The Visionaries is an underground hip hop crew from Los Angeles, California. The crew formed in 1995, and have since released four full-length albums on Up Above Records. The crew's six members have collectively released over twenty solo and side projects. They have collaborated and performed with many other hip-hop artists, including Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dilated Peoples, Taktloss, De La Soul, Blackalicious, Jean Grae, Psycho Realm, Playalitical, Jay Dee aka J Dilla, and Jurassic 5. If You Can't Say Love is a single made famous by the video game Blitz: The League and is from their Pangaea album.
Louis Freese, (born June 2, 1970) better known by his stage name B-Real, is an American rapper of Cuban and Mexican heritage, and a film and TV actor. He is best known for being the lead rapper in hip hop group Cypress Hill.
Born to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother, B-Real moved with his sister and mother out of his father's home to South Gate before ending up in South Central Los Angeles. Before dropping out of Bell High School, he befriended future Cypress Hill members Sen Dog and Mellow Man Ace (who forwent staying with the group to go solo). Sen Dog, who was affiliated with a Bloods gang set known as "Neighborhood Family", later introduced B-Real into the set. B-Real's career as a drug dealer and gangbanger ended after he was shot in the lung in 1988.
After being introduced to DJ Muggs by Julio G the KDAY Mixmaster, B-Real and Sen gained interest in Muggs' concept of an album based on experiences from Cypress Ave in South Gate. The group was signed with Ruffhouse/Columbia records in 1991, and made their influential debut that year. B-Real would use his life-threatening experiences as material for the group's self-titled debut album, and subsequent releases.
[2Mex]
Subtle, signifying sonnets
Not unlike low flying comets
Evolving to love is loving to revolve
Revolvers releasing the round revolutions
Entering earthlings, ending evolution
Decision is the devil so I choose flakiness
I refuse to exist in a life ???
Return to natural life empowered,
Futuristic flows from an unidentified flowered
[Dannu]
Fasten your heartfelt fast when I'm askin
Burned spotlights, human sized microscope
Keep the rhyme tight and dope, enough to choke
Invisible mics in a circle full of hope
The list of fist signs, the punch and quest times
Seize food for fighters, lunch plus for dinner,
Six winners plus a snack, we packed up wise
Another blessing in disguise, hiphop be our guide
The fact we push deep ground beats when we speak
Pass a test that'll vest and not cheat under heat
Well resin has spoken word, heard you wrote herb,
It's that crew, nice to meet you, very well served
[HOOK: 8 bars on the turntables]
Bless the mic, Ble-Bless the mic, Ble-Bless the mic for the god
[Lord Zen]
Locked deep within the self-consciousness lies the bad seed
When at least I seep through the cries to disturb the peace
You can't get this dope without a prescription,
Over the counter versions fell grade to addiction
Left to trail eviction from here to hell's kitchen
Me bein vain, people in chains without a conviction
Who says you're saved by the goods that you practice
So involved in the scriptures you read, you lost your head like John the
Baptist
Right side of the brain cripples you like arthritis,
Who do you know that'll rock a verse with laryngitis? [coughing]
[Key Kool]
In my Caprice Classic, thoughts concoct
Tape deck broken, I got the boombox
Listenin to musical ink blots brought
By the funky president J Rocc who's settin shop
Plot developed, from the previous night
Wake Up Show duo, Kobe Bryant on the mic
I was like it's only right for a collaboration
By consolidated members of the crew affiliations
Visionaries. . . Beat Junkies. . .
What's up to the force hanging out in the trees
Conglomerated musical expressions,
Times like these, I appreciate the blessings
[2Mex sample scratched by dj ESP] "I invest indigenous interest"
[2Mex]
I am the Keeper of the Keys
The poise in the trees
The salt in the seas
The degrees when you freeze
The origin of disease
The power to bring the entire planet down to it's knees
Dropping love bombs on hyperextended palms
Superimposed songs reword written wrongs
Petition repetition and redundant incumbent
The witness will witness the abundance of oneness
The ability to scream until I faint
I'm dodging the dreams, I take my fate
Looking for the long lifeline of a line
And I'm being forced to fingerprint all the fineprint
Now I'm implicated in triplicate
I'm a complicated instrument
Playing an isolated incident
With self-sedated insolence
Southern California significance
[Chorus: sampled singing]
"Keeper of the Keys
He's the Keeper of the Keys
It's all so [?]"
[2Mex]
Still the Keeper of the Keys
I can't trust any emcees
Until all of my conspiracy theories are at ease
I will wear a gasmask in the breeze
Protect originality from planetary thieves
Medical science is insanity
Every computer in the world is mad at me
'Cause I'm not compatible
To a nonspiritual sabbatical
And as my saneness descends
And I realize that I don't need any more friends
When time goes back to where it's from
My skin will shed into an indigenous drum
Songodsuns, the reception is trinitron
The motivation to get up and live on
Minimalizing all the daily mistakes
Subliminally despising all the fakes
That's why I'm RUNNING... until the end of the night
I'm LONGING... for my words to be the light
I'm DREAMING... that we will all be alright
I'm RUNNING LONG DREAMS until I ignite
So just reach, ha, come on, just a little
I put this on everything in the world that it'll
Be the beginning of what is to be endless
'Cause loving you is infinite and effortless
Reach, ha, come on, just a little
I put this on everything in the world that it'll
Be the beginning of what is to be endless
'Cause loving you is infinite and effortless
[Chorus: sampled singing]
"Keeper of the Keys
He's the Keeper of the Keys"