Perm in your hair or even a curly weave,
Wichya New Edition Bobby Brown button on your sleeve.
I tell you come here, you say, ‘Meet me half way,’
Cause brothers been popping that game all day.

LL Cool J, “Around the Way Girl,” Mama Said Knock You Out, 1990

Anything worth having is hard to keep,
I love you like my coffee, so hot and so sweet.
So, let’s stick it out so we never regret it,
I could forgive the past–but I never forget it.

Ghostface Killah, “You Know I’m No Good (Remix),” More Fish, 2006

Consider youself lucky, that’s what friends say.
Cause I leave more heads touched, son, than Ash Wednesday.

J-Treds, “Praise Due,” 12", 1998

What’s when you rap and don’t appreciate the art?
What’s when you sell out just to get a start?
What’s when you make bullshit just for the charts?
What’s when you rap, but it’s not from the heart?
What’s when you’re hardcore, then you turn pop?
When you steal ideas to get props?
When you sell out to be on top?
What’s when you front like you’re hard, but you’re not?
That’s a gimmick.

Lord Finesse, “No Gimmicks,’ The Awakening, 1996

Couldn’t you see me and you stretched out in a bikini on the beach in Tahiti?
See, me, I’m very selective even though I could be greedy;
My main objective is to write our names together in graffiti.

Pharoahe Monch, “Shugah Shorty,” from Organized Konfusion’s The Equinox, 1997

Love and hate, black and white,
Right or wrong, who is right?
Some smoke joints to anoint their brain
To the vanishing point…so they won’t go insane.

Pharoahe Monch, “Walk Into The Sun,” from Organized Konfusion, 1991

Remember when friends was friends, and LL had a Benz?
And cell phones and beepers was the new trends?
When Koch was the Mayor and Reagan was the Pres?

Biz Markie, “Turn Back the Hands of Time,” from Weekend Warrior, 2003. Rest in peace to the three-term mayor of New York city, who passed away this morning at the age of 88.

They smile in my face, behind my back they talk trash,
Mad and stuff because they don’t have cash.

Erick Sermon, “Strictly Business,” from EPMD’s Strictly Business, 1988