I Got Next / Neva Had A Gun

It's meant to be evidently

When I rock so eloquently

Put the beat on and let me

Kill another wack emcee

Can't trust them, never test me

I practice and study

But I'm not in it for the money

But to me they look so funny

You can't test the teacher

The teacher won't reach intact

Through the speaker you're weaker, now sit your ass in the back

My lyrical you hear it, you fear it, you can't get near it

Cause the spirit eat Eric

And Eric your rhymes is wack

Like that, that, right back

Check it out!

Check it like this

Just skills You know you gots to build just skills

*A phone is dialed a man says hello and a woman starts speaking in

Spanish*

You know you gots to build just skills, uh come on get down

Just skills You know we got to build just skills, come on get down

Yeah, uh come on

I got that rip track, flip that, underground rap

When I kick back

Most of what I'm hearin be weak

So I speak through beats and the streets as I teach

I impeach, through speech, each lyric leech I reach

Have a seat in the lecture

Nothin can protect you

Hard is the texture

Of the mic wreckin rock in your sector

Better than ever remember I am no beginner

I like to shout out Eric Skinner

Just skills, you know we gots to build just skills, come on a get down

Just skills, you know we gots to build just skills, come on a get down

Yo, we livin in a world of private jets and limousine

The fruit we eatin as we prepare tangerine to nectarine

See everybody livin in the same routine

We need the telephone, and yes, we need the fax machine

You listen to the sound, well I think you know it's me

Now, let me educate you with my concious poetry

Me want, me want, me want, me want, me want no wack rap

Me want, me want, me want, me want, me want no wack rap

Me love, me love, me love, me love, me love it when it's bad

See if you wack rap you ought be steppin out the back

See emcees on the microphone forgettin that they black

See hear them kick the lyrics that are holdin people back

But when you hear the teacher, KRS will find the track

You bound to see the light, and you don't want return back

So listen very closely to the secret scientist

I'm sending this one out to all my inner city kids

Now you supposed to be apostle what you have inside your head

Can make you more reliable, it can make you feel dead

Now listen very closely to the way I say this rhyme

It's the thing called the brain, and the thing called the mind

But I'm outta time

Chorus (scratching on the word "can"):

Can I tell them that I really never had a gun?

No, you can't cause now you bouts to get done!

Can I tell them that I really never had a gun

Never had a gun, never had a gun?

Can I tell them that I really never had a gun?

No, you can't cause now you bouts to get done!

Can I tell them that I really never had a gun

Never had a gun, never had a gun?

On the block you just yap a whole lot

About the clothes that you got

Yo, or the gold that you got

Everybody sees all the friends in your Benz, yo, it's fat

But they ain't gettin money like that

Word to my brother Kenny, jealous one envy

The rich are few, while the poor, many

But you got gold cuffs and cars and stuff

You eatin well, but still in the ghetto you dwell

You know it's hot, so you make it known about your glock

To any perpetrator tryin to blow up your spot

You grab the microphone and talk a good ramble

You the hardcore outlaw, criminal, vandal

Burnin emcees like a candle, but you frontin

You ain't got nothin, with your life you gamble

One day you gamble up snake eyes

Talkin all that junk about you don't take dives, you take lives

Nobody on the block tries, cause you claim you got powerful ties

So at the red light you arrive

And to your surprise you get heffed up with just two steak knives

You're terrified, they take your Benz, and what makes things worse

You ain't got gun the first

Chorus