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Light a Fire

by illmef

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1.
Every time we party it goes one, two, many One, two, many Like I’m smelling through a twenty When we frickin dose it’s like one, two, many One, two, many Guess I’m Just too friendly Throwin up from boozin fits Huffing corn to cool the grits Bottom lip drips Peanut butter on my tuna fish Save it I'll never quit I think I'm too legit People love/hate Me Like put me on a crucifix Don’t flex on me ya doofus I’ve got the hugest hubris When I’m three sheets I’m public in my lewdness But if you want we’ll do this Sock me till I’m toothless Gums hit the curb Like a buncha crunchy smooches Wake up, I’m down on downers Been down and out for hours Street-sweep woke me Sleeping off whiskey sours I’m fried so hit the showers I screech like Mr. Powers Mouthwash, swallow No java, just straight powders Huevos vodka, tonic Half Wheaties half vomit Broke and unholy Guess that makes me non-prophet Knocking ciroc bottles Rockin a crocked waddle Smoke and upchuck Like a gobblin hot model Touch your nose and count like one, two, many One, two, many Shit I stumble Like a mummy Uber in a cruiser cause one, two, many One, two, many They lump me Till I’m bloody I’m gassed, hit back throttle Too fast, my back topples I fall out boing Land in a glass bottle Am I a goner? Nah I’m a cuffed possum Head spins with the room Man this is just awesome Janet(Reno) party damnit Diplop-ic halfwit Like I act 5 And scene 2 Hamlet Quick slip, drop canister Header over handlebars Too much reverb For this depraved and savage animal Back on the bike again A popsicle and a mic in hand Pain free brain freeze Can’t forget my Vicodin The Hulkster says Eat your prayers and say your vitamins Pee test, cha gonna do Flush with Niacin Simon’s the fuck out That's right get the fuck out Dig a hole Homer Space your face with a dugout This is what happens When ill gets two pennies Slaughters brain cells Haaa I’m not left with too many
2.
Light a Fire 02:39
C-c-c-can, match Can, match Can, match I think you're gonna make me do it Can, match Can, match Can, match Can, match Now I'm gonna light a fire Fuck time that I wasted Locked in a basement Shackles of my own make Before I started to chase it Layers of same shit That I was encased in Not a soul but my own That wasn’t racing to save me Reflection is fading Sinking in pavement Holding chains and a drink While I watched it all waving Goodbye to the daytime Mourn in vein for the evenings Indulge in myself Just fucking give me a reason To light it Yeah Light Light it up Light Light it up Chick I'm bout to burn it down Light Light it up Burn this motherfucker down I duck under water Clean up all this loose clutter That floats around in my head Till the weight pulls me under Over sparing your feelings Too busy sparring with demons Over control of a soul That’s barely here like he’s dreaming Drooling and seething Dropping hammers on demons Waking up screaming To sell soul for no meaning Colder than cold With boots stuck in the mire Can’t move an inch this muck So bitch I’m lighting a fire Engulf me Yeah Light Light it up Light Light it up Chicka-chicka burn down Light Light it up Light it up Everybody burn down Take heels to the flame To get my feet once again Nothing better than pain To pump from heart to the brain My stanzas blow To machine guns from slingshots Precision like jigsaws But can’t cut the big knots Over being patient Like your sick of being patients Seeing angels Over you like golden gate adjacent Fly my own volition By my own decisions Got no rhythm I was driving, now I’m just driven Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah Yeah Yeah
3.
One day Get ready Get ready Get ready One day When I grow up I wanna shoot for president Shoot for president One day When I grow up I wanna shoot for president Shoot for president It’s how we grow up Draw crowds when you blow up Hair triggers on holdups Since cribs when we're co-rrupt Kids go from Gonzo To capping head honchos Blood splatters on ponchos Till we mourning, Alonzo Shoot or be president? To be which is morbid? There’s probably more kids That'll kill than reap fortunes Mountains of poor kids Deplored by the sordid More that are thwarted Held back and deported I don’t like the way you’re running our country Here's where we fucked up Abandoned with this strife Now kids look to sky Look for bullets to fly Quick blink a mind’s eye Picnic’s gone awry Red covered with rights Exposed are our insides Creeps a big Fatman Putty-cat(Tweety) snatch grabs Drags her carc-ass back To cave with a black bat Now he is unmasked And starts to backtrack Tweety boy passed gas With words like they’re haz-mats We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind Get ready One day When I grow up I wanna shoot for president Shoot for president One day