UPDATE (2/12/24): Lyrics added.
Friends thought my inspiration for Basement Made came from past productions we did in Dope’s Basement. Sorta. College kids presumed it was inspired at my fraternity. Hipsters jumped on when I was out in Hollywood. Nah. The basement was the place I used to both have fun and escape to as a child. More specifically, it was the blue and white basement on the rural Northside of Madison. When I say “The Basement” in this way though, I’m often thinking in a multiplicity. I might be going to a scary place in a cellar or hanging out in recrooms at friends’ houses.
I had a strong rush of flashbacks and visions running wild in my head starting in the spring of ’17. This was immediately following my shaming for writing the Wisconsin Hip Hop piece, a stupid post about my ex-girlfriend, and my release of Why Wisconsin Voted for Donald Trump: The Coastie Privilege. I get one recurring memory where I’m locked in the basement of (what appears to be) a family farm in Deerfield. This is a mix of reality and psychosis. It’s my life. Basement Made was born of a loving and tragic history, with a side of crazy.
Nagra Beats.
Lyrics:
We need more madness
We need more madness
I need answers
Thank God I’m alive
I wrote a book and I’ve been on the road ever since
I’ve been trying to crack the code
I need to know where I’ve been
But I just found a whole new sense
And now with each new test, I can feel the pressure to end it
It ain’t a color kin innocent
It ain’t a religious or gender thing
More like privilege versus intelligence
Or the tsetse verse the elephant
I go from heaven to hell on the redeye every night
I’m a Jedi how I move but I’m Sith when I strike
Bruce Wayne out a cave on the Northside
Hancock, I was raised in the porchlight
I remember looking down at a baby on a bed
Elevating over head across the room
I could see and hear but not move
A man motioned me to assume the youth
I did, and I guess I’ve been Cliff ever since
Now it’s back to the flashbacks to the cellar on the farm
Watching Friends in the corner of the basement
I remember hearing cracks go across the baseboards
Meant the man was coming down to play
I told my sister I’d take the pain
It’d hurt but I’d be ok
He put me in chains and her upstairs on display
But one night I ran away
I told Jackie I’d be back for her
Then I took up off Brown Lane
Took a right at the end of the driveway
And a gray minivan pulled beside me on Highway O
I blacked out but I just went back again
The garage was open, so I walked in and went
Down those stairs in that all black abyss
Oh did I feel at home all cemented in below the floor
That same blood splatter plastic draped in front of the same door
And as I stared at it and that box of old rusted tools
I heard the footsteps just like I used to
So I walked up and out and guess who was waiting
Two Dane County Sheriffs with Nathan
He tells my little cousin right before she hugged me
“They’re not even here for you this time”
All them go inside
Then the piggy smelled his two fingers the whole ride back
Imagine that
I remember running from that pit like a deer for dear life
Christine told me they’d taken in other strays on similar Deerfield nights
Then the blue basement to gas chamber, ECT, sleeping pills, and needles at 6680
More drugs, hacking, and scamming, and staged suicide, right over there on Langdon
And that’s only a few of the many places I’ve stayed at
Hello, this is authentic slave rap, underclass with an attitude
Criminal cheesehead and retarded psycho according to you
But I don’t need your fucking platitude or a pass
Your books are past due and that’s the more important truth
They give me migraines just to watch me sit
Bad food just to watch me shit
They deny me work for their Nazi fix
But call me papi when I grab my dick
I’m fresh out the fed no more vacations for me
No J’s and bae’s, chains and whips, that’s for the weak
Now it’s time for truth, I am America’s muse
There’s always been more to the music
North to south, I move the most troops on Earth now
So they hit me where it hurts, and prescribe me percs
Pretend work, waiting on my service
I’m the one giving em purpose
They don’t even treat me like a person
The downfall of being too good
They use me as a relay, a test dummy, and a caged animal, though
Pretend like they understand, too scared to shake my hand
They’d rather have a wedding band and half a man
Than to come to terms with this avalanche
It’s so fucking sad I have to laugh
Each day, as I remember more of my past
It gets more and more tragic, but I can handle it
And I can hear you through the static
Yuh, it’s still the same mission
I’ve been saying, it’s been written
I’m all in
This is my calling, my phone been clicking and pinging
Ringing, they’re distorting my signal
I’ve never been nothing but honest
I’ll admit I was a little timid and kept my distance
But I’ve never been a gimmick, never been about subliminals
I have my moods just like you, but there’s something missing and additional
And until I get it, I’ma log on the mic
Cause hip hop was there close to the beginning
I’m Beef to the finish
It’s about to get interesting
My past is a mystery, the truth is splintered
This is history, I’m the one
Clifton
