The Bar Exam

Artist: Common

Track: Gladiator

Album: Universal Mind Control

Verse 1:

I was told by a wise old to come from the heart
Though I might've did The Light, I don't run from the dark
The dark knight to spark mics, and start fights
The warrior archetype like Kimbo Slice
It's strength in the beard, am I loved or feared
A beast amongst boys like Paul I'm Revere'd
Vroof, vroof vroof vroof vroof vroof vroof well
Like Jacob Jewel, I keep clientele
You frail on the mic like you might break a nail
I might smoke a joint but I won't take the L
I knew a fat girl who broke the scale
Still touched down cause I was off Artell
Had dreams of breaking Mike Vick out of jail
Took the underground rail to the NFL
I rebel, NYSL
Here to leave a trail like Nelson Mandela

They say he's a radical, he don't fit the game
A heart full of glory and a fist of pain
A couple of battle scars but shit's the same
Are you not entertained
So all the onlookers and the bystanders
Wait til intermission, run buy your camera
Record the moment, cause it'll be platinum
And you could say you seen Common rock the stadium

My words is the sword, my skill is the shield
My life is the style I stay dressed to kill
A legend like Will Smith with the steel
I could save the world when shit get for real
Skinny George Foreman, all in your grill
My rhyme style is blind, it's all in the feel
Touch it and watch the blood fall when it's real
The weak raps you wrote you could call that your will
My drive VROOM is how I stay the livest
Your guys got you gassed, my flow is a hybrid
Crashed I survived it, gashes over eyelids
You easy to take out cause you hot garbage
I'm amped like wattage, the truth nigga honest
Any moment opponents drop out like college
Kneel and pay homage to the rap Ziggy Stardust
Stadium hands in the air, fists balled up

The Bar Exam

Artist: Master P

Track: Ghetto Rain (Silkk the Shocker f/ Master P)

Album: Made Men

It's da black ring from da moon and tears in God's eyes
see that's the way I felt when my lil' brother died
And some fools say it ain't no justice
and other niggaz say it ain't no peace
that's why thugs handle their business in these projects and on these streets
See my daddy made me a dealer
and my cousin made me killer
See that's why everything we do, they gonna respect us and feel us
And I'm still tryin' to understand why big daddy was with da rest
and my nephew Lance Connor on da 14th died in the car wreck
It ain't a muthafuckin' antidote for crack or AIDS
and I see so many ghetto people go to jail
and live your life and die like slaves
I got a relative on appeal doin' 25 flat
on murder, armed robbery

nigga fuck it Johnny Cochran can't fight that
And since I'm Black and I'm rich
they seem to overlook us
me and (?????) bought some first class tickets, they called

da police tryin' to book us
Ain't that a bitch, I done made millions
and I'm still goin' through a thang
That's why niggaz ask me P why the fuck you never change?

The Bar Exam

Artist: Immortal Technique
Track: The Poverty of Philosophy
Album: Revolutionary, Vol. 1

Most of my Latino and Black people who are struggling to get food, clothes and shelter in the hood are so concerned with that, that philosophizing about freedom and socialist democracy is usually unfortunately beyond their rationale. They don't realize that America can't exist without separating them from their identity, because if we had some sense of who we really are, there's no way in hell we'd allow this country to push it's genocidal consensus on our homelands. This ignorance exists, but it can be destroyed.

Nigga talk about change and working within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it's not you who changes the system; it's the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely, and I have seen this happen long enough in the few years that I've been alive to know that it's a serious problem. Latino America is a huge colony of countries whose presidents are cowards in the face of economic imperialism. You see, third world countries are rich places, abundant in resources, and many of these countries have the capacity to feed their starving people and the children we always see digging for food in trash on commercials. But plutocracies, in other words a government run by the rich such as this one and traditionally oppressive European states, force the third world into buying overpriced, unnecessary goods while exporting huge portions of their natural resources.

I'm quite sure that people will look upon my attitude and sentiments and look for hypocrisy and hatred in my words. My revolution is born out of love for my people, not hatred for others.

