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