SUBSTITUTE

Substitute! (who?) Substitute! (me!)

Took the roll, took the room, took the beat, take a seat

Substitute! (who?) Substitute! (me!)

Lesson plan is sixteen bars and the class is free

Period three, room two-fourteen, chalk on my sleeve

Regular teacher out sick so they sent in the thief

Of attention, I mention a tense and they sit up

Past, present, perfect, that's the order that I hit 'em

Nostrand to Fulton, I walk it 'fore the bell

Coffee, two sugars, from the cart by the rail

Kid in the back row got a verse in his binder

I read it, I graded it, "B plus, rhyme tighter"

See, I never went commercial, I went vertical

Stacked syllables surgical, every bar reversible

Read it back to front and the meaning still hold

Y'all write in pencil, I engrave in the mold

Label said "simplify," I told him "define it"

He couldn't, so I left him in the lobby with his clients

Now I teach for the check and I rap for the blood

One pays the rent and the other pays the grudge

Substitute! (who?) Substitute! (me!)

Took the roll, took the room, took the beat, take a seat

Substitute! (who?) Substitute! (me!)

Lesson plan is sixteen bars and the class is free

Attendance. Patience? (here) Practice? (here)

Every rapper that they signed instead of me? (absent)

Homework. Read a book with no pictures in it

Bring me back a metaphor that isn't 'bout your digits

Pop quiz. One question. Who taught you that flow?

Show your work. Cite your source. (yeah, I thought so)

Bed-Stuy born so the stoop was the classroom

Dominoes slapping, that's percussion, and the bathroom

Mirror's where I practiced every breath, every plosive

Landlord banging on the pipe like he's the co-sign

I diagram a sentence like a play on a clipboard

Subject, verb, object, then I hit you with the fourth

Wall break. Yeah, you, with the headphones

Run that last bar back, I'll wait. (told you so)

They study me in seminars, I never saw a royalty

Professor put my verse up on the slide, cited poorly

Spelled the name wrong, C-Y, it's C-I

Cipher, like the zero that they paid me. See why?

I'm bitter? Nah, I'm accurate, there's a difference in the tone

One complains in the comments, one corrects it in a poem

So the sub's here all week, maybe all year

Regular ain't coming back. I like it here.

Substitute! (who?) Substitute! (me!)

Took the roll, took the room, took the beat, take a seat

Substitute! (who?) Substitute! (me!)

Lesson plan is sixteen bars and the class is free

Put the chairs up.

(bell)