You see, most of Latinos are here because of the great inflation that was caused by American companies in Latin America. Aside from that, many are seeking a life away from the puppet democracies that were funded by the United States; places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Columbia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Republica Dominicana, and not just Spanish-speaking countries either, but Haiti and Jamaica as well.

As different as we have been taught to look at each other by colonial society, we are in the same struggle and until we realize that, we'll be fighting for scraps from the table of a system that has kept us subservient instead of being self-determined. And that's why we have no control over when the embargo will stop in Cuba, or when the bombs will stop dropping in Vieques.

But you see, here in America the attitude that is fed to us is that outside of America there live lesser people. "Fuck them, let them fend for themselves." No, Fuck you, they are you. No matter how much you want to dye your hair blonde and put fake eyes in, or follow an anorexic standard of beauty, or no matter how many diamonds you buy from people who exploit your own brutally to get them, no matter what kind of car you drive or what kind of fancy clothes you put on, you will never be them. They're always gonna look at you as nothing but a little monkey. I'd rather be proud of what I am, rather than desperately trying to be something I'm really not, just to fit in. And whether we want to accept it or not, that's what this culture or lack of culture is feeding us.

I want a better life for my family and for my children, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of millions of lives in my homeland. We're given the idea that if we didn't have these people to exploit then America wouldn't be rich enough to let us have these little petty material things in our lives and basic standards of living. No, that's wrong. It's the business giants and the government officials who make all the real money. We have whatever they kick down to us. My enemy is not the average white man, it's not the kid down the block or the kids I see on the street; my enemy is the White man I don't see: the people in the white house, the corporate monopoly owners, fake liberal politicians those are my enemies. The generals of the armies that are mostly conservatives those are the real motherfuckers that I need to bring it to, not the poor, broke country-ass soldier that's too stupid to know shit about the way things are set up.

In fact, I have more in common with most working and middle-class White people than I do with most rich Black and Latino people. As much as racism bleeds America, we need to understand that classism is the real issue. Many of us are in the same boat and it's sinking, while these bougie motherfuckers ride on a luxury liner, and as long as we keep fighting over kicking people out of the little boat we're all in, we're gonna miss an opportunity to gain a better standard of living as a whole.

In other words, I don't want to escape the plantation I want to come back, free all my people, hang the motherfucker that kept me there and burn the house to the god damn ground. I want to take over the encomienda and give it back to the people who work the land.

You cannot change the past but you can make the future, and anyone who tells you different is a fucking lethargic devil. I don't look at a few token Latinos and black people in the public eye as some type of achievement for my people as a whole. Most of those successful individuals are sell-outs and house Negros.

But, I don't consider brothers a sell-out if they move out of the ghetto. Poverty has nothing to do with our people. It's not in our culture to be poor. That's only been the last 500 years of our history; look at the last 2000 years of our existence and what we brought to the world in terms of science, mathematics, agriculture and forms of government. You know the idea of a confederation of provinces where one federal government controls the states? The Europeans who came to this country stole that idea from the Iroquois lead. The idea of impeaching a ruler comes from an Aztec tradition. That's why Montezuma was stoned to death by his own people 'cause he represented the agenda of white Spaniards once he was captured, not the Aztec people who would become Mexicans.

So in conclusion, I'm not gonna vote for anybody just 'cause they Black or Latino they have to truly represent the community and represent what's good for all of us proletariat.
Porque sino entonces te mando por el carajo cabron gusano hijo de puta, seramos libre pronto, viva la revolucion, VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

The Bar Exam

Artist: Lil' Wayne
Track: No Love
Album: Eminem's Recovery


Throw dirt on me and grow a wildflower
But it’s “fuck the world”, get a child out her
Yeah, my life a b-tch, but you know nothing bout her
Been to hell and back, I can show you vouchers
I’m rolling Sweets, I’m smoking sour
Married to the game but she broke her vows
That’s why my bars are full of broken bottles
And my night stands are full of open Bibles
I think about more than I forget
But I don’t go around fire expecting not to sweat
And these niggas know I lay them down, make their bed
Bitches try to kick me while I’m down: I’ll break your leg
Money outweighing problems on the triple beam
I’m sticking to the script, you niggas skipping scenes
Be good or be good at it
Fucking right I’ve got my gun, semi-Cartermatic

