"Natural Causes Reprise" lyrics

You pick up the phone and you hear that little clicking sound with no dial tone, right? It's like the dial tone is about to come, but it never comes. And you say the phone is what? You say, "the phone is dead," right? So "dead" has more than one meaning. Are y'all with me? We're not just talking about those who got shot in a drive-by.

Hip hop's middle aged
The first rappers started young as Lil' Wayne
It's been three decades since the rhythm came
Original rappers are entering their brittle stage
The average black man's life span
Is like three fifths that of a white man
He never put five grand in a life plan
So he can't afford to fall cause he might land
In a clinic where the nurse is the night man
They're to sign in visitors and wipe ass
His record label never told him 'bout the flight plan
They shot videos on beaches with white sand

"American mainstream is obsessed with black creative genius – be it music, walk, style – but at the same time puts a low priority on the black social misery which is the very context out of which that creativity flows."

They used to act all active and lawless
They used to live like bachelors balding
All actresses hit menopause and
Rappers will die of natural causes
They're gonna get hip fractures from falling
They're gonna need Viagra and bypasses
They're gonna wait for their grandkids to call them
Rappers will die of natural causes

And while they're alive and ruined by pain
Rap fans shall not Google thy name
The day you die, people share your music by AIM
That's postmortem internet eulogized fame

They used to act all active and lawless
They used to live like bachelors balding
All actresses hit menopause and
Rappers will die of natural causes
They're gonna get hip fractures from falling
They're gonna need Viagra and bypasses
They're gonna wait for their grandkids to call them
Rappers will die of natural causes