Album: Liquid Swords
Year: 1995
Track: 1
Track Produced By: RZA
Samples:
"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" by Willie Mitchell
"Groovin'" by Willie Mitchell
"The Legend of Lone Wolf" from the movie Shogun Assassin
"That's the Way it Is" by Al Green (?)

Lyrics:
When I was little, my father was famous
He was the greatest samurai in the empire
And he was the Shogun's decapitator
He cut off the heads of a hundred and thirty-one lords

It was a bad time for the empire
The Shogun just stayed inside his castle and he never came out
People said his brain was infected by devils

My father would come home, he would forget about the killings
He wasn't scared of the Shogun but the Shogun was scared of him
Maybe that was the problem

Then, one night, the Shogun sent his ninja spies to our house
They were supposed to kill my father but they didn't
That was the night everything changed

See, sometimes
You gotta flash 'em back
See niggaz don't know where this shit started
Y'all know where it came from
I'm sayin' we gonna take y'all back to the source
We bounce, yo

When the MC's came to live our their name
And to perform
Some had to snort cocaine to act insane
With before Pete rocked it on, now gone

That the mental plane to spark the brain
With the building to be born
Yo, RZA, flip the track with the, what to gut
Check 'em

Fake niggaz get flipped
In mic fights, I swing swords and cut clown
Shit is too swift to bite you record and write it down
I flow like the blood on a murder scene, like a syringe
On some wild out shit to insert a fiend

But it was yo out the shop stolen art
Catch a swollen heart from not rollin' smart
I put mad pressure on phony wack rhymes that get hurt
Shit's played like zodiac signs on sweatshirt

That's minimum and feminine like sandals
My minimum table stacks a verse on a gamble
Energy is felt, once the cards are dealt
With the impact of roundhouse kicks from black belts

That attack, the mic-fones like cyclones or typhoon
I represent from midnight to high noon
I don't waste ink, nigga, I think
I drop megaton bombs more faster than you blink

'Cause rhyme thoughts travel at a tremendous speed
Clouds of smoke of natural blends of weed
Only under one circumstance is if I'm blunted
Turn that shit up, my clan in da front want it

Now, when the MC's came to live our their name
And to perform
Some had to snort cocaine to act insane
'Fore Pete rocked it on, now gone

That the mental plane just to spark the brain
With the building to be born
Yo, RZA, flip the track with the, what?

I'm on a mission, that niggaz say is impossible
But when I swing my swords, they all choppable
I be the body dropper, the heartbeat stopper
Child educator, plus head amputator

'Cause niggaz styles are old like Mark 5 sneakers
Lyrics are weak like clock radio speakers
Don't even stop in my station and attack
While your plan failed, hit the rail like Amtrak

What the fuck for? Down by low, I make law
I be justice, I sentence that ass two to four
'Round the clock, that state pen time check it
With the pens I be stickin' but you can't stick to crime

Came through with the Wu, slid off on the D L
I'm low-key like seashells, I rock these bells
Now, come aboard, it's Medina bound
Enter the chamber and it's a whole different sound

It's a wide entrance, small exit like a funnel
So deep, it's picked up on radios in tunnels
Niggaz are fascinated how the shit begin
Get vaccinated, my logo is branded in your skin

When the MC's came to live our their name
And to perform
Some had to snort cocaine to act insane
'Fore Pete rocked it on, now gone

That the mental plane just to spark the brain
With the building to be born
Yo, RZA, flip the track with the, what the fuck
[Incomprehensible]