Read this: Daniel, Ch 5.
Rap this:
The king was called Belshazzar
But we’re gonna call ‘im Shazz-ar.
He said, “I am a dazzler,
Am go’n dazzle all the Kasbah.
We’ll be drinkin’ good wine;
Be a stinkin’ good time.
Am go’n take it further
When they say, ‘Don’t take it that far!’ “
He invites a thousand,
They’se all A-list glitterati.
Includes his wives and girlfriends,
‘Cause no way they’ll miss the party!
His dad was Neb’ kanezz-ar
It’s bad for poor old Shazz-ar
Livin’ in the shadow of
Ol’ Neb, who was a smarty.
“Am Shazz the man, an’ am so baad!”
He looks to push the boat out.
“Not like ol’ dad ‘cause he went mad
And looked a fool with no clout.”
Ol’ Neb, he had a showdown
With God who brought him low down.
If Neb was wondrin’ who was boss,
Then he found out with no doubt!
But Shazz was like, “What’s with this thing?
C’mon, must be a phony!
A ‘God’ who’s bigger than the King-
So how’d I face my homies?
This ‘God’, needs to be shut down,
A bod who needs a put down.”
He did it and he flashed the bling
In front of all his cronies.
Now Judah, it bin’ treated rough,
Neb pillaged all its treasure.
He carted off the sacred stuff
To Babylon at leisure.
Bling’s no real valuation-
The thing’s God’s reputation.
And Shazz he dissed that right enough,
All through his night of pleasure.
So when the wine was flowin’
An’ they sorta got a swing on,
He set the party goin’,
Said, “Got somethin’ else to bring on.”
Shazz used all Judah’s treasures
As boozers’ drinkin’ measures.
They toasted local idols
‘Cause they’s somethin’ safe to cling on.
His pride got over heated,
Needin’ somethin’ doin’ drastic.
An’ arrogance, deep seated —
That’s a call for the fantastic.
Then where a lamp is standin,’
A hand appears, just hangin’.
The body bin deleted,
And it’s real, it isn’t plastic.
All eerie in that dim light,
Seems that somethin’creepy’s startin’;
A myst’ry note, is filled in by
The hand, before departin’.
And, dude, that spooky scrawl
Would prove the writin’ on the wall.
Four words in some weird lingo:
‘Mene mene tekel parsin’.
Graffiti quite outlandish,
Was too much for Shazz to take in.
He couldn’t understand it,
So, like Elvis, started shakin’.
No menu he could drop down
So wha’d he do, but flop down.
He found no-one to crack the code
No matter who he raked in.
Nobody was of any use
Except, that is, The Queen Mum.
Said, “Hail Oh King! Stay cool, hang loose.
We’ll find out what it means, son.
With riddles needin’ solvin’
There’s a man who needs involvin’.
His name is Dan; he’s all good news,
He even sees your dreams, hun.”
“He was the brains for your ol’ dad–
Your dad, the king, I’m sayin.”
(Did she say that to make him mad?
The obvious, she’s statin’.)
“He’s got more intel inside.
The gods sure yell for his side.”
So Dan gets called to Shazz’s pad
And Shazz thinks, “Wha’ do I pay him?”
Shazz says if Dan’s the real thing-
Achieves a resolution,
He’ll get the Gucci an’ the bling,
Be made an institution:
For word trace and translation
Offers third place in the nation.
But Dan says, “Thanks, no thanks Oh king,
No fee for the solution.”
“Ol’ Neb as king of thee known world
Was up himself, and big time.
But God made him look so absurd
It flipped him like a trip line.
He got the thing, the lesson
That God’s the King, no mess’n.
King Shazz, you know all this occurred
But you don’t give a fig, mind.”
“The Lord of Life, you dissed Him good;
The One who holds your future.
That’s why He spoke into the hood
And loud as any hooter.”
That fist, it’s got a punchline-
It’s, ‘he’ll be gone by lunchtime.’”
The Lord, Dan made it understood,
Is judge and prosecutor.
“‘Mene’; that means ‘numbered’ and
The days you got are zero.
‘Tekel’ means that you bin’ weighed.
You lightweight, you’re no hero.”
Four words have bin’ hand written.
Your world y’see is splittn’.
‘Parsin’ means ‘divided’ and
Two into one, you’ll see, go.”
That same night king Shazz got whacked,
(Or ‘killed’ in other versions).
And, as we said, his Empire cracked;
Half each to Medes and Persians.
It’s right, right on, not ‘off the wall’,
That pride might come before the fall.
That plastered wall was lightly scratched
With sober, deep assertions.
A plastered wall, but lightly scratched
With sober, deep assertions.
Amen.
You can find more Code Odes featuring Dan and Neb, in The Manual, vol 3, out now …