When I grow up I wanna shoot for president Shoot for president Just croak oval office Serve terms in a coffin Die for the good Like hope to born orphans Cause guns in their hands Is worse than abortions Taking them out Putting corpses in Jordans A penchant for prejudice We mentioned the elephants Bimbos and zip codes Tell pawns from the delegates To hell for the heaven-sent Dead with lead elements More bred to kill Than are born to be presidents I don’t like the way you’re running our country Crackers still cracking Whips like they’re horses Put five hundred of them Inside of your Porsche's Under the hood So your whores can look gorgeous You're taking their lives Tell the poor to be cordial Class warfare will Make the rich mortal Take your whack morals And hastily sort em We live underwater Pull you under coral You’re walking dead But that’s just for decorum We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind One day When I grow up I wanna shoot for president Shoot for president One day When I grow up I wanna shoot for president Shoot for president We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars Get ready for your closeup Mr. President
4.
Disabled, Africans, nameless Cherokee people Gays, Muslims, unfairly treated By very evil Bust and slave minimum wage That’s barely legal They smash and push them down Unfairly like they're barely people Disabled, Africans, nameless Cherokee people Gay, Muslims, unfairly treated By very evil Slave to pres Till they’re bleeding and nearly feeble Considered remnants Just tenants and barely people Some say settlers, pious This country’s first people I call them peddlers, liars This country’s worst people Paved over graves And put up a fucking church steeple Killed for god and caused A kind of worse evil Referred to native sons As the red savages Reservations to stretch out In vast lavishness Casino trinkets To redact damages Jackets and blankets Equipped with attached pathogens A Million dynasties Built on backs of slave chains Break in the link Bullets take back their slave names Blood stained cotton Sewn on back of the slave trade For profit prisons Provide really the same thing A million men Marched the streets of DC After fathers Stood for Dr. King’s speech Race, hate, violence Bodies buried to knee-deep Pain from catacombs Deemed to be make-believe Disabled, Africans, nameless Cherokee people Gays, Muslims, unfairly treated By very evil Bust and slave minimum wage That’s barely legal They smash and push them down Unfairly like they're barely people Disabled, Africans, nameless Cherokee people Gay, Muslims, unfairly treated By very evil Slave to pres Till they’re bleeding and nearly feeble Considered remnants Just tenants and barely people Fuck ignorance, hoods and Turned up noses Flip the beak on the Jim Crows And fire hoses They hate garbed Americans Cause they hide noses Protest Allah With mock speech and prayer poses A race banned From hate twenty punks made Buried 3k From planes aimed at the World Trade 5 9-11’s is how many Killed in a year's rate Lady Lib don’t catch heat When she throws shade Shade shines on Front of the big parade God hates ---- Crosses bear a big charade Fear mongers prayers Sold as mass crusade Holy cloaks Exposes like they lingerie Cog. impaired And the chair bound Stuck in corners of classrooms Never to share sound Straight from daycare To grandma’s chair now Living dead in a coffin Buried over the ground Disabled, Africans, nameless Cherokee people Gays, Muslims, unfairly treated By very evil Bust and slave minimum wage That’s barely legal They smash and push them down Unfairly like they're barely people Disabled, Africans, nameless Cherokee people Gay, Muslims, unfairly treated By very evil Slave to pres Till they’re bleeding and nearly feeble Considered remnants Just tenants and barely people
5.
Spending time How the fuck am I mending mine Anytime I’m always like nine checks behind Behind and way below The notches on the measuring stick Heaven forbid I’m not married and bred like seven kids Sack of shit Missed the bar in the back of it Lack of wit Artist starving without an appetit Always hungry Eating bunnies in dank dungeons Self-bludgeoned Cause the ladies find me repugnant Always drunken Missing Christmas with loved ones Self destruction Implode into the next concussion Weeble wobble Not my name on that lethal bottle Real hostile Script’s gone, so can I please be coddled Futuristic Braggadocious Go get up off of your sofas Futuristic Braggadocious Make kinetic all your notions Good god golly Euphoric when I court Ms. Molly Kamikaze Peaks lead to valleys foggy Sunday fun day Slumping and numbing straight till Monday Mopping’s mundane Trade hours for liquor like I’m unpaid Circle circle Monotony like Steve Urkel Fell off track When my legs became the hurdles My main artery Insane I put it all in the lottery Something for nothing Made