The Bar Exam

Artist: Damian Marley

Track: Patience - Nas and Damian Marley

Album: Distant Relatives

Some of the smartest dummies

Can’t read the language of Egyptian mummies

An’ a fly go a moon

And can’t find food for the starving tummies

Pay no mind to the youths

Cause it’s not like the future depends on it

But save the animals in the zoo

Cause the chimpanzee dem a make big money

This is how the media pillages

On TV the picture is

Savages in villages

And the scientist still can’t explain the pyramids, huh

Evangelists making a livin' on the videos of ribs of the little kids

Stereotyping the image of the images

And this is what the image is

You buy a khaki pants

And all of a sudden you a say a Indiana Jones

An’ a thief all da gold and thief all da scrolls and even the buried bones

Some of the worst paparazzis I’ve ever seen and I ever known

Put the worst on display so the world can see

And that’s all they will ever show

So the ones in the West

Will never move East

And feel like they could be at home

Dem get tricked by da beast

But a where dem a go flee when the monster is fully grown?

Solomonic linage whe dem still can’t defeat and them coulda never clone

My spiritual DNA that print in my soul and I will forever own, Lord

The Bar Exam

Artist: Joell Ortiz
Track: Slaughterhouse - Joe Budden (with Joell Ortiz, Nino Bless, Crooked I, Royce Da 5'9")
Album: Halfway House

I define gutter, everytime I rhyme I climb up another notch
Hip hop got my spine smothered
But I'll be fine brother
My mind hovers above all you jive suckers
Listen, that's word to my mother
You throw a shot at me
I'm throwing a shot back
Your's is on a joint
Mine's whistling by your top hat
Ya I'm cool, but you violate and I'll cock back
Open the mac's mouth and black out like I do not rap
I'm sick and tired of niggas lyin'
They fifth is lyin in they second drawer
Next door to some bullshit they ironed
Ya'll be makin up stories that them little kids be buyin'
I do everything my Penn State like a Nittany Lion
I ain't gotta mention the streets on this song
To get in a nigga ass on these beats like a thong, pause
Veterans co-sign me, the up and comers scared
The pretty girls go "Papi here's my underwear."
Never in a hundred years I thought I'd be a rapper
But in less than a hundred bars I knew I'd be a factor
I'm PS4 in HD and the screen is plasma
You're Atari 2600 with a weak adapter
Between us the gap's so crazy
I'm Gucci, Louis V, you're Gap, Old Navy
I get coochie in the V, you attract no ladies
You're suburb, I'm gutter where it make cat's go crazy

The Bar Exam

ludacris feat. mary j blige - runaway love


Artist: Ludacris (feat. Mary J. Blige)
Track: Runaway Love
Album: Release Therapy

Little Nicole is only 10 years old
She's steady trying to figure why the world is so cold
Why she's not pretty and nobody seems to like her
Alcoholic step-dad always wanna strike her
Yells and abuses, leaves her with some bruises
Teachers ask questions she's making up excuses
Bleeding on the inside, crying on the out
It's only one girl really knows what she's about
Her name is little Stacy and they become friends
Promise that they always be tight 'til the end
Until one day little Stacy gets shot
A drive by bullet went stray up on her block
Now Nicole stuck up in the world on her own
Forced to think that hell is a place called home
Nothing else to do but get her clothes and pack
She says she's 'bout to run away and never come back


(Video Courtesy of Universal Music Group)

The Bar Exam

Artist: GZA
Song: Fame
Album: Legend of the Liquid Sword

Larry's Bird flew outta Nicholas' Cage
Joe Tex messages from Satchel's Paige
Betty Wright+letters with ink from Sean's Penn
Infinite bars, you couldn't tell where the song end
Glenn Close enough to quickly duck the tapes
Richard Gere ripped while he was climbin' Bill Gates
He was a southerner, posing as a, native New Yorker
The Jason Kidd took his first steps in Jimmy's Walker
He stayed on line chattin' with rap celebs
Used Bernie's Mack to search Veronica's Webb
It cost them their life for the advice you gave
Now Pete Rose lay on Vanessa's Redgrave

