[Verse 1: Q-Tip]

Back in the days when I was a teenager

Before I had status and before I had a pager

You could find the Abstract listenin' to hip-hop

My pops used to say, it reminded him of Bebop

I said, "Well, Daddy, don't you know that things go in cycles?

Way that Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael"

It's all expected, things are for the lookin'

If you got the money, Quest is for the bookin'

Come on everybody, let's get with the fly mode

Still got room on the truckload of black boom

Listen to the rhymes, then get a mental picture

Of this black man, and black woman fixture

Why do I say that? 'Cause I gotta speak the truth, man

Doin' what we feel for the music is the proof, and

Planted on the ground, the act is so together

Bona fide strong, you need leverage to sever

The unit, yes, the unit, yes, the unit called the jazz is

Delivering each year an LP filled with street goods

You can find it on your rack in your record store

If you get the record, say your thoughts are adored

And appreciated, 'cause we're ever so glad we made it

We work hard, so we gotta thank God

Dishin' out the plastic, do the dance 'til you're spastic

If you diss—it gets drastic

Listen to the rhyme, 'cause it's time to make gravy

If it moves your booty, then shake, shake it, baby

All the way to Africa, A.K.A. the Motherland (Uh)

Stick out the left, then I'll ask for the other hand

That's the right hand, Black man

Only if you are noted as my man

If I get the credit, then I think I deserve it

If you fake moves, don't fix your mouth to word it

Get in the zone of positivity, not negativity

'Cause we gotta strive for longevity

If you botch up, what's in that [ass]

(What?) A pair of Nikes, size ten-and-a-half (Uh, uh, come on!)

[Chorus]

We gotta make moves (Words)

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (come on, come on)

We gotta make moves (Words)

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Come on, come on)

We gotta make moves

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Come on, come on)

We gotta make moves

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Oooh)

[Interlude: Sample]

"Time, time is a ship on a merciless sea drifting toward an abyss of nothingness until it can be recharted for its own destiny

Time is an inanimate object paying and paying and paying for no justification for belief

Time is dancing, boogalooing-away all memories of past—"

[Verse 2: Q-Tip]

We gotta be a winner all the time

Can't fall prey to a hip-hop crime

With the dope raps and dope tracks we move blocks

From the fly girlies to the hardest of the rocks

Musically the Quest, is on the rise

We on these excursions so you must realize

That continually, I pop my Zulu [shit]

If you don't like it, get off the Zulu tip

So what can you do in the times which exist

You can't fake moves on your brother or your sis

But if your sis is a [bitch], brother is a jerk

Leave 'em both alone and continue with your work

Whatever it may be in today's society

Everything is fair, least that's how it seems to me

You must be honest and true to the next

Don't be phony and expect one not to flex

Especially if you rhyme, you have to live by the pen

Your man is your man, then treat him like your friend

All it is, is the code of the streets

So listen to the knowledge being dropped over beats

Beats that are hard, beats that are funky

They could get you hooked like a crackhead junkie

What you gotta do is know the Tribe is in the sphere

The Abstract Poet, prominent like Shakespeare

(Or Edgar Allan Poe, or Langston Hughes, or...)

[Chorus]

We gotta make moves

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Come on, come on)

We gotta make moves

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Come on, come on)

We gotta make moves

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Come on, come on)

We gotta make moves

Never, ever, ever could we fake moves (Oooh)

[Outro: Sample + Q-Tip]

"—time is running out on black power advocates in the day and white thighed supporters at night

Every time you see them, they're chasin' some white woman with their tongue hangin' out

Time is running and passing, passing and running, running and passing, passing and running—"

Excursions