sense to me logically Out of bed Get out of my way, look out ahead Bring out the dead Rest release, I’m breaking out instead Mental prison Break chains with better vision Rough copies I’m taking earth by my revisions Futuristic Braggadocious Go get up off of your sofas Futuristic Braggadocious Make kinetic all your notions Wretched n restless Resurrect to bury Netflix Precious seconds My words leave chests breathless I still struggle With the 5 o'clock stubble How bout a double Keeps me from familiar trouble Can’t settle in To working stiff, I’m ready to quit Rather make clouds A doobie with those meddling kids Having a fit Don't ask if I’m having some kids Happiness sticks Like a bunch of ravenous ticks Hopeless n focussed Take back that bank bonus Don't kiss ass But make waves and big commotions No Cirrhosis Or horses up noses Prognosis This Futuristic braggadocious Futuristic Braggadocious Go get up off of your sofas Futuristic Braggadocious Make kinetic all your notions
6.
I fly like Circles with a buzz on Buzz off If you can’t find me drugs hon’ Buns hun’ Searching unbuttoned Humdrum I’ll just watch some Hub Jeans undone Order in sum yung Till my palms taken over by bunions Drugs fun Since I was a young son Hurt my tum-tum From pills by the dozens Nom nom nom Drunken Whiskey till my tongue numb Rehab I checked in with Dunston Cunts n’ Dunces run His Son’s inn, Deliver dough boys Like white bred from sin Fun stuff Till I friggin upchucked, Took a dozen nuns with a bunch of nunchucks Dumb luck They wrote me as a young pup, Un-fair skin So I land on buttocks This is the way that the This is the way that the This is the way that the This is the way that we fly with a buzz Ass first I jumped into a black shirt Eyes shut Look I landed me a bad verse Back hurts So I drop facts first Dampers On the pompous and pampered Flip the page Friggin skip chapters Bic flick makes these papers turn amber Hit embers Till I plain can’t remember Bee fly Cause I’m gone til November Gone gone gone gone Gone the month after And after and after Dirty Zagnut, cause we lost the wrapper Upside down I mumble like goodnight Goodbye like my Lunch money’s Sug Knight’s Uppers or downers Whatever one sounds worse Relics of -delics Booze helps my nouns work Whoa sir! That shit helps me sound sure Launching sound nukes From my reclined lounger Yeah we like dis Yeah we like dis Yeah we like dis Yeah we like dis cause we fly with a buzz
7.
Epidemic 03:05
Live on Channel 2 This is Dick Tickler Coming to bring you the latest US Epidemic Airing live at the top of the hour We epidemic Epidemic epidemic Epidemic Till we caught up in the glitz and hectic We epidemic Epidemic till we septic Epidemic Panic makes kids so skeptic Good and plenty Times we been incensed n frenzied We rock gently Till the next looming threat that’s deadly Like it’s foreseen Distracted with smokescreens Killer soybeans Or baby killers made from dope fiends Tumors from rumors Send you straight into a stupor Can’t get well When you drag facts through the sewer We’ll just get sicker Fit us with livers and zippers Sippin elixirs Dispensed like sick triggers So, how to cure us From U.S. epidemics From innocent inventions Made discriminate systemic It starts from quick mentions In tweets and bus benches Consuming white bread Like its spread is pure synthetic Check the 80’s Crack rattles gave to babies People saying save me Lock ‘em up retorts the Reagans Outrage, moral panic Wasn’t movement or the traffic A-B-C epi-dem Made hysterics go bananas Epi- epidemic People go to moral panic Spinning wheels Makes profits from the horrids tragic Moral moral panic Makes us frickin mortals manic More of moral panic Makes the frickin normal vanish Epidemic erroneous It’s pandemonium Cracker Jack on the podium With loose lips and Plutonium Chuck’s in charge Say they write your wrongs Right ‘em for the wrong reason Play ‘em in your favorite songs Penned as drug war In pens keeping thugs poor Board with barred front doors Waiting for the unborn What’s the vision Of this sick and twisted system Slave labor mission Kids are just born with a sentence Sentences saying Take crime off my streets Subtext relaying Is fence blocks like crime scenes Crime tape tied straight In section 8 for mind games Hogtied in side chains Lined up in assigned graves Eyes glazed News flipped sideways Say “draw your nightshades So inmates don’t give you migraines” Makes my head hurt Moral panic head first You’re dead first ‘Fore epidemic shows red shirts We’re dyin We’re dyin We’re dyin from an epidemic Livin Livin in a We’re dyin Dyin We’re dyin Dyin We’re dyin from an epidemic But living in a moral panic
8.
