Public Enemy - Air Hoodlum lyrics

I think he went upstairs y'know

[DJ] A very furious mixture of noise

What Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee calls

music's worst nightmare

"Hey he's a good kid"

[Chuck D] Air Hoodlum (repeat 2X)

[Tony D] Check check check the elevation (repeat 4X)

"A player that can leap with the best of them"

Verse One:

Risin up in the 'Velt Strong Island New York

The hood in case you did not know my base

There was a ballplayer who had all the skills

wit the pill to pay the piper, plus all the bills

Mick his first name, Mack the awesome game

Practiced in the heat, in the rain or in pain

Mick so quick, at six foot six

Down to be picked by anyone but the Celtics

Oh what a handle could score from the floor

with people bangin on him, or even hangin on him

But what he did best, above all the rest was...

"A player that can leap, with the best of them"

"As a high school standout..."

"The skywalker himself!"

"I felt, he could do, to make this an effective basketball team"

Verse Two:

Grades nine and ten, Mickey Mack was all that

but in class his ass sat way in the back

How I know, cause I know, I used to flow wit the bro

He didn't mind I used to read him his own headline

Cause he could not read em his school wouldn't need em

if the lines wouldn'ta went like this

Mickey Mack jumped over the candlestick

His stack was his stats but his D was still wack

Grades eleven and twelve he found the wrong clientele and all

During class, he would dribble in the hall

But never got in trouble in school, but the trouble was

it was cool if your brain was just another bubble

As long as he could score fiddy-two

get thirty-three rebounds, fuckin around

Temas lost to him he went right through em

Division, county, state, that's three count em

championships for a small town bro

That's bound to go pro

"He gets free, turn on the jumper, good!"

"Streak of lightning when he breaks loose..."

"We all felt in our hearts we could win this ballgame"

"They just required me to have the game that I did

I'm just... that's all I that's all I that's all I can say"

"That's all I can say"

"He hauled down fifteeen rebounds, and kept the ball away from everybody"

"Then he had a triple double!"

"A-a-a sensational player..."

Verse Three:

SAT's didn't matter cause he was all that

You know the pat on the back

He was always in the news you gotta know what it means

it means revenue, and I'm tellin you

I saw cars and G's come to our school please

approach Hell with the principal, where's the coach

Went to college four years wit a scholarship...

...and won the championship

But when it came to his life he didn't care...

...cause he took it to the air

"Cross and a hook, he scores, he's fouled!"

"From the far corner, breaks West and here's the jumper, good!!"

"There's the jumper, it's not gonna go, rebound batted back..."

[Chuck D] Air

Verse Four:

The fall began when Mickey Mack fell

Hell ripped his kneee drafted last by personnel

Oh how he loved the game, it was fantastic

until he was cut, and couldn't stick

Times got tighter and tighter

he had an attitude was rude, so he turned into a fighter

School wouldn't give him the job that he needed

Assistant to the assistant coach, they didn't need it

Then he resorted to a stick up kid

Ski-mask and gat, but this game he wasn't good at

And the drugs on the side

police ambushed his ride *gunfire* another homicide

He was over, ghost y'know

Hometown hero, but now a zero

To those hypocrites who ripped him blind

for his skills without the will to develop his mind

Forever in the news the community views him

only as Air Hoodlum

"I don't understand it, the kid coulda been another Jordan