Token of My Affection - Nems

You’d think after all these years of being clean I’d get my feelings back

Right?

So why it don’t feel like that

It’s like God built my heart with a shield attached

Shawty always wanna argue, I can’t deal with that

So instead of facing my problems, I walk away

And I leave the relationship in an awkward way

I used to talk about rape like it was funny

And then they raped the woman that was close to me

Now I listen to those tracks and I can’t believe

That a younger me could lack such compassion and empathy

And I would probably give a kidney

Just for my female fans they could forgive me

The younger me would probably think I was soft

But I look back at them days and I know I was lost, uh

Living life without a care in the world

So, how could I ever care 'bout a girl?

When I couldn’t even care for myself

Tryna numb the pain, taking every drug on the shelf

How could you forgive me when I can’t forgive myself?

Uh

Thank you for your patience

All these years clean and I’m still isolating

I’m sorry I kept you waiting

Shit, fuck, run that back, uh

This a token of my affection

Wrote these thoughts down on this paper while you were resting

As you get older, your life takes a direction

When it comes to my love, know there’s never a question, uh

This is a token of my affection

When you staring in the mirror, don’t recognize your reflection

Just know you gonna be great like you always been destined

Keep me by your side you’ll never need no protection

A little girl is waking up this morning going to her stepfather that touched

her last night

And she gotta smile in front of her mother, sister and her brother

Just like everything is alright when it’s not

Baby girl, I wish I was there to make you special

I wish I was there to make him respect you

But overall I wish I could jump to that kitchen table

Sit right next to you and protect you

Just know half of the kids at school are going through the same thing

And it’s not your fault, so you can blame him

He’s gonna get whats coming to him

'Cause karma catches up with everyone and it knows what he’s doing

How could you selfishly ruin a life and diminish it?

There’s nothing more precious than a child’s innocence

All the issues that stem from mental imprisonment

How could you stand yourself and live with it?

I promise you, if I ever catch him I’m a motherfuckin' finish him

Come here, nigga

No, no, I promise, no, I prom— I promise!

This is a token of my affection

Keep me by your side you’ll never need no protection

I’m here to make right what is destined

I love you

Yeah

You even remember half the shit?

Yeah

How’d it start?

I’ma, I’ma go back

I’ma go back to where

Hey, hello

Ay, we’re doin' a skit here

Relax, relax, lady

I’ma go back to where

A mutual friend of ours

I gave him a CD

That’s way back

That’s like

Niggas don’t even know

Well, we’ll get to that

That’s right

We’ll get to that

Eight years ago, right?

Yes, and I remember it had two fire beats

One of them is Ebonics

That we used just now

Yeah

Hundred percent

And the other one is Bang, Bang, Bidat that I did on Planet of the Apes shit

Hundred percent

But I was like, yo, the shit is on a CD

Hundred percent

Like, I need it in email

It was like, yo, Frank don’t email

He only give you beat CDs

Yeah

I’m like, yo, what the fuck is that, man?

Aight, so then that happened

Sittin' on those beats for mad long

Word

The Ebonics beat I sent to Necro to try to get on

Word, I remember, I remember hearin' through the grapevine that you were gonna

try and get a couple people on that

I had even sent it to Immortal Technique, I’m not sure

But that was my, that’s who I had in mind

Boom

But so, how did the album come about?

Aight, so check it out, this is how it came about

I had the shit with MTV

Yes

You know what I’m sayin'?

So, boom, I had the deal with MTV

And they wanted me to get

They wanted me to get a cast

Yeah

So I went

I had the show

I had the show, but poli-tricks, you know what I’m sayin'?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

So long story short

Short story long

What happened was

Is um, I’m like, okay

I picked, I picked out of, I already picked out two people

And I’m like, I need Nems

So, boom, so I hit you up, I’m like, «Yo, I got this situation goin' on»

Blazay-blah, you really didn’t believe me at first

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

You know what I’m sayin'?

'Cause mad niggas come like, «I got this goin' on, I got this TV show about to

come out, niggas is lyin'»

I remember son, I told y’all

Then you put me in contact with the nigga Ryan

Right, right right

Then I was like, «This nigga real»

And you was like, you was like

«I got a TV show too, nigga, Gorilla TV on YouTube»

And I was like, I was like, «Aight, no doubt, no doubt»

You know what I’m sayin'?

I was like, «Lemme just get my man a call 'em» and then he get that conference

call goin' on

And, and then he’ll see what it is

So boom

So that went down, right

Okay, then what happened was like

We linked up, we linked up and I was in Crown Heights, I was livin' in Crown

Heights

I was over there on Pacific between Ocean and New York

Boom, like, yo

We had to do the, the conference call

Yeah

It was them MTV niggas

Yeah, yeah, yeah

So you was like, boom

I’ma come through

I’ma come through and we gonna, we gon', we gonna build on what we gonna do,

you know what I’m sayin'?

