The Format - CunninLynguists, 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 crackle 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 neighbourhood 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’s word 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-existant, 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