Dropped a thousand and Ten seconds from Ren Cen Detroit to K-Zoo Dirty south and back again Globe trot till souls rot We missed connections We short-circuit On sordid words at intersections Take a walk Cause we’re not taking orders From comptrollers That are really just porky hoarders We cast stones on Detroit Rock City corroders We on the line It's how we brown bag but act sober Potholes on shot roads You lose lunch and spill drinks Go take a swim cause Rouge no longer still stinks We’ve been pushed to the brink Locked in our precincts But you count on these things To distract us from reasoning Motown and soul now To fast-talkin rappers Scrappers on crappers Sleeping on a trashed mattress Packards to ashes We peaked and rolled backwards Forget all your manners We live happily after Welcome to Ren City More souls lost than they are found But get stuck motherfucker Where you think you goin? I think it’s best if you just stick around Yeah you like the way that sounds Welcome-welcome to More-m-m-more More soul Welcome to Welcome to Detroit muscle America hustles that way What struggle Our butts flicked to the ashtray U-S-A left Wayne In the fast lane You sleep on us Keeping us in a bad way People moving to Back on track when Public servants Stab em in the back with The city key And plea a lesser sentence Limb infections Make sawed-off’s our present weapon It’s our road Forget domestic lemons Like mayor elects Blowing after paid affections Short terms in The Dept of Corrections Clip and Kill-Patrick Before he wins his election Take the D We Headquarters of Gen. Motors Ren Cen, where sayers And doers rub shoulders We brave the hail Like Honolulu snowblowers Steel n winters are cold But the roar is colder You know it’s called Ren City And fuck yeah you like the way that sounds We already tag champs of this motherfucker But now we bout to get us a crown Gravel and grit (Fonic Oddity) A match and a spark till we dance devilish The flickering of flames rise in the distance Don't hold your breath, let em know you exist Cause we revel here amongst the gravel and grit Far from fit or able Most definitely unstable Rivers touching maples Got that international flavor But these stale vanilla wafers Keep demanding their favors Enable a fable That they are your fucking savior Yet their success Would just guarantee failure We are the ready The willing And able So kick down the gate and sprint out the stable Believe in your fate, strength, and valor Fuck their opinion, don’t be mislabeled Get the fuck down till we piss off your neighbor Lighting firecrackers bitch, better turn up them turntables Ill MF and Fonic give a fuck where you came from Welcome to Ren City Not the same this time around Step into our city This bitch is gonna burn ya down Yeah you like the way that sounds Welcome to More-more soul Wel-Welcome welcome Suckers and busters Make your ass pay for Lays For us it’s no charge I guess we’re Better Made Rock n’ Rye Crackin whiskey on Coke you say? We’re doing time in a bottle Like Croce say Stroh’s for Buds Damn straight we’ll make the trade Tipsy in the mitt Mainly because we love this state Stand by the statements We all claim to say No way Jose’ Fuck the way our day’s portrayed The master master copy So don’t attempt to trace Our feet, as they say Are halfway in the grave Chained to weights Diving off Ambassador plank Overdue is Ren City From deep in the bank Light up the Grand Belt And burn our ends with entrails As the wind blows We hitch to it our damn sails Toughen up We’re fighting both tooth and nails Think we're be-below you? We're floorboards, you tell tales It’s called It’s called It’s called Ren City It’s called Ren City More-more More soul Welcome-welcome Welcome to Welcome-welcome to Welcome to Yeah you like the way that sounds
9.
illil 03:04
Yeah I’m ill like a dizzy spell Brace yourself, these words aim to kill Not sick, but nowhere near well Don’t need god, nah I never fear hell Stepping out rises fear though Thirty-one self-imprisoned weirdo The opposite of every hero A space waste till parts sum zero Heartbeat away from constant panic Frankly hid like Anne hiding in the attic Fake emotions, potions and bad tricks Buried notions with pills of Xanax Every day sun sets on remnants Brain echoes as a twisted penance Can't say how I earned this sentence Of a mind with this many tenants I miss a pill sitting on my sill Can’t stand: “Listen mister, sit still” Thoughts fog except when I’m feeling this Got my Rx-made laxed willingness Fighting back clouds ambivalence With a match and some mad flatulence Followed crapulence and cannabis Come to stretched in an ambulance Ring bell, driver won't touch the door Next stop, chill this pit’s just the morgue Your sordid skull’s sorta mortuary This sorta storm’s more than sort of hairy Every second’s less and more ordinary Fog, unrest, dope, and apothecaries No rest allowed for the fairly wary I’s and L’s spell an ill that's very scary Always scared of where I’ll wake Flunky, junky, drunken and flake Vomit vodka, soda, pancake Gobble my vacant heart band plays Every time I’m forced to handshake I can’t shake the urge just to lambaste Everything’s this or that way Like everybody got the damn mandate Each cunt, skunk, and rat snake Flashes badges for a fat tax break I-L can put a K in that name Crossed mind many times in passing My mental state makes me think of bad things I'd do to those who poach and snatch things For the birds just for me to patch wings He can save Hymselv with assassins
