Yo, this is the Fugees
Refugees
About to take you on a journey
Into the dimensions of the Booka basement
The basement, word

Hey yo, one two three! The crew is called Re-Fu-Ge-ee-es
An if you come fa tes the rap style
Stop the violence and just bring it on, wild

Hey yo I, feel kind of melancholy people think they really know me
I keep a wrap about me while I'm driving daddy's Audi
I pay the toll fighting for my own soul
Cause the bourgeois type of mental sucks like a flat comb
But I be baiting the rebel base to bass distort the EQ
The devil's wishing they could send me back to Mogadishu
Cause I've been wild since I was a juvenile
Afro-centric profile, back when righteous rap was your style
Now kids are whyling so I ask the bad black
Boogie bandit, what's the damage, gimme the estimate then
Pray tell me when's the revolution will begin?
I turn on my TV I check out Farrakhan on CNN see
I'm like the phantom that's flying like the bird do
And things you never heard plus I come from the suburbs
Word to God, I heard you're acting kind of hard
And you got your skin scarred when they was shooting on the boulevard

[Chorus: Lauryn Hill]
(You got the vocab) I got the vocab
(On the real got the vocab) You know we got the vocab
(All my peeps got the vocab) Yeah, we got the vocab

Hey yo Praz, grab the mic and show you got the gift of gab

[Prazwell]
Then cast off from here to Mexico
You see my four-five-six a-be my Celo
And when I rest my head is on a pillow
You see the skills I manifest is very tho-rough
And if you don't believe me ask Freres Ja-cques
Freres Jacques, Freres Jacques
A dorme vous? A dorme vous?
Watch out now! When I choose to speak
I'm forming the cipher fly East to the Five Percenter
Knowledge is born, to all beginners
Cast the first stone, if you feel you ain't a sinner,
Say o-you're father, who art in heaven
Forgive the foolish rapper for he not know how Fugee be stepping
Correct and, stopped and kept in, 'nough respect to the
DJ, that be selecting, the type of record

[Chorus]

Hey yo Clef grab the mic and show you got the gift of gab

[Wyclef]
Check it out, here we go
Back in Eighty-tree, no one wanted to be nappy!
I turn on my TV, it's a dreadlock for free!
Kill the gimmick
It's nonsense, it's no sense or value
A rapper, disaster, nobody ever told me that
"Roxanne, you don't got to work for money no more!" and
Back in the days I used to listen to cool G Rap
Way back when before guns became gats and
Run-D.M.C. used to ask Mary was she bugging?
I loved P.E., they kept me conscious of what I was saying
Afrika Bambaata, Poor Righteous Teacher
Got within myself so it made me a Five Percenter
Say La-Di-Da-Di, UHH! we like to party but
My jam was BDP, with My Philosophy
Say Grandmaster Flash, MC Melle Mel
Then LL Cool J came with Rock the Bells!
See I'm the one for the crew, like a Jew is a Jew
Like Apollo got the moon, like the men who got the blue
Like the Fu got the Manchu, Chaka got the Zulu
Hawaii got the Honolulu
I got the rap lieu, so skippedy-de-bop-bop you don't stop
You do the rock-rock from hip-hop through be-bop
From be-bop to bee-bee

[Chorus]

Hey yo peeps, grab the mic and show you got the gift of gab

[Chorus]

[Lauryn] Aiyyo, bros grab the mic and show you got the gift of gab

(DC got the vocab) Word, y'all got the vocab
(Virginia got the vocab) hey, I know y'all got the vocab
(Oakland got the vocab) Word, they got the vocab
Hey yo, sisters grab the mic and show you got the gift of gab

Writer : JEAN/MICHEL/HILL
Copyright : Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC