With the probable tenth, the universe expands length
The body of my text possess extra strength
Power-liftin' powerless up, out of this towerin' inferno

My ink so hot, it burn through the journal
I'm blacker than midnight on broadway and myrtle
Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles
Like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex

Working class poor, better keep your alarm set
Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring
Say evacuate your sleep, it's dangerous to dream
For cha-ching cats get tha cha-pow, who dead now

Killin' fields need blood to graze the cash cow
Some numbers game, but shit don't add up somehow
Like I got, sixteen to thirty-two bars to rock it
But only fifteen percent of profits, ever see my pockets like

Sixty-nine billion in the last twenty years
Spent on national defense but folks still live in fear like
Nearly half of America's largest cities is one-quarter black
That's why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack

Sixteen ounces to a pound, twenty more to a Ki
A five minute sentence hearing and you're no longer free
Forty percent of Americans own a cell phone
So they can hear everything that you say when you ain't home

I guess, Michael Jackson was right, 'You are not alone'
Rock your hardhat black 'coz you in the terrordome
Full of hard niggaz, large niggaz, dice tumblers
Young teens and prison greens facin' life numbers

Crack mothers, crack babies and aids patients
Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in playstation
This new math is whippin' motherfuckers ass
You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add
It's mathematics

"The mighty Mos Def"
"It's simple mathematics"
"Check it out!"
"I revolve around science"
"What are we talking about here?"

"The mighty Mos Def"
"It's simple mathematics"
"Check it out!"
"I revolve around science"
"What are we talking about here?"

"Do your math"
"Do your math"
"One, t-t-two, three, four"
"What are we talking about here?"

Yo, it's one universal law but two sides to every story
Three strikes and you be in for life, mandatory
Four M.C's murdered in the last four years
I ain't tryin' to be the fifth one, the millennium is here

Yo it's six million ways to die, from the seven deadly thrills
Eight year olds gettin' found with nine mill's
It's ten p.m., where your seeds at? What's the deal?
He on the hill puffin' krill to keep their bellies filled

Light in the ass with heavy steel, sights on the pretty shit in life
Young soldiers tryin' to earn they next stripe
When the average minimum wage is five fifteen
You best believe you gotta find a new grind to get cream

The white unemployment rate is nearly more than triple for black
So frontliners got their gun in your back
Bubblin' crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty
And end up in the global jail economy

Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence
Budget cutbacks but increased police presence
And even if you get out of prison still livin'
Join the other five million under state supervision

This is business, no faces just lines and statistics
From your phone, your zip code, to S S I digits
The system break man, child and women into figures
Two columns for who is and who ain't niggaz

Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings
But you push too hard, even numbers got limits
Why did one straw break the camel's back? Here's the secret
The're million other straws underneath it, it's all mathematics

"The mighty Mos Def"
"It's simple mathematics"
"Check it out!"
"I revolve around science"
"What are we talking about here?"

"The mighty Mos Def"
"It's simple mathematics"
"Check it out!"
"I revolve around science"
"What are we talking about here?"

Mathematics