(Pick it up flip it open x2)

[Verse 1: Bambu]

A by-product of that LAUSD education, miseducated

While my peers graduated I's waitin' on my arraignment

In a day room I'm shiftin through torn books in a room

Ironically in better condition than at my school, now

I couldn't quite finish a whole book

And until I discovered my notebook

I found that I wasn't accustomed to processing nothing I read in a school book

Then I started building, dialoging with all my elders

Sharing shit that these authors would piece together with letters and

Now as an adult I see the error in my schooling

And why the shit in syllabus readings made me feel stupid

Cause the relevance to me

Was irrelevant in my teens

The fuck did half this shit have to do with me being me huh?

And later as I grew up

I found more connection in a book than in the hood I grew up

Girls I used to fuck with used to bug

When I request that we skip the DVDs and grab Assata off the shelf

Let's try and flip through every page

Your voice reciting wisdom that's gonn' get your ass laid

Then we use that book to break bud

Break it down chop it up

Break it down let's chop it up

Break it down chop it up

Break it down let's chop it up

And grab another book (smoke!)

Grab another book

[Hook]

Yeah I know it sound corny but

(We should read some books x3)

If I'm lying then I'm dying, straight up

(We should read some books x3)

Yeah I know it sound corny baby

(We should read some books x3)

If I'm lying, then I'm dying, straight up

(Pick it up flip it open x2)

[Verse 2: Prometheus Brown]

I was light weight college educated but I never graduated

Professors on that bullshit, I ain't have the patience

Find myself sleeping through academic proceedings

Staying up most evenings, writing, fucking or reading

Seeing lectures while weeded

And staring at some cleavage

Learning big words having very little meaning

Jesus even in the meetings I was seeking

A reason to explain this game without the twenty page thesis

A view without class that's a class without a teacher

Or a struggle rapper takes but without the thousand features

Scholar not collegiate but intelectually seasoned

Having drunk conversations over very sober readings

Maybe sober contemplations over very loaded readings

Where bookmarks mark where we (Oof!) and we (Ah!)

Here we are, 2012, they're like "What the fuck's a book?"

I'm like "Look, It's the quickest way to get up out your hood!"

Not from knowledge but the knowledge with practical application

Not reading for escaping, but knowing where you came from

Burning through those papers when I'm burning through the pages now

Break it down, chop it up

Break it down and smoke it up

Break it down, smoke it up

Break it, then chop it up

Grab another book, grab another book

[Hook]

(Pick it up flip it open x2)

[Outro: x2]

Paper back, hardcovers

Langston Hughes, ask your mama

Show love to them bookworm brothers

Mind buff, language tough

I like a dude that knows what's up