Or how we gonna work this out when we talk to these people

So boom, we was buildin'

We was just shootin' the shit, you know what I mean?

And then you was like, «Yo, you know what would be ill?»

And I was like, «What's that?»

You was like, «Yo, your beats and my bars»

And I was like, yo, I was like, son, like, yo

I was like, «Yo, that’s a, that’s a great idea, bro»

I was like, that’s a

'Cause originally I had in mind, I was like

Yo, we do like five, six joints

I figured the TV show was gonna come out

Right, right, right

We could drop it at the same time

Right

Do a tour, all of that

'Cause, yo, on the strength

On the strength

A hundred, a hundred, a hundred percent, a hundred percent

True story

I was, I was thinkin' like

Yo, if anything, man, like

I gotta do an album for Nems

You know what I’m sayin'?

Like, for real, I was like

This shit just happened organically, like

That, like

What I mean

Boom

Like

What happened was

Was, aight, aight

Time passes, right

And you gave me a CD with mad beats

Nah, but time had passed and you kept

Hey, yo, hit me, these fucking beats

Yeah, 'cause we was also

And then the show

Then you sent me mad beats

And I was like, yo

What am I gonna do with a fuckin' CD of beats, nigga?

It’s twenty, it mighta been twenty, sixteen, twenty-seven

Right, right

Yo, what am I gonna do with a CD full of beats, nigga?

My car don’t even got a CD player

I don’t got a CD player in my crib

Like, it was

I was like, yo

You gotta find a way to email me these beats 'cause I can’t go to the studio

with these fuckin'

With a CD and record over 'em

That’s unprofessional

That’s it

Then it took, like, a couple months

Then you finally got the beats to me through email

Right, right, right, right, right

And I just started goin' through 'em like boom

Then, then the first joint I did was the Timb boots shit

Boots upside of your head

Yeah

That was the first one, but once I did that I was like

Yo, this joint is stupid hard, everybody I played it for was like

Yo, this shit is crazy

Know what I’m sayin'?

So from that point, fuckin', like

I just started doin' joints then you just started sendin' me more joints

through the email

Finally you caught up with the times, and then

Yo, and then it moved from five or six songs, shit

Nah, nah, it wasn’t even that

I hit you with ten joints at first

Yeah, yeah

And I swear I think you picked like seven

Yeah

'Cause I was like, I was, I was like

Yo, I’ma, I was like

I’m goin' to the, to of the top of the line

And I’m just gonna throw Nems on the top of the line

You know what I mean?

Yup

Then boom, boom, in the end it was like

You was like

Yo, 'cause I also was recordin' an album

I was recordin' my alpha album

I had like, couple songs done

And I was like, yo lemme just bang this out real quick

It’s gonna be like six joints, we’re gonna do it mad quick

And then you just kept sendin' me fire and I was like

Yo, aight, now I gotta do this

Then that happened to be ten joints

And then eleven, you know what I’m sayin'

Then I just was like

Then the show is a wrap, you know what I’m sayin'?

The show is a wrap and I already was like

Yo, you know

Now I’m just fuckin' stuck with this loser

Hahahahahaha

No, but, I was like, yo

This shit is fire, know what I’m sayin'?

Like, these shits is fire

It became a main priority

'Cause in the meantime, did Gahbage and once I did Gahbage and I started

performin' it

I was like, yo, God

That’s it

No matter where I go I perform that shit

Everyone’s like, yo, where is it?

Where can I get it?

And I was like, it ain’t out yet, chill, fall back

You can’t get this shit

Yo, I been to certain places and

You know me, you know, me havin' a little name

Know what I’m sayin'?

Know me

But just havin' a

Those that know

I remember I was in

I was chillin' one night, you was havin' dinner somewhere

And I was with my man and he

He hit up

He hit up some of his peoples

And they came through and you was like

Yo, this the dude that did Gahbage

And they was like

Word?

You did that?

You know what I’m sayin'?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s me

You know what I mean?

So I was like

That’s when I was like

Yeah

And then

Every time I see the footage of you performin' it

And I’m like

Yo, that’s the joint, that’s the joint right there

I was like

And then I started doin' some real joints on there

I’m just like, yo

This shit, this is it right here

Then now the shit is finished and the shit is

Shit is next level, nigga

Yeah, nah, this, this album

This is like

This

This

Aight, you know what I’m sayin'?

I been puttin'

This is probably my

This is

This is gonna be my first

You know, joint that I get to do

With a rapper

'Cause, you know

I’m, I, um

See, you see how, you see what I’m talkin' about?

You know what I’m sayin'?