With CREAM I ain't with the fame
Fame is the measure
Rap celebs
The place where stars are born
With CREAM I ain't with the fame
Fame is the measure
Rap celebs
The place where stars are born

Artist: Wyclef Jean
Track: The PJs
Album: Masquerade

Before I was signed, I used to move on the block
All I wanted to do was rhyme, rhyme, rhyme
Line for line, I make the blind man walk in a straight line
to prison and take a message to Shyne
Peace God from the PJs to Ground Zero
It’s a “Hardknock Life” but “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow”
Walk with a shadow through ghettos, playin’ in every borough
You would think rap was rock they way I carry heavy metal
It such a shame, cocaine in ya veins, screamin’
“Teen Spirit” grippin’ the shotty like Kurt Cobaine
In the projects God, nuttin’ come easy
Gotta deal with the grimy, greasy, the sleazy
Move like a professional, young thug funeral
What chu thought this was another Pepsi commercial?
Nah it’s the art of war, when you least expected it
Wyclef the president, the PJ’s elected him

The Bar Exam

Artist: Nas featuring Lauryn Hill
Track: If I Rule the World
Album: It Was Written

Yo, it'll be paradise life relaxin' Black, Latino and Anglo-Saxon
Armani Exchange to Range
Cash, Lost Tribe of Shabazz, free at last
Brand new whips to crash then we laugh in the iller path
The Villa house is for the crew, how we do
Trees for breakfast, dime sexes and Benz stretches
So many years of depression make me vision
The better livin', type of place to raise kids in
Open they eyes to the lies history's told foul
But I'm as wise as the old owl, plus the Gold Child
Seeing things like I was controlling, click rollin'
Trickin' six digits on kicks and still holdin'
Trips to Paris, I civilized every savage
Gimme one shot I turn trife life to lavish
Political prisoner set free, stress free
No work release purple M3's and jet skis
Feel the wind breeze in West Indies
I make Coretta Scott-King mayor the cities and reverse fiends to Willies
It sounds foul but every girl I meet to go downtown
I'd open every cell in Attica send 'em to Africa

The Bar Exam

Artist: Joe Budden
Track: If I Die Tommorrow
Album: Mood Muzik 2: Can It get Any Worse?

If I died tomorrow then what would it mean
Already feel like I'm livin' my dream
Came across some pretty interesting folk
I met some new people
Ain't move a lot of units, but touched a few people
So I might get frustrated fuckin' wit' the hood son
But everyday above ground is a good one
Walk out the door and leave it in God's hands
If I go it's just part of God's plan
If I died tomorrow
Will life carry out the same?
Well at least my little man can carry out the name
And look, I can say I lived my life without stress
If I died tomorrow, I'm fine, I been blessed, Yes!
I made some money, and true I could've had more
But he's happy and what more could he ask for?
If it was no diamonds and no begets
I still would have no worries, I got no regrets
I made my mom proud, and pop feels the same way
But he's a man so he probably got too much pride to say
Can't count my blessings on one hand, more than a handful
And God ain't send nothin' my way I couldn't handle

The Bar Exam

Artist: Jadakiss
Track: What If (feat. Nas)
Album: The Last Kiss

Take a second, what if we could rewind the hood?
Better yet, what if the L.O.X. woulda signed with Suge?
What if Puffy never signed us?
What if Oprah made them comments
Like Imus?
What if you designed this
Thought like I did?
Said it like this:
What if Peyton was fighting dogs instead of Mike Vick?
What if Arnold would just let Tookie get life?
What if B.I.G. missed the party,
What if 'Pac missed the fight?

What if you was caged in?
What would you change then?
What if there was no Rocafella law for "Made Men?"
What if hate ran through me?
And what if Portland
Would've drafted Jordan
Instead of Sam Bowie?
What if you really have to be nice to get a deal?
What if all of these rappers' ice was really real?
What if I hit you with the razor from cheek to chin?
What if Mike Jackson never would have bleached his skin?

