I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love nerdy hip hop. Deltron 3030 is a hip hop supergroup that’s perhaps the most popular creator of that kind of music — and I’m a little ashamed to say I just found out about it. Dan the Automator, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Kid Koala make up this group that’s based on a science-fictional idea of a universe 1,000 years in the future where massive corporations rule everything. (Another thing I didn’t know: black artists exploring futuristic themes in order to critique modern society is a long and fascinating tradition. If you’ve got some time and you’d like to get lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole, check out Afrofuturism.)
This track is from their second album, Event II, and nicely lays out the story as it was left with the last album. Enjoy!
The Return
Deltron 3030Stardate 3040, warpspeed to the new scenario
Where we roam
Our tiny planet was continuously shrouded in darkness
From greed and anarchic conquest
The final operation, based ideas and proposals
Involving privateers, serving low blows to constellation patrol
Just to overthrow and obtain supplies for the side that they ride for
Privateer raids on the core system
While the whole planet under war conditions
Taking more victims
Then a mutiny taking over government control in attempts to secure a new republic
What became of it?
Planetwide destruction
Constant weapon fire crushing any production
Of advancements of science
Technology to ease life’s difficulty
Every tax dollar went to sweep crime
Off the street but the law would cheat each time
So operations backfire defeating the design
Seems like a leap in time, back to simpler days
Where technological advances were minimal
Whoever survived were thrust into dimmer days
Every portion of the land decimated in a blaze
Law and order fractured, attacks were staged
The star of the show was entertained but a bit afraidIt’s the return, check it
Deltron Zero and Automator
It’s like clockwork, it’s just like clockworkAs I view a long stretch of sand dunes
And abandoned shacks and crack houses with rats out in the clear open
I see a few hopeful transients
Grab a frisky critter to roast some food
Don’t know what to do, it was out of our hands
Now we gotta pull straws, figure out a plan
I’m mobbing with a posse, a clan
Of ragtag renegades, looking for living grenades
Live ammo, cause it’s been in the stage
Cutthroat, corrupt folks
Pressure to much to cope
We see a woman get jumped by young punks
High off of Nitro 9
Ain’t no life behind
Those black pupils
No scruples, no rules so
She at they mercy
Or so they first think
I leap first seeing perfect opportunity
Ah, socked two or three in the mouth without room to speak
The rest of our posse
Peeped the nod
And proceed to beat
The bruisers confused and dizzy
Toss them in a trash compactor, now they history
The woman was hysterical, in fits of grief
Yo miss, please calm down, they all gone now
Literally minced into little bits between pieces of leftover Chef Boyardee
Mixed with a couple of booty magazinesIt’s the return, check it
Deltron Zero and Automator
It’s like clockwork, it’s just like clockworkFinal frontier, desolates and pestilence
Vessels incapacitated, left vacant in a burning husk
Word is government does
Not control anyway
The streets have the last say
That’s not hard to see
More cars than trees
Or more like lumps of metal and
Nuclear fallout crawls out
And sometimes blinds people, leaving them with no sight
No rights, muggers in broad day
Similar to the ancient fables of the wild west
Or maybe just a trial or test
For humans who thought they were superior and more than houses of flesh
Highly upset
Human beings seeing no way, going straight
Anarchy flows through the alleyways
Little chance for me and my band, go tooth and nail
Because music has the one glimmer the future entails
Can’t nobody use it as well as my
Cause many quit the craft after the pay for it
Became minimal
Then the full republic backlashed to outlaw
Music production
Completely
It was discreetly
Neatly accomplished
Under our noses, but a few were still on the quest
To keep the globe whole, full, and vigilant
No matter what situations we living in
This has been another installment of Monday Lab Tracks. Send us your musical recommendations through our contact link at the top of the page, and tell us what you think of the song in the comments below!
