soon?

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, where the good die young it's all thy must

'Cause as life must live, death must die and the tear shall fall from the living
eye, Huh!

The teardrops fall for the state of mind of the beautiful lady that you left beh
ind

In love and alone, but now you're dead, and she still can't get you out of her h
ead, Huh!

More tears fall for all you've done, trying to be a good father to your only son

But now who's gonna make sure that he's fed, put a shirt on his back and a roof
overhead?

Tell me who's gonna dream the impossible dream of the beautiful cities in the is
lands genes?

When your works of art brought into being all that the ghetto stopped you from s
eeing

Bums on the sidewalk, garbage in the streets, abandoned buildings, bricks of con
crete

The ladies on the corner are selling their bodies, and everybody wants a part in
that party

I'm hanging out tough, rocking late at night, running wild in the town of the ne
on light

You either play some ball or stand in the hall Huh!

You gotta make something outta nothing at all

I'm sitting in the classroom learning the rules and it says you can't do graffit
i in school

They can't be wrong in the hallowed hall, so my notebook turned into a brick wal
l

The heart of a lion and the courage of three, and the mind of a man much wiser t
han me

You're the soul of the brother who won't come back

Who died in my arms on the railroad track

'Cause I'm caught in the rat race, looking for my own space

There's gotta be a better place for you and me

There's pie in the sky, and an eye for an eye

Some people gotta die just to be free

You search for justice and what do you find?

You find just us on the unemployment line

You find just us sweating from dawn to dusk

There's no justice, there's Huh, just us, Ha!

Still life urban masterpiece, your trademark was written on trains and walls

A million dollar gift only God released, and yet you got killed for nothing at a
ll

So after this there'll be no more hard times, no more bad times and no more pain

No more chump change, none of that bull

Just movies, museums and the hall of fame

So all you Hip Hops get on up, and let's take it to the top where we belong
'Cause the age of the Beat Street wave is here

Everybody let's sing along, now c'mon, say 'Ho!' ('Ho!'), Say 'Ho!' ('Ho!')

And to let me know I'm rocking the microphone everybody say 'Ramo!' ('Ramo!')

'Ramo!' ('Ramo!')

Raah!



A newspaper burns in the sand, and the headlines say 'Man destroys Man!
Extra! Extra! Read all the bad news on the war for peace that everybody would lo
se

The rise and fall, the last great empire, the sound of the whole world caught on
fire

The ruthless struggle, the desperate gamble

The game that left the whole world in shambles

The cheats, the lies, the alibis

And the foolish attempt to conquer the skies

Lost in space, and what is it worth, huh?

The president just forgot about Earth

Spending multi billions, and maybe even trillions

The cost of weapons ran into zillions

There's gold in the street, and diamonds under feet

And the children in Africa don't even eat

Flies on their faces, they're living like mice

And the houses even make the ghetto look nice, Huh!

The water tastes funny, it's forever too sunny

And they work all month and don't make no money

A fight for power, a nuclear shower

And people shout out in the darkest hour

Of sights unseen and voices unheard

And finally the bomb gets the last word

Christians killed Muslims, and Germans killed Jews

And everybody's bodies are used and abused, Huh!

Minds are poisoned and souls are polluted

Superiority complex is deep rooted

Leeches and lice's, and people got prices

Egomaniacs control the self-righteous

Nothing is sacred and nothing is pure

So the revelation of death is our cure

Hitler and Caesar, Custer and Reagan

Napoleon, Castro, Mussolini and Begin

Ghengis Khan and the Shah of Iran

Mixed with the blood of the weaker man

The peoples in terror, the leaders made the error

And now they can't even look in the mirror

'Cause we gotta suffer while things get rougher

And that's the reason why we got to get tougher

To learn from the past and work for the future

And don't be a slave to no computer

'Cause the Children of Man inherits the land

And the future of the world is in your hands

So just throw your hands in the air

And wave 'em like you just don't care

And if you believe that you're the future

Scream it out and say 'Oh yeah!' ('Oh yeah!')

'Oh yeah!' ('Oh yeah!')

Raah!



Beat Street Breakdown

Raah!

Hip Hop!