Lyrics:

[mos def]

Booka-booka-booka-booka-booka-booka

Ha hah

You know the deal

It's just me yo

Beats by su-primo for all of my peoples, negroes and latinos

And even the gringos


Yo, check it one for charlie hustle, two for steady rock

Three for the fourth comin live, future shock

It's five dimensions, six senses

Seven firmaments of heaven to hell, 8 million stories to tell

Nine planets faithfully keep in orbit

With the probable tenth, the universe expands length

The body of my text posess extra strength

Power-liftin powerless up, out of this, towerin inferno

My ink so hot it burn through the journal

I'm blacker than midnight on broadway and myrtle

Hip-hop past all your tall social hurdles

Like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex

Broken glass wall better keep your alarm set

Streets too loud to ever hear freedom sing

Say evacuate your sleep, it's dangerous to dream

But you chain cats get they cha-pow, who dead now

Killin fields need blood to graze the cash cow

It's a number game, but shit don't add up somehow

Like I got, sixteen to thirty-two bars to rock it

But only 15% of profits, ever see my pockets like

Sixty-nine billion in the last twenty years

Spent on national defense but folks still live in fear like

Nearly half of america's largest cities is one-quarter black

That's why they gave ricky ross all the crack

Sixteen ounces to a pound, twenty more to a ki

A five minute sentence hearing and you no longer free

40% of americans own a cell phone

So they can hear, everything that you say when you ain't home

I guess, michael jackson was right, 'you are not alone'

Rock your hardhat black cause you in the terrordome

Full of hard niggaz, large niggaz, dice tumblers

Young teens and prison greens facin life numbers

Crack mothers, crack babies and aids patients

Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in playstation

This new math is whippin motherfuckers ass

You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add

It's mathematics


Chorus: scratched by dj premier (repeat 2x)


'the mighty mos def..'

'it's simple mathematics' - fat joe

'check it out!'

'i revolve around science..'

'what are we talking about here? '


.. 'do your math' - erykah badu (2x) ..

.. 'one.. t-t-two.. three, four' - james brown ..

.. 'what are we talking about here? ' ..


[mos def]

Yo, it's one universal law but two sides to every story

Three strikes and you be in for life, manditory

Four mc's murdered in the last four years

I ain't tryin to be the fifth one, the millenium is here

Yo it's 6 million ways to die, from the seven deadly thrills

Eight heroes gettin found with 9 mill's

It's 10 p.m., where your seeds at? what's the deal

He on the hill puffin krill to keep they belly filled

Light in the ass with heavy steel, sights on the pretty shit in life

Young soldiers tryin to earn they next stripe

When the average minimum wage is $5.15

You best believe you gotta find a new ground to get cream

The white unemployment rate, is nearly more than triple for black

So frontliners got they gun in your back

Bubblin crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty

And end up in the global jail economy

Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence

Budget cutbacks but increased police presence

And even if you get out of prison still livin

Join the other five million under state supervision

This is business, no faces just lines and statistics

From your phone, your zip code, to s-s-i digits

The system break man child and women into figures

Two columns for who is, and who ain't niggaz

Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings

But you push too hard, even numbers got limits

Why did one straw break the camel's back? here's the secret:

The million other straws underneath it - it's all mathematics


Chorus


{closing scratch 'mathematics..'