[Intro]
I'll be me, you be you
Be the true you, I can see straight through you
I'll be me now but you be you
Be the true you, I can see straight through you
Take the mask off

[Verse 1]
I push pull it out of my chest, breathe raps, eat prose
Hear rhymes screamed when the breeze blows
Drink, flow, clutch mic, touch sight, taste vision
A successor to Antigone's tradition
London born, bred, raised, London's in my guts
London is a savage place full of strangers, it's too abrupt
It's too immediate, it's too cold and it's too sprawling
But London is as London does and I hear London calling
And I've got to reply, creep the streets at night
I'm like you can beat us once, we won't be beaten twice
I live to eat the mics, my peace exists in spittin' bars
Was skippin' class to walk a little further down a different path
All my friends were hittin' bars, sniffin' halves
Getting ripped apart, nicking cars, contemplating living large
I was on top of a mountain screaming dreams into existence
Watch the city life from a distance

[Chorus]
Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Harder I try, larger my prize
Faster I fly, faster I fall
Bare faced in your masquerade ball
Bare faced in the masquerade
Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Harder I try, larger my prize
Faster I fly, faster I fall
Bare faced in your masquerade ball
Bare faced in the masquerade
Believe
[Verse 2]
I carve lyrics into cubicle doors
Like they were pyramid walls and these were hieroglyphs
Hold mics with an iron fist
Mind is a storm, rhymes are the eye in it
Evil in the world but I'm peaceful in spite of it
Snakes never understood the way that lions live
Hear wisdom in the rain, it falls like words fall from dying lips
I waste a lot of time getting high but look
I wore my bones dry trying to climb the cliffs of knowledge
I heard that if you wanna rap, ok, you've got to read
I read Shakespeare, Beckett, Blake, Sophocles
Ancient mythology, eastern philosophy
Got stained glass panels for eyes where the apostles breathe
So come on do what you can, do what you must
In these times they make me leave so much that we can trust
Vanity and lust descend upon us like the dusk, but me
I'm barefoot in the fire pit dancing through the dust

[Chorus]
Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Harder I try, larger my prize
Faster I fly, faster I fall
Bare faced in your masquerade ball
Bare faced in the masquerade
Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Harder I try, larger my prize
Faster I fly, faster I fall
I remain bare faced in your masquerade ball
[Verse 3]
I speak with the same tongue them old poets spoke with
Whiplash a sequence of words into an opus
Hope is a concept, alien to hopeless
Folks with their complex and their failure to focus
Broke, not my pockets but my personhood, I'm fractured
Like postmodern texts where the chapters go backwards
Rope burnt my hands and foot soles
AI looked Prose dead in the eye
She had thick brows and a hooked nose
And she made this reply
When I asked her why the shittest of scribes
Are getting published, why the farcical flourish at the expense of the artful who nourish the artform and she's like:
"Only...in darkness...are stars...boooooooooooooooorrrnn"

[Chorus]
Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Harder I try, larger my prize
Faster I fly, faster I fall
Bare faced in your masquerade ball
Bare faced in the masquerade
Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Harder I try, larger my prize
Faster I fly, faster I fall
Bare faced in this masquerade ball
Peace maker never started no brawl
If I did it was a small one and hardly at all
Bare faced in the masquerade
I'll be me, but you be you
But be the true you believe me I see straight through you
Yeah, I'll be me, you be you
But be the true you believe me see straight through you
Yeah, bare faced, ugh!

Both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
I got both eyes fixed on a darkening, darkening, darkening
I got both eyes fixed on a darkening sky
Bare faced forever, and if you're bare faced too
Then maybe we can be bare faced together

I push pull it out of my chest, breathe raps, eat prose
Hear rhyme scream when the breeze blows
Drink flow, clutch mic, touch sight, taste vision
Success into Antigone's tradition
London born, bred, raised, London's in my guts
London is a savage place full of strangers, it's too abrupt
It's too immediate, it's too cold and it's too sprawling
But London is as London does