The Bar Exam

Artist: Ice Cube
Track: Fuck Tha Police
Album: "Straight Outta Compton", N.W.A.

Fuck the police comin straight from the underground
A young nigga got it bad cause I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
they have the authority to kill a minority
Fuck that shit, cause I ain't the one
for a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun
to be beatin on, and thrown in jail
We can go toe to toe in the middle of a cell
Fuckin with me cause I'm a teenager
with a little bit of gold and a pager
Searchin my car, lookin for the product
Thinkin every nigga is sellin narcotics
You'd rather see, me in the pen
than me and Lorenzo rollin in a Benz-o
Beat a police out of shape
and when I'm finished, bring the yellow tape
To tape off the scene of the slaughter
Still gettin swoll off bread and water
I don't know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down, and grabbin his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun they can't get none
But don't let it be a black and a white one
Cause they'll slam ya down to the street top
Black police showin out for the white cop
Ice Cube will swarm
on ANY motherfucker in a blue uniform
Just cause I'm from, the CPT
Punk police are afraid of me!
HUH, a young nigga on the warpath
And when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath
of cops, dyin in L.A.
Yo Dre, I got somethin to say

The Bar Exam

Artist: I Self Devine
Track: Untitled
Album: Self Destruction

In my younger days the word was forbidden
Connected to stereotypes and bad images
Lazy and crazy, maybe foot shuffling
Ignorant lower class nigga that’s hustling
In first grade I was expelled off an incident
Involving the ‘n’ word and some white students
We could have sued but we chose different
I moved to another district, I was a misfit
And I learned the bomb on site
I felt it wasn’t right, so on the daily I would fight
These days old folks say that I’m backwards
To justify the ownership of such a bad word
I used to tell them, ‘You don’t understand the usage’
We played country club and made it exclusive
Black to black or people of color,
But the more we say it, the more they wanna play it
Lower class white cats think they got the right
Cause we shoulder to shoulder inside the urban plight
Don’t say nizzle or nilly when you’re near me
This ain’t the cool fashion
I’m speakin, it’s with passion
N-I-G-G to tha A, used on the block like every day
Word play sprinkled in the things we say
With no de-lay like everything is okay,
It’s getting twisted, the game is losing
All these rules so I think I won’t use it
White cats getting hurt in the process,
They call me racist, it’s just a big mess

The Bar Exam

Artist: Immortal Technique
Track: Harlem Streets
Album: Revolutionary, Vol. 2...

Yeah... Harlem streets stay flooded in white powder
Like those mother fuckers runnin' away from the twin towers
Gun shots rock the earth like a meteor shower
Bowling For Columbine, fear, giving the media power
Innocence devoured like a chicken spot snack box
Government cocaine cooked into ghetto crack rocks
Corrupt cops false testimony at your arraignment
Check to check, constant struggle to make the payments
Working your whole life wondering where the day went
The subway stays packed like a multi-cultural slave ship
It's rush hour, 2:30 to 8, non stoppin'
And people coming home after corporate share croppin'
And fuck flossin', mothers are trying to feed children
But gentrification is kicking them out of their building
A generation of babies born without health care
Families homeless, thrown the fuck off of the welfare

The Bar Exam

Artist: Truck North
Track: Singing Man
Album: "Rising Down", The Roots


Uh, what you're witnessing is true dedication
Charged by the call and the cause of the nation
Countdown, minutes away from detonation
A lifetime of grunt work, this is the culmination
My manner, seems patient, inner rage lies
So deep, I can taste it, let's sacrifice lives
Past the first sensation, to paradise I fly
Delusions are lighting up the midday sky
The last days of mine spent in extreme secrecy
Wolves dressed like sheep occur more frequently
Too much faith to be scared, the petrified both fled
Those who live fearing death, might as well be dead
Towers of the occupiers, will soon fall
Martyr or mass murderer? That's your call
Mass transit or a mall? Who can watch them all?
In the name of the merciful, sing me a song...