[Intro: a spray can rattles twice, the breakbeat drops in] [Hook: hungry young male lead, the crew shouts the parentheses] Whole car! (Whole car!) Top to bottom, end to end Twenty-two minutes, two cans each, and my brother's name again One run down the line, then they buff it gray. Let 'em try Whole car! (Whole car!) Six-oh-two. Look up. That's Ray goin' by [Verse 1: male lead, fast, breathless] Ray was twenty-two when the third rail took him, runnin' from a flashlight on track nine I was twelve with his black book under my mattress, tracin' his letters, line after line [Flow switch: triple-time, the plan, then the can-shake rhythm] Layup yard at the end of the line. Sweep at three-forty. Track crew at four-oh-two That's twenty-two minutes, one car, sixty feet of steel, and a name that's overdue Rattle it, rattle it, cap it and pop it, the outline, the fill, and the fade, and the shine Sola said, "No drips." She don't do drips. She do edges like a razor on a ruler line [Hook] Whole car! (Whole car!) Top to bottom, end to end Twenty-two minutes, two cans each, and my brother's name again One run down the line, then they buff it gray. Let 'em try Whole car! (Whole car!) Six-oh-two. Look up. That's Ray goin' by [Verse 2: female rapper, sharp, cold, cocky] Ray put a marker in my hand at the diner when I was fifteen and mad at the world Said, "Letters ain't words. They're buildings. Build 'em like you live in 'em, girl" Boys bomb. I build. I don't need you to like it. I need it to move Black for the bones, silver for the skin, red for the shadow, and the shadow's the proof Tank hit the whistle at three fifty-eight. Four fuckin' minutes early. Two lights, low Junior froze on the ladder. I didn't. I was on the Y, and the Y had one leg to go I don't leave a letter limpin'. Ray didn't raise me to run from a half-built Y Finished the leg, capped it, grabbed him by the hood. We were ghosts when the lights came by [Beat Switch: drums cut to the third rail hum and boots on gravel, then a train horn, and the breakbeat slams back] Flat in the gravel between the ties, and the flashlights walkin' the rows Third rail hummin' six inches from my face, the one that took him. It knows Boots stopped by the car, and the beam went up, and it lit his name forty feet long Guard just stood there. Ten seconds. Then he clicked his light off and walked on [Verse 3: male lead, double-time, sunrise on the overpass] Six-oh-two, sunrise on the bridge, Sola, Tank and me, and the coffee's bad Train pulls out, and there he go, R, A, Y, red and silver, biggest he ever had End of the line, buff crew rolled him gray by noon. Fine. Let 'em roll it He ran the whole line once in daylight. That's the run he never got. I stole it [Final Hook: the crew shouts, everything in] Whole car! (Whole car!) Top to bottom, end to end Twenty-two minutes, two cans each, and my brother's name again One run down the line, then they buff it gray. Let 'em try Whole car! (Whole car!) Six-oh-two. Look up. That's Ray goin' by [Outro: a train horn, the breakbeat stops dead] [End]
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