10.
You You you you You you you you You You you you Put-put-put a Chip on my shoulder Shipping bullshit like boulders The cards you were holding Packed up with me and folded I’m freakin leaving this season Done with cunts and the demons Friggin dunces, behemoths Caricature Jesus believers Like fake holy rollers With their morals way lower Than the loafers and jokers That their judgment bestoweth Nursing their proverbs Cursing with God’s words Think they’re walking on water Wearing blazers and dockers Fu-fu-fu-fu Fuck ya Fuck ya Fuck your pennies and dollars That trickle to bottom You skimming the top Picking piggyback pocket Rather shuffle through garbages Shopping the bargain bins Reaching for cartridges Popping fucking slick Partridges Faux family trees tarnish Like gaps in your smartness You put the faux in the garment I’m your foe in the darkness I’m preying like Satan When you’re praying to Reagan I bask in your hatred Find you cold in a basement Take my statements verbatim When you’re tied in the basement Cause when I’ve awakened My fatal words get creative You fucking made me abrasive Fucking pissed animated From this creative hiatus I made motivation Put your death in vernaculars Blowing past amateurs Who can’t even grasp This massacre is attacking ya I’ll be more direct Look straight into the camera Your fucking time’s passed bitch Flip the page on the calendar See Don’t you feel better now ill?
11.
You fan and pour gasoline As the world burns That’s the fortune Of selling souls for scorched earth Who came first The lighter of this flamed hearse Or Cracker jacks that were named 3rds? The game turns Just imagine Logic instead of nonsense Livin by contents Of thoughts we have in our conscience I see a province Where iron fist garbage Presidents on onset Of livin in the projects Trumps felate Obamas Wingtips turn to Sambas Do Mary J and kharma So like there is no more drama There’s more options Than selling women as objects Grabbing asses in moshpits No’s out of context Imagine intellect Stripping turtleneck Lookin past spandex Attempts to crack her affects Sex is give and take No more days of privileged rape Take the power away Ain’t no space for the coward’s way And even as the world still turns Us around just to watch it fuckin burn Choke on smoke as we wave goodbye As the flames rain fire in the sky As the world burns I got my sights set A warm hug Cause open arms turns the right wet Passed covered wagons Clansmen and bloody panics No more “savage” Running lean like we lost our baggage We pass peace puffing in pipes Harmonize in our windpipes How’s life? Yeah, it’s nice Owning our actions Hello Mansons What attraction! Murder stays in high fashion ILL Ain’t havin it Violence or the callousness Fuck the assassin shit Pack us in an ambulance Lookin back On a planet of bandits And praying mantises Fucking and slaying ancestors Thumbing our asses Looking for answers Electing the bastards That took us all the way backwards Fuck it and fuck rhymes It’s about time We take flames Burn and bury-(re)mains with fake names And even as the world still turns Us around just to watch it fuckin burn Choke on smoke as we wave goodbye Watch the flames as they kiss the sky

about

The concept for Light a Fire was built by frustration with social/political unrest in the US as well as resentment for my own laziness that muffled my creative output. On my birthday last year, my partner asked me what I wanted to accomplish in the next year. I don't think I had ever been asked that before. At that point I was just frustrated, mad, and drunk enough to say 'fuck it,' and undertake this massive project. From dark times comes inspired art. I felt like I had to Light a Fire. At least I can thank that fat, orange cunt in the white house for that.

credits

released January 18, 2019

All songs written and produced by illmef (unless otherwise noted)
All visual art created by Fonic Oddity
Mixed by Kevin Keyz
Mastered by Magnum Sound Productions

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illmef Detroit, Michigan

Underground on a shoestring, illmef lays cryptic samples over primitive percussion to showcase his greatest asset, words. Inspired by acts ranging from Pink Floyd to Run the Jewels, his sound dips into electronic and hip-hop. Thumping bass contrasts his complex, hyperbolic stanzas that challenge the listener. Each re-listen reveals another piercing layer of subtext and commentary. ... more

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