ESSO was dope enough to bless us with the lyrics for his latest edition of Thinking Out Loud. Check it out under the cut.

DOWNLOAD: ESSO – Thinking Out Loud pt. 5

its way harder to be simple than be complex
but way easier to mistake the concept
its so easy for me to think beyond this
16 bar verse structure I’m confined in

like why should history tell me how to rhyme and…
I’ve learned from it now lets usher new times in
cuz no one ever made history looking back
you gotta be what they gon be lookin back at

so go ahead and say fuck me if you must
its a way bigger plan in store my G trust
life’s about more than In God We Trust’s
I’m tryina leave a legacy and leave my seeds wit trusts

like “Fuck whats wrong with black trust fund babies”
who go to prep schools with education as a safety net
u think niggas aint partyin at Harvard
they prolly party more at Harvard than at Howard

but we get the bad rap just because we blast rap
and rather leave our lives to the riskiest chances
how many niggas that ball ever get paid to
now ask how much law school could have made you

corporate mergers and acquisitions
who the fuck you think buying all them basketball tickets?
I aint tryina kick knowledgte I jus hope a nigga listen
cuz that same nigga might be the only one who gets it

and on the off chance that it change his life
then my job here is done and I can say goodnight
to the nightmares of failure and dreams of success
cuz the nightmares inspire me to be among the best

the dreams just a tease of what im tryin to see
but I wont let you in on em, No Martin Luther King
a lil more malcolm any means necessary
black history in the making and it aint february

well spoken shoulda been named vocabulary
but it aint too gangsta to express yourself clearly
plus its way more fun to be way more vague
so I add a cliche nahmean, ya nahmsayin?

the funny thing is it’s cliche to be cliche
catch that the next time this Mp3 play

The artwork for the upcoming Roots LP is above (check after the jump for a larger version). ?uest breaks down the meaning behind it over at OKP. Here is another new joint off the album, which drops April 29th on Def Jam. Featuring Mos Def (rapping), Styles P & Dice Raw [click for lyrics].

DOWNLOAD: The Roots – Rising Down (Hum Drum) f. Mos Def, Styles P & Dice Raw [webrip]

Welcome the second installment of 2dopeboyz’ Freestyle Friday. This week, we’ve got Chino XL. Making his debut in ‘96 with Here to Save Ya’ll, which has been noted as one of the better UG albums of the 90’s with a great mixture of vicious battle rhymes and conceptual tracks.

During one of his appearances on the legendary Wake Up Show, he spit a line ["in this rap game, I'm trying not to get fucked like Tupac in jail"] which caused Pac to respond on to what some thing of as the greatest diss track ever, (I don’t think so … at all) Hit Em Up ["Chino XL, fuck you too!"]. Chino responded with a freestyle but later they squashed the beef. I personally know people who haven’t given Chi a chance due to that alone, which is crazy! Check out the rest of the post for a few of my personal favorites, tracks with Royce Da 5′9″, Crooked I, Common and more.

DOWNLOAD: Chino XL – Felli Fell Freestyle

Check out some of his tracks after the jump…

First is a track off his 2006 release, Poison Pen. This track displays such a raw sense of lyricism, I HAVE to post the lyrics…

DOWNLOAD: Chino XL – Wordsmith [lyrics to the verses alone below]

[Verse One]
Yo, yo, since born in my mama’s vaginal sauna
As a sono-gram, I’ve been fond of phonics
It’s ironic, even as an embryonic
Fed through an umbilical, don’t that sound biblical?
I’ve been a terror since I teareth out of the uterus
‘Cause evil plans were made to defeat us as a fetus
Though now I walk in infamy, as a child they had it in for me
Was raised with guns in infantry, in diapers and in infancy
The childhood of a hood, that was raised in the hood
Cops said, “Put your hands in the high sky”
I put my hands down on the hot hood
I can’t whine or drink wine, nine planets planned it
‘Til it became apparent, my parents shouldn’t have been a parent
State to state we ran some, I wasn’t worth no ransom
Money, won’t you hand some? A nigga wasn’t handsome
Raise the mind like Charles Manson’s
Knew I was some man’s son, but which one?
That made me strong, created my poison tongue

[Verse Two]
Why you cut school? ‘Cause you ain’t feel too good
I cut school ’cause my cuts ain’t heal too good
Through all the physical abuse my mind escaped through the gift of wordplay
I memorized encyclopaedias and dictionaries
I wrote anthems from antonyms, harmonies from homonyms
Created cinema from synonyms
Was livid to eliminate that illustrious life you livin’ in
Wrote rhetoricals in rhythms
I could paralyze with a parable, make rhymes out of religion
Crucify you with a prefix, or suffocate you with a suffix
Wrote lectures so infectious it’s known to infect the listeners
Who dissin’ us?
Yo punks you wait… I punctuate
My karma’s the comma
That puts you inside of a coma
Hyphen, dot, dot, semi-colon, leave you semi-swollen
Question mark, you pregnant?
Oh you’re not? I love you, period.
To sum it up, language is my essence
Fucked up in all my adolescence ’til my Moms was out of lessons
Laws: I store convenient
Still I rob a convenience store
Love Mom, Fuck Mom, shit I ain’t love me no more
Mentally it didn’t register, bitch
Empty the register, bitch
You just a cashier, bitch
Give the cash here, or I’ll shoot you in your cabbage
Hijack a getaway cab, bitch
Words ain’t makin’ me no loot, don’t change now Dow Jones average
Regardless, we Godless
They stole my innocence
In a sense, the judge sentenced me to three lifetimes sentences
To write my life and times and sentences
Art my dark archnemesis
They want me off the premises, that’s what the premise is
Locked on a tier where you can’t shed a tear at
Studied more Shakespeare than any African shakes a spear at
And the whole world fear that, and it hurts
I got caught killing time, but then I got with words

[Verse Three]
I’m in a game full of morons, and they keep putting more on
I tutor the Torah, I’m in the core of the Qu’aran
The mind’s what I represent, and emcees better re-present
I’m taking this rappin’ bullshit to the fullest extent
I have reservations why Indians are on reservations
Told that board of education I was bored of education
As far as this go I leave you deader than disco
Rocking sex and violence over sax and violins
Through your minds camera lens, you’re in need of an ambulance
I’ll knock you to the asphalt, it’s your own ass fault
Your last thought, I’ll never sell my self short to be famous
And taking it up the anus just ain’t us
The world could get the penis of this classical trained pianist
My P.O. was P.O.’d, handed a cup, told me to “pee in this”
The linguist musician, my college position is my intuition
Told me that I wouldn’t be affordin’ tuition
My education’s all on my own
So I might have been born yesterday, but I rhyme like there’s no tomorrow

DOWNLOAD: Chino XL – Nunca [off 2001's I Told You So]
DOWNLOAD: Chino XL – It’s My World [off 2001's I Told You So]
DOWNLOAD: Chino XL – Tap Dance f. Crooked I
DOWNLOAD: Royce Da 5′9, Chino XL & Canibus – Wish You Would
DOWNLOAD: Royce Da 5′9, Common & Chino XL – Enough Beef

Jay chats with MTV his writing process in song making. He went on to say that the last song he had ever wrote down on paper was Can I Live which was on his debut album Reasonable Doubt.

“What happened was, I was doing that song with someone else, and they heard the first verse and they was like, ‘Man, you take that song. Finish it, ’cause it sounds like you got a lot more to say … You know, that type of thing. So I just wanted to get it down quick, I didn’t want to keep going over it. It was like [the album] mastering time, so I just sat down in the booth and wrote that [verse].” – Jay-Z via MTV.