Bad Rap (Who You Tryin' To Kid, Kid?)

[Image: 'I Want To Be A Clone' Front Cover]

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Lyrics

Now L.A. hip and N.Y. chic
Been dancing lately cheek to cheek
While Midwest good ol' boys like me
Should all be playing catch-up, see

Subscribe to the Village Voice in throngs
And guess who gigs at Madame Wong's
Well drop your pens and pant designs
And drop six words in your open minds

Who you tryin' to kid, kid?
To the Hollywood school teaching everything's cool
Who you tryin' to kid, kid?
To the Greenwich mockingbird who has gotta have the last word

Got your head together now?
Got a way that's better now?
Who you tryin' to kid, kid?

Say what, bad rap, uh huh

You save the whales, you save the seals
You save whatever's cute and squeals
But you kill "that thing" that's in the womb
Would not want no baby boom

Good, bad, laugh and scorn
Blame yourself for kiddie porn
Convenience is the law you keep
And your compassion's ankle deep

Who you tryin' to kid, kid?
Wrap it in a fine philosophy
Who you tryin' to kid, kid?
But your bottom line still says "me me me"

Got your head together now?
Got a way that's better now?
Who you tryin' to kid, kid?

You'll march if all the streets are full
A two bit closet radical
No time to check the end result
Expedience is your catapult

Convictions make your skin to crawl
You act like you're above it all
You say faith is a crutch for a mind that's closed?
You guzzle your crutch and shove it up your nose

Who you tryin' to kid, kid?
To my left wing band with their head in the sand
Who you tryin' to kid, kid?
To the "might makes right" playin' chicken (delight)

Got your head together now?
Got a way that's better now?
Who you tryin' to kid, kid?

Can't understand those Christians so
You type us all in stereo
They're hypocrites, they're such a bore
Well come on in, there's room for one more

So now you're mad, who is this guy
To bake us all in one big pie?
You think I care? Forget it, hon
You've just been shot with your own gun

Bad rap, uh huh

Sugar Hill gonna need a pill

Grandmaster Flash gonna get a rash

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About The Song

From Who Does Not Want To Be a Clone?, Campus Life, January 1987:

At the time, rap was a new form of music. The only rap stuff I could get a hold of was on an independent label, Sugar Hill Records. I listened to these records over and over again. There lyrics were kind of a turnoff--a lot of boasting, materialism and sexual innuendos. But the way the music was clicking and the way they were using their voices really impressed me.

What's great about rap music is that you can cram so many words into one song. I've always been a little wordy so this is the perfect vehicle for me. I always thought it was a good vehicle for satire as well. I spent a lot of time writing "Bad Rap," and I like the way it turns the picture around. A lot of the songs on the Clone album deal with problems in the church--hypocrisy and stuff, "Bad Rap" looks at the world outside the church and says there is some hypocrisy there, too.

From Now The Truth Can Be Told Liner Notes & Song-By-Song Essays, Now The Truth Can Be Told Insert Booklet, August 23rd, 1994:

I suppose the title says it all. Before rap had entered the mainstream, it was confined to a few tiny independent labels, most notably Sugarhill Records in New Jersey. Perhaps it was the irresistability of being able to cram a novella's worth of lyrics into one song, but after hearing early rappers like Grandmaster Flash and Kurtis Blow, I began what would become in later albums a rich and careless tradition of copping and butchering whatever musical idiom I currently fancied. Purists, you have been warned...