Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein

Harlem, NY, natives Vordul Megilah and Vast Aire are CANNIBAL OX

"I came up in a house that enjoyed music... always having music being spun in my crib," says the MC. Hip-hop was starting to make itself known and the connection was itself known and the connection was inevitable, "By the time I was ten, I started doin' it myself... I've been rhyming for 14 years now."
Cannibal Ox has made track after track of real, honest hip-hop, something you don't see enough of. With the help of El-P they've released their first full- length, The Cold Vein, on Def Jux Records. If you don't have a copy of this album yet, youl'd be smart to pick one up; you,ll be smart to pick one up; you'll be waiting a long time before you hear another record of it's caliber.
The need to make rhymes about real life and the things that go around you everyday of your life is what will set Cannibal Ox apart from other artists for years to come. The Group's records will be the lost treasures of hip-hop that kids will hunt for and trade twenty 12" singles for, decades from now. And when it's all said and done, what will people be saying about Cannibal Ox? "Forty years from now I'd like people to be saying, 'They held it down."
Tyler Borich



[Vast Aire]
My mother said, "You sucked my pussy when you came out
Don't ever talk back
I handed ya life and I'll snatch it back"
I'm just a latch key kid with a snotty nose
High school drop out
Space, I'm around me whiteout
And I ain't dealin with no minimum wage
I'd rather construct rhymes on a minimum page
Cynical ways, cats sin for nickels these days
Pulling the chrome out
And you actin like pullin the chrome out
Hated the sound of grandma's cryin the crooked letter
You could hear it from the ground or when the sky thunders
Made you wonder 'bout early
Sunday morning
Relatives dressed in black and they all mourning
Flows be bangin in the paint, throwin elbows
My first fight was me against five boroughs
I lost my first wish
But remembered every detail of my first kiss
That's that Bronx Tale bliss
The holiest of holies
Hip hop, it was '88
Even at the age of 10, phrases levitate
Drinkin Lil' Hug quarter waters
Dodgin stray slugs on the corner in that exact order
While you playin, death is what happens
I found the passion: aerosol cans and hands clappin
Backspins, microphones and cats rappin
Linoleum and up rockers, the show shockers
Who rip Lee patches off of imposters
You ain't the Real McCoy, you a wind up toy
And it's gonna cost ya
And that's my B-Boy Alpha


[Vordul]
Straight outta the depths of hell
Reflect the sec-ond
Inhale the buddah wisdom
Envision and edit inscriptions of Vor-Megala spiritualism
Paint a picture from the spiritual
And seriously spit a lyric
That'll rip through a phsyical ligament
Trigger livin in these city limits
Limited with no money, goin through crazy minutes
Crazy thinkin of back in the days
When blazin a lazy ridance
Before we was swallowin duces, poppin with gooses
And rockin the bubble gooses
Trouble lose kid, puffin a loosie
Hoppin off Huffy, stealin Marvel comics and water uzis
All of us canoeing through sewers with juvenile manuevers
Caught up in nooses from borders with troubleshooters
On corners where coppers'll hop outta Dunkin Donuts
Poppin they gun and shoot us
Or more of us aware
Thinkin Rudy Guili really don't give a FUCK ABOUT A MOULE!
Got me woozy, sippin Kaluha's loosin my noodles
Screwed up in the two triple losers
Sprayin it live, b-boy grafitti alpha
Out of rap-palooza
Looza, looza

Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein