Night of the Living Baseheads Lyrics

[Intro: Khalid Muhammad]
"Have you forgotten that once we were brought here, we were robbed of our name, robbed of our language? We lost our religion, our culture, our God... And many of us, by the way we act, we even lost our minds"


[Verse 1: Chuck D]
Here it is, bam
And you say, "Goddamn, this is the dope jam"
But let's define the term called dope
And you think it mean funky now, no

Here is a true tale
While the ones that deal are the ones that fail (Yeah!)
Yeah, you can move if you wanna move
What it prove? It's here like the groove
The problem is this, we gotta' fix it
Check out the justice, and how they run it

Selling, smelling, sniffing, riffing
And brothers try to get swift and
Sell their own, rob a home
While some shrivel to bone
Like comatose walking around
Please don't confuse this with the sound
I'm talking about


[Scratching 1]
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba"
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" (Yeah)
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba
[Segue 2]
"Hold, hold it! Listen"
"We gon' get on down, now!"

[Scratching 3]
"How-how-how-how-how-how-how-how-
How low can you go?"
"How-how-how-how-how-how-how
How low can you go?"
"How-how-how-how-how-how
How low can you go?"
"How-how-how-how
How-low-low-low
How low can you go?"
(Yo!)

[Verse 3: Chuck D]
(Listen!) I see it on their faces
(First come, first serve basis)
Standing on line, checking the time, homeboys playing the curb
The same ones that used to do herb (Yo, Herb!)
Now they're gone, passing it on
Poison attack - the Black word bond (Word, word)
My man Daddy-O once said to me
He knew a brother that stayed all day in his Jeep
And at night he went to sleep
And in the morning, all he had was sneakers on his feet
The culprit used to jam and rock the mike
Yo, he stripped the Jeep to fill his pipe
And wander around to find a place
Where they rocked to a different kind of
Come on, y'all!
[Segue 3]
"Hold it now! Wait!"
"Wait it! Wait!"
"Yo, run it, Black!"

[Ad-lib: Professor Griff]
Succotash is a method for kids to make cash
Selling drugs to the brother man instead of the other man


[Segue 4]
(Brothers and sisters!)
I'm talkin' 'bout

[Scratching 4]
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-"
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-
"Bass! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-"
"Bass!"

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About

Genius Annotation

PE’s stone classic anti-crack song, whose long-form video should NOT be missed. Author and cultural critic Tricia Rose writes insightfully about the video in her must-read book, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America

Below are Chuck D’s handwritten lyrics to the tune, courtesy of the Adler Archives

The song’s title is a reference to George Romero’s genre-inventing zombie film, Night of the Living Dead. The basehead-as-zombie was certainly a less glamorous metaphor than “beaming up Scotty.”

A popular P.E. promotional picture would feature them in front of a zombie-movie marquee:

(postcard image from Rap Music Guide)

Credits
Production Supervisor
Photography By, Cover
Executive Produced By
Release Date
June 28, 1988
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