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