De La Soul | Lyrics | Stakes Is High

The instamatic focal point bringing damage to your boroughs
Be some brothers from the east with some beats that be thorough
Got the solar gravitation so I'm bound to pull it
I gets down like brothers are found ducking from bullets

Gun control means using both hands in my land
Where it's all about the cautious livin'
Migrating to a higher form of consequence, compliments
Of strugglin', that shouldn't be notable
Man, every word I say should be a hip hop quotable

I'm sick of b****** shakin' asses
I'm sick of talkin' about blunts
Sick of Versace glasses, sick of slang
Sick of half-ass awards shows
Sick of name brand clothes
Sick of R 'n' B b****** over b******* tracks

Cocaine and crack which brings sickness to blacks
Sick of swoll' head rappers with their sicker-than raps
Clappers and gats makin' the whole sick world collapse
The facts are gettin' sick, even sicker perhaps
Stickabush to make a bundle to escape this synapse

Man, life can get all up in your ass baby you betta work it out
Let me tell you what it's all about, a skin not considered equal
A meteor has more right than my people
Who be wastin' time screaming who they've hated
That's why the Native Tongues have officially been re-instated

(Vibes, vibrations)
Stakes is high
(Higher than high)
You know them stakes is high
(Higher than high)
When we talkin' 'bout the

(Vibes, vibrations)
Stakes is high, you know them stakes is high
When we dealin' with the
(Vibes, vibrations)
Stakes is high
(Hey yo, what about that love?)

Yo, it's about love for cars, love for funds
Loving to love mad sex, loving to love guns
Love for opposite, love for fame and wealth
Love for the fact of no longer loving yourself, kid
We living in them days of the man-made ways
Where every aspect is vivid, these brothers no longer talk s***

Hey yo, these niggas live it
'Bout to give it to you 24/7 on the microphone
Plug One translating the zone
No offense to a player, but yo, I don't play
And if you take offense, f*** it, got to be that way
J.D. Dove, show your love, what you got to say?

I say G's are making figures at a high regard
And niggas dying for it nowadays ain't odd
Investing in fantasies and not God
Welcome to reality, see times is hard

People try to snatch the credit, but can't claim the card
Showing out in videos, saying they cold stars
See, s*** like that will make your mama cry
Better watch the way you spend it
'Cuz the stakes is high

Y'all know them stakes is high
When we talkin' 'bout the
(Vibes, vibrations)
Stakes is high

I think that smiling in public is against the law
'Cuz love don't get you through life no more
It's who you know and "How you, son?"
And how you gettin' in, and who the man holding
Hey yo, and how was the scams and how high
Yo, what up, huh? I heard you caught a body
Seem like every man and woman shared a life with John Gotti

But they ain't organized

Mixing crimes with life enzymes
Taking the big scout route
And niggas know doubt better
Than they know their daughters
And their sons
(Oh boy)

Yo, people go through pain and still don't gain
Positive contact just like my main man
Who got others cleaning up his physical influence
His mind got congested, he got the nine and blew it
Neighborhoods are now hoods 'cuz nobody's neighbors
Just animals surviving with that animal behavior
Under I who be rhyming from dark to light sky

Experiments when needles and skin connect
No wonder where we live is called the projects
When them stakes is high you damn sure try to do
Anything to get the piece of the pie
Electrify, even die for the cash
But at last I be out even though you wantin' more
This issue is closed like an elevator door
But soon re-opened once we get to the next floor where the

(Vibes, vibrations)
Stakes is high
Y'all know them stakes is high
When we talkin' 'bout the

(Vibes, vibrations)
Stakes is high
Stakes is high, come on