Um, this is gonna be the first joint I do with like

You know, a rap I did the beat tapes and all of that

But this right here, this is like somethin' really special, man

And it’s Brooklyn, too

Yup

You know what I’m sayin'?

That is Brooklyn, know what I’m sayin'?

Big time Brooklyn

You know what I’m sayin'?

And it’s Brooklyn, too, you know what I mean?

That alone, this is real special to me

Hundred percent

Know what I mean?

It’s just really special to me

That’s a fact

And it’s like, I’ve given people beats before

You feel me?

And usually, bro, like, nine times, nine and a half times out of ten I’m like

Nah, I take the shit back

Son

My word to you

Every time you brought, you sent me back

I was like

You knew the, you knew the time signatures

You knew like, when to come in, you knew what the chorus was

'Cause I give somebody a beat, right?

Yup

I give somebody a beat

And they be rhymin' over the chorus

I’m like, how you don’t know that’s the chorus

Niggas don’t even know that either, because

You sent me the joints done already, like

They wasn’t tracked out

What you sent me was basically like I had it on the CD

So what I had to do is I had to figure out aight

This part is for the chorus, oh, this got a drop right here

Alright, I’m gonna say some ill shit right here so it drops out

So I had to write my rhymes around the beats

Niggas take the beats and make the beats around the rhymes

I did it the opposite way and wrote my rhymes to how the beat was,

you know what I’m sayin'?

So if this beat had fuckin', eighteen bars and then the chorus, I had to write

eighteen bars and then the chorus

And then I just feel like

You know, it got, it sounds grimy 'cause it’s supposed to

You hear the hisses in it, like it’s bein' played on a tape

'Cause it’s supposed to

Word

Know what I’m sayin'?

All the samples that I chose outta the samples that have been done on other

songs 'cause you freaked it better than the original song, but it’s also like

Payin' homage to us growin' up and the classic joints that was growin' up, like

You know what I’m sayin'

And the thing is, what’s crazy is, it just happened like that

Hundred percent

It wasn’t meant to be like that

We wasn’t like, yo

We gonna, uh, aight, this, like, aight, we gonna

We’re gonna do like a throwback

We’re gonna do like a tribute-type

Nah, bro

This shit just happened

Yeah

You know what I’m sayin'?

This wasn’t like

We didn’t premeditate it, you know what I’m sayin'?

Like, this shit just happened

I think, I think, I think that’s because

Both of us, you’re a student of the game

On the beatmakin' side, I’m a student of the game

Just music, not even you on the beat

A full student like both of us are true students of the game

And I feel like

That just made like, my style is not attributed to one rapper

Like some niggas don’t never leave the house and they whole style sounds like

Jay-Z

Know what I’m sayin'?

'Cause they just listen to Jay-Z

They come outside, that’s all they rap about

'Cause they never did nothin'

We from New York, more importantly, Brooklyn

Word

And, and we from the era where you had to be outside to get your name up, like

We couldn’t just spit no freestyles

No internet

Yeah

No internet

You had to be outside, like

You had to be outside to get your name up

You had to take the train

You had to get on

You had to get on the train, man

All types of shit

Had to go to the city

That shit was just like, yo

We, we

The shit is like, uh

An homage, homage, however you wanna say it to New York City

Word

Know what I’m sayin'

I mean, without bein' said because you could hear it

Hundred percent

Without like, without, without even sayin' that

Like you could hear that

From, from the vocals to the beats to the accent, the whole shit

The whole shit

You know what I’m sayin'?

You know, you got

We show you what, we show you

It’s the sound of what we come from

You know what I mean?

And not for nothin', this shit is phat

Full circle

This is

Thank you, yo, Nems, I was just gonna say that

This shit came back full circle, man

Niggas is tired of that fuckin'

Exactly

That bullshit

Exactly

And I ain’t even gonna say that mumble shit

'Cause it goes way beyond that, before that

Hundred percent

And this bullshit after it

And it came back full circle, man

So what we, what we do naturally

Is, is back in the forefront, man, you know what I mean?

So it’s a beautiful thing

So we could drop this album now and

And, and

And not be like, damn

We wanna drop this and this shit might fuckin'

Might not pass through the cracks, it’s gonna

You know

Like it’s gonna be in the shadows of certain shit

Nah, because this shit came back full circle

My whole career, man, everything I been tryna do right

Yo, what up

It’s good

What up, what up, what up

Good, baby

Right, right

That’s my man Nems

That video’s fire my G

Y’all did it right

Three in one?

That’s ill

Yeah, yeah

Gotta keep flippin' them original stories like that

Hundred percent

Word, word, that was dope

I was like, yeah

Yeah, that’s a fact

Hahahaha

Play that shit again

That’s the whole point

Hahaha

Play that shit again

I watched that shit a couple of times