SATURDAY NIGHT INSTRUMENTALITY

[Verse 1] Brother had a VHS stacked on the stereo equipment Purple tape label, handwriting looked heaven-sent Press play, young me expecting Pokémon sentiment Instead the whole cast was depressed or negligent [Verse 2] Shinji in the chair like “the fuck is existence?” Meanwhile western cartoons still simple, and consistent Morals of the stories usually “friendship and resistance” This shit had religion, trauma, and Freudian abysses [Verse 3] Had to hunt tapes in the mall like cursed scroll pieces Thirty bucks for four eps, on legit releases Some shows got me choosing between a therapist or Jesus Shelves of cyber titties, ninja blood, and telekinesis [Verse 4] Sequencing the saga was an impossible forage Found some on store shelves, the rest in the torrents Bootleg subs translated current shows to classics “All according keikaku,” by bilingual fanatics [Verse 5] Around the same time my brain got opened to new sensations Started puffing smoke, taking tabs for hallucinations Watched Akira tripping, thought the bike lights wrote in Arabic Every frame felt dangerous, spiritual, and barbaric [Verse 6] Ghost in the Shell had me questioning my own data Wondering if souls could run off of generators Ninja Scroll made sex and death next-door neighbors Felt like late-night cable fed philosophy to degenerates [Verse 7] Conventions back then? Hundred weird kids maximum University classrooms smell like pot and Cap’n Crunch Thirty people losing minds around a television That energy don’t scale to a convention center admission [Verse 8] Now anime mainstream, your little cousin has the mania Demon Slayer shirts and My Hero Academia Used to get clowned for the shit, now everybody has it The culture went from secret rite to algorithmic habit [Verse 9] Animation cleaner now, technically astounding Every frame shimmers like the budget keep compounding But the old shit felt hungry, unstable and confounding Like the artists drew it while the whole damn world was drowning [Outro] The Can’t Rap Kid wrote this, the machine is what you’re hearing Another soul transmitted through technology’s interference Like anime in HD, the resolution’s getting cleaner The soul is in the signal loss, somewhere in between us