Beat Biter Lyrics

Let me rock this rhyme only if I may
It's directed to my man LL Cool J
Your brand new jam sure does sound sweet
You "Rocked the Bells" but you stole my beat


Me and Marley Marl, we designed it well
You added some percussion, thought we could not tell
It will be my glory to tell this story
It will even be rocked in your territory

Think they're so slick that they can't be greased
What I really hate most be biting MC's
To make their own would be a total waste
Let me tell you what happened in this one case
Turned on the radio station of my choice
When I heard my beat with the next man's voice
Put it on tape and I played it again
It just couldn't be, so I asked my friend
He didn't wanna hurt my feelings, so he said "I guess"
Played it one more time, homeboy said "yes"

I got so mad that I wanted to scream
But I sat and wrote a rhyme to release my steam
It just so happened that we met some place
I confronted this beat biter face to face
I asked did he do it and of course he denied
So I had to say, homeboy, I let that slide
To this here story there is no end
I'm just waiting for the sucker kid to do it again
I was just so shocked when I heard his cut
I called his girl everything but a sleazebag slut
Beat biters I devour like a three course meal
So be careful next time whose beat you steal
That's not really what this song is about
But if you steal my beats, I'm taking you out
The lyrics that I use in my rhymes are so nice
You press rewind and say, "Man, I got to hear that twice"
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Saying things like that, you must be sick
I feel sorry for those souls, it really makes me sad
Telling stories of the battles that they never had
I'm the root - my rhyme the tree
As essential to my mind as my eyes must see
I expand one's thoughts to the very extreme
Have you thinking something's real when it's only a dream
If I was a perpetrator I'd feel ashamed
Putting silly words together that all sound the same
If they elected Presidents for fresh rhymes that they wrote
I'd be the winner hands down, they'd abolish the vote
Because I'm quiet at times don't mean I don't have heart
I be praying half the time please, don't let me start
Cause once I start I'm gonna cold get ill
And at times it takes a posse just to make me chill
I say, brother, let's do this right
First we'll drink tea, and then we'll fight
So what I made a jam on the mellow side
It was something worthwhile, so I kept my pride
Now that my neck is out of the noose
Rock parties so hard that you gotta get loose

When you were just a kid with your runny nose
With your everlasting sneakers and your bummy clothes
Before you ever thought of making rap your trade
You were dreaming of Adidas while I got paid
Now you're sitting there wondering how I know
About the days when you used to be an MC ho
People souped you up, told you you were nice
Not only rock 'em once, rock your weak rhymes twice
For guys like you they should create an award
For the most attempts and the least that scored
See, I'm a rhyme writer, Marley mixes my cuts
I adore fly girls and I spit on sluts
I hold the rap population in the palm of my hand
Little children saying, "Ma, I wanna be like Shan"
I got the knowledge to know, the wisdom to speak
The understanding of my rhymes is at its fullest peak
There were a lot of MC's that tried to riff
But they wound up on the slabs as an MC stiff
No typographical errors, God bless the dead
Don't take it too light, these things I said
Final judgment over all like a full-fledged king
So my sentence to death, others never to sing
I'm chilling for the moment, yes, my friend
In a minute I be making six g's times ten
This might put you in a state of shock
It's not how much you make, it's how good you rock
Just to let you know who's DJ's greater
Marley'll wax, buff and Simonize Cut Creator

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About

Genius Annotation

“Beat Biter” was a single released by MC Shan back in 1986. On this track, he accused LL Cool J (and indirectly, Rick Rubin, LL’s producer at the time) of plagiarizing a beat Shan’s producer Marley Marl had made and re-purposing it into his classic jam “Rock The Bells”. LL himself never directly responded to the track (As he was already beefing with Kool Moe Dee at the time), but, in a twist of irony, enlisted Marley Marl’s services for Mama Said Knock You Out a few years later.

But the “Beat Biter” single isn’t remembered at all for it’s title song. It’s best remembered for it’s B-Side: The Bridge, which kickstarted The Bridge Wars between Shan’s group Juice Crew and KRS-One’s Boogie Down Productions.

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