「An Original Contribution」

[Intro] [Spoken Word] Pen and a notebook Nothing else on me None of it was given. [Verse 1] [Rap] rank stays fixed, came quick, they took my bars apart in front of me and named it, stayed still same week, they asked me what I'd heard this week and then they played it one play, and if I can't take it apart, they say it they told me it comes early, it never comes later there's a survey every week of names I should know and I don't, so they say it they walk, they speak a senior just put a record on and watched my face and left the question waiting and they say it, the same speech Bought they laughed at the mic, the cheapest one that everybody's taking, I tie white silk on the rest put crew stickers on theirs, and a ribbon is not what they gave me I put my own mark, no crew's claiming, I paid for it once they let me in the room but not in the circle, where they made it [Pre-Chorus] Pen and a notebook And one thing more on me None of it was given. [Chorus] Whose is the line Whose is the hand. No. Whose is the hand that laid it down You may keep the thing you added. You may keep it. You may You may not keep it on its own. It does not come off The part that is yours is nothing without the rest of it Whose. Whose is the line [Verse 2] [Rap] I read first, checked once, they tell me the thesis and the bars will not get done, kept one said once, one order in the room, the same one in the set, once the ones before decide what gets to count as best work and no one says it out loud, everybody's guessing and then it lands on me that nobody had called it a survey till I stepped up said this, went first and it turns on me, the survey was not theirs, I brought it in, and that's the method and it gets done, I checked first Brought they name a track and watch me and I have not heard it yet, lesson, I go and I learn somebody asks me if I'm still sitting the exam and it is next month I take the whole thing, take the credit, I keep what I read it's put to me that maybe I am the one who brought it, next word [Chorus] Whose is the line Whose is the hand that laid it down and held it in place You may keep the thing you added. You may not keep it alone It does not come off. I have tried it, and it does not What is yours is the difference, and it sits on something Whose is the line [Interlude] [Spoken Word] A note on the criteria. An original contribution is not required to be good. It is required to be new, and small, and defensible. Two of those can be checked by somebody else. The third one cannot. So here it is in the form that can be checked. I took a borrowed specification. It measures how a phrase lands, and how long it is, and where the stress falls. It does not measure who is doing it. I added that column. That is the whole of the contribution. [Rap] [double time] one column, that is the size of it, now watch what it does, they built the whole thing out of how it sounds and not once asked who was standing in it, I put a name inside the machinery and now the machinery can tell you when the name is not mine, and it said it about me first, that is the part I did not plan for, and I am keeping it [Verse 3] [Rap] I take it, claim it, I took the shape they built and put one thing in, made it, paid it weighed it, they count the way it lands, and I go count who made this they left no column for the one who does it, made it I wrote the column in and measured what I'd taken it comes back to me that most of this was never mine, the shape was theirs, they made this take stock, named it and the part that will not move is that the mass that it sits on is not mine, basic and I take this, I say it Speak it is just one column in a spec that nobody is taking, I sign the front page there is no board and there's no seal and there is no one who can just say it I hand it in now, I'm still waiting, I keep the one thing the room is full, the date is set, and there's nobody to say it [Pre-Chorus] Pen and a notebook And one thing more on me None of it was given. [Chorus] Whose is the line Whose is the hand, and whose is the shape it was laid in You may keep the difference. You may never keep it alone It does not come off the thing that it was added to That is the whole of the question. Answer it or do not Whose is the line [Outro] [Spoken Word] February has not happened. I have not sat it. There is no board for the other one. Nobody confers it. I put one column where there was none, and I signed the front page, and it is in. The rest of it is not mine to say.