200 Bars of Power
Lowkey
[Intro]
200 bars, SBTV, exclusive, listen

[Verse 1]
Guess who's back from the land of the nomads
Land of the scallywags, land of the toerags
Land where they don't Snapchat and they don't dab
We were fractured to fragments, it's so sad
Guess who's back from the land of the nomads
Land of the scallywags, land of the toerags
Land where they don't Snapchat and they don't dab
We were fractured to fragments, it's so sad
We were captured as chapters in notepads
Where the have-lots robbed from the don't-haves
Where the caps lock's lost in the phone tap
Emojis minus emotion and vocab
Seven years passed, let me parse you for part 2
Never let them tell you what you can or you can't do
They don't know where you stand 'cause they aren't you
Love yourself to the core, even when it's hard to
Cry no more, shout and sing
Violence in silence the loudest thing
They don't know about the power the Shaolin brings
Place a rock for a mountain that outlives him
Like Malcolm did, we are out of sync
And out of time by the sound of things
Arms long like Dhalsim is how to win
Best murder machine gets crowned a king
But what about the voices that can't be heard?
Press barons witch hunt like McCarthy purge
You're lying to yourself, the past seem's worse
'Cause I can get dark, more dark than the dark moor
I can get dark like a dark night in Dartmoor
Dark like Darfur at half-past four
AM, so why you dummies getting daft for?
Not shy to defend it, don't try to prevent this
A mind as tremendous as Einstein or Midas i meant this
I rise from the trenches like vikings
I'm fighting for my independence
My rhymes are relentless
Like a right to your dentures
Your rhymes are as violent as fencing
My rhymes are offensive
As violent as Ghengis through pride and resentment
Misers cry to lament this, how foul could your mouth be?
How could you doubt me?
That's random like a row with a mounty
Or an alchi' driving his Audi to Saudi
Or Bush and Blair making rap albums about peace
You're ready for the rumble, heading for a tumble
Definitely better any veteran among you
They should've told you 'If anybody loves you
With level irrelevance, you will never get above two'
I murk it with ease, burn it indeed
Merge with the beat like the birds and the bees
They want food for thought, I will serve them a feast
Not commercial, believe that I nurtured a niche
Much love to those doing reaction vids
Rap kids act big but are tactic-less
Better off practising mad back-flips
With a bad slipped disc and fractured wrists
Who mastered this? Know what the answer is
Who's got bars that carve to the heart of this?
Regardless, I blame SB for starting this
What's Fire in the Booth to an arsonist?
Guys don't make me rap, guys don't make me rap
Guys don't make me rap, might go crazy at
What's Fire in the Booth to a pyromaniac?
Please bro, he don't need no heat though
What's Fire in the Booth to the dragon Ricky Steamboat
Seven years out, never fear doubt
Any peers proud? Whatever the weather, better clear out
You're a mere mouse, I'm here now to tear down
What you care about bears clout can never compare now
Back worse than ever before, rebel with a cause you could never ignore
If anyone thought, I never dead it with metaphors that were better than yours
I rendered the sentiments simple with source, and dead on the floors
Let them have a bite, but that was bad advice if you fraternise
Know what man-a-man are like when a man on mic
Battles bad as Bannon's like when hes banning guys
Had enough of savage lies getting sanitised
Asinine pantomimes got you paralysed
Got a panoramic mind when I strategise
Agonise, analyse before I spat a rhyme
Merciless mystic, birth as a misfit
Journalistic gift with the verbalist instinct
They heard that I did this, cursed as an infant
But burst with the verse, like the first in existence
Billionaires, they don't want Corbyn in
We nearly are there, hit them with the four-kick spin
They're silly and scared, running on a forfeit ting
Hearing impaired, thinking I'm a Nordic King
We fought the cowards of corporate towers
Tryna force them out the corridors of power
And the taste-makers were sort of sour
Vultures circle, leave your corpse devour
But I'm back now
[Verse 2: The Redistribution of Power]
Power to those that read bell hooks
Power to those that sell books
Power to those who know how the inside of a cell looks
All those feeling helpless, forgotten and discarded
Power to the strange fruit they thought was rotten in the garden
Power to those sitting alone, seeking solace in the calmness
Power to those feeling stained, know your tomorrow isn't tarnished
Power to those that sweep the streets with more knowledge than PhD's
Power to those that keep their keys, return this promise, please believe
Power to those that suffer in silence, those it hurts to hear
Power to those that hold their ground
Power to those that persevere
Power to those that love humanity more than they love style
Power to immigrants probably raising Donald Trump's child
Power to the blind who can't imagine what sight is
Power to those staring at the moon and all those working night-shifts
Power to the readers, the writers, the illiterate
Power to those that struggle to decolonise their syllabus
Power to the shy ones, always struggle to make friends
And the half of humanity worth less than eight men
Power to those that risked their life to dig the coltan from the ground
For the mic I'm spitting on and the phone you're holding now
Power to those that build the stadium they're playing in
Power to those that mowed the grass and stitched the ball that they're playing in
Power to every rapper that doesn't rap about killing
Power to the builders who built buildings that outlived them
Power to the slaves of Ancient Greece that didn't have the right to vote
Democracy dead like Gary Webb, when they import it like its coke
Power to those write to prison
Power to those writing home
Power to those writing poems
Power to those that died alone
Power to Curtis Mayfield
