The Format (feat. Masta Ace & Mr. Sos)

If we gonna start from scratch, you start with wax
 If there's no dish, then there's no rap
 Records, albums, vinyl, the facts
 Give us a stack of records and we'll give you 12 tracks
 The agreement turned cement
 40 years ago
 Hip Hop, the vinyl frontier
 The embryo
 Two turntables a mic and a cold stereo, DJ, one MC, the imperial
 Many many put their muse to it
 Sent bop, sent rock, sent blues through it
 From classical to jazz we can who's who it
 Or blow the dust off and groove to it
 Lets ride
 B-side on direct drive
 You know that crack will give the best high
 Give me a needle, a cartridge, a partridge, some tree, 45s and a 33, let it be
 A new format hit the scene like way back
 It was smaller and more convenient than 8-track
 You could pop it in your car on a long drive
 Play the album or fast-forward to song five
 If you passed the song you had to rewind it back
 It was kind of frustrating trying to find a track
 Memorex, Ampex down to TDK
 Where the Biz was on the radio with BDK
 When they was on the air, I was on the pause-button
 I had the best taste but I ain't trying to cause nothing
 Cause everybody thought their paws was the raws
 Cats used to battle, this shit used to cause wars
 We would trade tapes, that was the best it could be
 Busy Bee had the fever for Treacherous Three
 Having the best tapes, was like a status symbol
 The yellow tape, purple tape to the baddest demo
 Battles travel from the Bronx to Baltimore
 They would stand by the speaker to record them all
 Them same tapes that was labeled with a thick marker
 Made the neighborhood rappers want to spit sharper
 If my tape pop trust, I was ready man
 A razor blade, scotch tape and a steady hand
 I call it surgery
 My cassette went under the knife and brought back to life
 Man that worth it to me
 If you want it, I got it
 That which makes you move
 "It's... the format baby"
 If you want it, I got it
 That which makes you cool
 "It's... the format baby"
 My relationship with bass and kicks had come full circle
 Plastic and cheap but I clapped to the beat
 Stab the repeat button and keep running
 And that's something you can't get from tape dubbing
 Skip the skips with a flick of the wrist
 More time to check what's sick on the list
 The fickle dismissed this little digital disk
 But try and play vinyl in the whip, it'll skip
 And it's '96, I'm trying to get laid now
 Chose the format with binary laid down
 1s and 0s, and 0s and 1s, flood the BOSE with flows and drums
 Blunts get blown in my homie's truck
 We sitting on chrome, little bone thugs
 We got wheels, we ain't trying to walk man
 CD's nuts, there's dust on my walkman
 Follow me entering this digital odyssey
 Holy matrimony but harder to see
 Everywhere but non-existent, what a conundrum
 Upgraded but they say we forgot where we come from
 The past feels even further with every second
 Off the record, the coming and going of Kbps
 In the day of the instant message
 The message is misdirected and the receiver seems to be disconnected
 But don't complain, love game
 Even after the flood came and left our neighbors over-saturated
 With no computer love, just computer bugs
 Hate the virus and not the hacker, that's what a loser does
 Meanwhile, the kids are playing shoot em' ups
 Trying to be the 2.0 version of Super Thug
 Press reset, any era you wish to visit is next
 Hold on as we eject