[Intro]
I'ma tell you the truth though (Really?)

[Verse 1]
I like to read a lot
Books be uplifting me
Words help you see a lot
This book was a gift to me
Chuck D Presents This Day In Rap and Hip-Hop History
It's a reference book and puts important dates in lists for me
Jamel Shabazz A Time Before Crack
A photographic history of hip-hop from way way back
Here's Martha Cooper's "Hip-Hop Files", Charlie Ahearn, "Wild Style"
And 50 Cent's 50th Law, I used to read this to my child
Sometimes I look at my library and I'll smile
Cause if I can't find it on the shelf
I know it's there in my file
Meanwhile, there's other books with other hooks and out looks
I like to cook so I'll read about cooks, I can't live without books
I like books, I recite books, I even write books a lot
Science and rap, ruminations, gospel of hip-hop
But let me spit a quick list, a book list, that's really short
The first book that you should get is really a passport
Travel, that's key. But the books can unlock it
Unlock your mind by reading lines of new topics
Place your optics on books of real black knowledge
Beginning with Carter G. Woodson, I'm paying homage
His book, Mis-Education of the Negro is essential
For freeing your mind from the slavery that's mental
Turn up this instrumental, you ain't dealing with an amateur
I'm reading Walter Rodney How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
That's the man to thank, high rank
Let's look at The Birth of Black America by Andrew Frank
Take that to the bank
Let me rock again, hip-hop again
Check out Africa: Mother of Western Civilization by Yosef Ben-Jochannan
Check out Black Man of the Nile again by Yosef Jochannan
Civilization or Barbarism by Cheikh Anta Diop and then
Black Indians by William Loren Katz, take it back
Anything by Dr. Cornel West, you need to go get that
Michael Eric Dyson, all his books, go get all of that
Henry Louis Gates, PBS, show support for that
I'm like Banneker with the almanac, books I got the tallest stack
The Brooklyn Public Library, yeah that's where I started at
I read up everything, every book that I can see
While these others went to college, I got my knowledge for free
Philosophy, theology, paleoanthropology
Mythology, economy, I studied these subjects entirely for free
[Chorus]
It was free!
You got to see me
It was free! Open your eyes and see! It was free!
You've got to see
Good things in life are free
Don't waste your money

[Verse 2]
Let us continue on the menu with these reference books
Like the Oxford English Dictionary for words its a better look
It deals with word history, before and after them
But its funny, in the A section you can't find the word African
But these books, don't start trashing em, bashing em, harassing em
It just shows accurately the racism to the maximum
Here's American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition
Here's what it looks like when you look at the definition of Shirley Chisholm
Peep the wisdom and the complication
Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination
You talk about breaking new ground, Shirley's profound
But in the American Heritage Dictionary, this is nowhere to be found
This is an American Heritage Dictionary reference
And Shirley Chisholm's run for president doesn't get one sentence
I'm just pointing it out, scholarship, what it's all about
Don't just read, find out what these authors are all about
[Chorus]
I'm free!
It was free!
You got to see me
It was free!
Open your eyes and see!
It was free!
You've got to see
Good things in life are free
Don't waste your money