Power to Ronald Isely
Power to the fishermen that were forced into piracy
Power to every person that is working in a library
Power to every nurse that we turn to in our times of need
Power to the unions and the mindless Thatcher punished
Power to those that drive the busses and those that collect the rubbish
Power to the youth desiring the truth
Power to every rapper that is dying for a Fire in the Booth
For those that lost limbs to King Leopald's quota
And those risking their lives for the P&O to Dover
Power to union leaders murdered by [coca-cola]
Power to victims of this globalised cosa nostra
Power to those dying on the shores and the borders
Power to humanbeings that were rendered fauna and flora
Power to those that cleaned up after the stage show
And Carnival goers still haunted by Kelso Cochrane's ghost
Power to ... his picture taunts us ever after
So many questions never answered
Remember the last words of Abdul-Muhsin Al-Saadoun, "الأمة تنتظر الخدمة، الإنجليز لا يوافقون"
Power to Al-Jawahiri and his rebellions
They killed his brother Ja'far and he cursed the rotten Thamesians
Enlighten despots pursuing tactics Machiavellian
Chinese still preceded Europa millennium, think about it
Printed press half a millennium never get close
Power to Ken Loach and every volunteer in Lesbos
Cuban doctors sent to Sri Lanka for the tsunami
Power to those that cleaned up after the Bullingdon parties
Kids knowing Apple products before they know what an apple is
Forgotten like passengers on the USS Indianapolis
Dying days, for they could see what little boy's damage did
On the precipice of fascism, our passiveness is cancerous
Power to those still strong enough to dream
Power to those that chose not to be a cog in the machine
Power to those that love first and hate never
Power to those that sleep on the streets through grey weather
Power to Aziz Ali and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
Power to Norman Baker, David Kelly's, ulnar artery
Power to the genocided population of Tasmania
The internet descends to Trumptastic fantasia
Let them try quote this
You'll never find a better diagnosis than collective psychosis
It's getting quite hopeless but hope is all we have
Tryna cultivate the positive, not focus on the bad
But the globe's under attack
The obnoxious rage of a fake intellectual
Amazing grace in the age of the spectacle
Not the first time they found a racist electable
To raise to the pedestal
Then desecrate the place that translated the decimal
I don't wanna tempt fate
Power to corpse-washers like Salvador Allende
Power to language learners
From Bernie Sanders fans to flag-burners
One man's inertia is another man's purpose
In the utopia of song, we are victorious
But the bitter sweet reality is not this glorious
Power to Coltrane watching Malcolm X
Power to Paul Robeson under house-arrest
Power to Galileo under house-arrest
Power to Ibn Haytham under house-arrest
Forgive me if I sound obsessed
Forgive me if I sound depressed
Believe me, that's not how it's meant
They probably think I couldn't come back and kill the alphabet
[Verse 3: Before Orientalism]
Al-Khwarizmi estimated the circumference of the globe
At a time when Europe thought the earth was flat
And couldn't tell the time of day, the astrolabe paved the way
For the clock now I'm about to turn it back
Was the qanoon of Ibn Sina perceived as backwards
When Oxford scholars deemed bathing a heathen practice
History from Aristotle to Al-Kindi as we gather
Innovations of Ibn Haytham to da Vinci and the camera
Ask Roger Bacon, Galileo and Adelard of Bath
Ibn Shatir before Copernicus, century and a half
House of wisdom, books waiting gold, answers to conundrum's chain
Cheng Ho sailed the sea before da Gama and Columbus
You are not who they say you are, you're blessed with a choice
Here since the 700's, look at King Offa’s coins
You can do whatever it is that you wanna do
There's a crater named after Al-Ma'mun on the moon
Civilisations build on each other, not each to their own
My question: If people are equal like the teeth of a comb
Were Jahiz, Mansa Musa, Malik Najashi; Abeed
I didn't think so but it seems Shaabi, nasi what I need
Check yourself, check Raphael's depiction of Ibn Rushd
Think twice, study history, give it a different look
Curriculum's literally littered with pitfalls of ridicule
Fatima al-Fihri founded one of the oldest still-existing schools
It's deeper than some rhymes I'm providing for the listener
No surprise for a spitter, the word cypher came from ṣifr
Is the next Younis Mahmoud among four million orphaned babies?
What if Yusra Mardini wasn't able to swim to safety?
It could be Steve Jobs is starving under hisar
It would be Zaha Hadid just died in an infijar
Through your blood flows Gilgamesh and Abu Nuwas
Your future's bigger than the pain or your present and your past
We strive to be free
Fanon struggled for independence he wasn't alive to see
The countrification, alienation, souls left so scarred
Idarat altawahish decapitations on postcards
The occupier left behind all forms of stigma
Insidious settlement of the mind is more malignant
From the ashes of war, no phoenix, that human is lost
They learnt idarat altawahish from ensuing the cost
They learnt resistance from Morheeba Korshid
And Lela Khaled learnt about Jamal from Bu Azza, Abu Basha and Bouhired
If Abdelkader was reburied in Al-Jaza'er that's the
Proof return will come for the diaspora of the nakba
Not the first or the last to break free from the gillotine
Yesterday Aljazair, tomorrow Philistine
Not the first or the last to break free from the gillotine
Yesterday Aljazair, tomorrow Philistine
My love letter to the past, this is my love letter to the future
This is my love letter from the heart, 'cause you don't know how beautiful you are
My love letter to the past, this is my love letter to the future
This is my love letter from the heart, 'cause you don't know how beautiful you are
Write the lyrics for a rap song made in 2017, titled "200 Bars of Power", by artist "Lowkey".