20 of Canibus’ Most Memorable Verses

Rappers are hardly ever able to recapture their prime's lyrical genius. Case in point: Canibus. In his heyday, the Queens MC buried many of his peers by filling his bars with complex rhyme schemes and vocabulary words like “syntactic” (no, you can’t get that from your local pharmacy). Though he's been quiet in recent years, ‘Bus has a substantial catalog to his name. Fittingly, five days short of the 13-year anniversary (March 24) of "Second Round K.O.," his venomous diss against LL Cool J, 'Bus recently resurfaced with a DJ Premier diss, "Tell the Truth." While there’s enough of the rapper’s tracks to fill up an entire iPod, XXLMag.com selects 20 standout verses (in no particular order). —Georgette Cline

“The shit that I quote float with the buoyancy of a boat/ With the potency of a scorpion sting to the throat”—“Hell,” Pharoahe Monch featuring Canibus, Internal Affairs (1999)

“Canibus is the type who'll fight for mics/ Beatin’ niggas to death and beatin’ dead niggas to life”— “4, 3, 2, 1,” LL Cool J featuring Method Man, Redman, Canibus, Master P & DMX, Phenomenon (1997)

“Lyrics unravel, faster than bullets travel through barrels/Niggaz be diggin my styles like fossils and pterodactyls/Who wanna battle?/I'm bad to the bone marrow/The Earth got one sun but I walk with three shadows"”— “Making A Name For Ourselves,” Common featuring Canibus, One Day It’ll All Make Sense (1997)

“I go to Mount Rushmore with high-powered lasers/ Replace all four of them faces with four facelifts/ One at a time ‘til they all look like mine”— “Enemy of the State” featuring Big Pun & Tragedy Khadafi

“You mad at the last album, I apologize for it/Yo, I can't call it, motherfuckin' Wyclef spoiled it” — “2000 B.C. (Before Can-I-Bus),” 2000 B.C. (Before Can-I-Bus) (2000)

“With the scientifically quantifiable megalomaniacal viable style/ It's like trying to ride a bull/Let's have a dictionary duel after school”—“Dr C PHD”(Eminem Diss), Mic Club: The Curriculum(2002)

“I stuck my dick in everything from asshole to the nasal passage/ Dug her out all day, then changed my sperm DNA/ Now she got nobody to blame” —“Some Shit,” Keith Murray featuring Canibus & Déjà Vu, It’s A Beautiful Thing (1998)

“Behold, I crush a piece of coal and create a diamond on the microphone/ I'm sicker than those who've Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” —“97 Mentality Freestyle,” DJ Clue (1997)

“They reach out they hand to me and talk this honesty/ But I read through their syntactic structure like Noam Chomsky” —“M-Sea-Cresy,” Rip the Jacker (2003)

“I've grown amongst thieves, lived amongst wolves/ Fought amongst bulls, failed amongst fools” — “The Horsemen,” featuring Killah Priest, Rass Kass, Pakman & Kurupt, The Horsemen Project (2003)

“At a thousand degree Celsius I make MC's melt/Fuck my record label I appear courtesy of myself/Let me explain how I maintain thresholds to pain/I walk across the Sun barefoot lookin for shade/I rearrange your rib cage like a twelve gauge at close range/and change the position of your brain"” —“Desperados,” The Firm featuring Canibus, The Firm: The Album(1997)

“I bury MCs with rosary beads/a picture of they wife and they seed and a picture of me/I’m as graceful as the left hand of Rembrandt/Put some instrumentals on and ask my pen to dance” —“Oh No Freestyle,” featuring Pakman, Tim Westwood BBC Radio Show

“Take evasive action/ Flip like reciprocal fractions/Turn the heat up on MCs to watch their meat blacken” —“Fantastic 4,” DJ Clue featuring Cam’ron, Big Pun, Noreaga & Canibus, The Professional (1998)

“I grab mics and push niggas to the left/ So fast they hearts end up on the right sides of the chest” —“Beasts From the East,” Lost Boyz featuring A+, Redman & Canibus, Love, Peace & Nappiness (1997)

“Now watch me rip the tat from your arm/Kick you in the groin, stick you for your Vanguard award/In front of your mom your 1st, 2nd and 3rd born/Make your wife get on the horn call Minister Farrakhan” —“Second Round K.O.” (LL Cool J Diss) Can-I-Bus (1998)

“When I come through niggas stand stiller than statues/If I have to I’ll battle your whole rap crew/than I’ll attack you with words that’s absurd/And rip your Goddamn skin off just to get on your nerves” —“Freestyle” featuring DMX and Noreaga, Funkmaster Flex Radio Show 1997

"Rhymin with me on a record? You might as well have died/And went to hell instead of heaven cause my rhyme weapon/Is like a medieval torture method -- your four limbs/tied to four horses all pulling in different directions" —"Patriots," Can-I-Bus (1998)

“If I’m hawkin’ you like a bird, it ain’t ‘cause I respect you, God/It’s because I’m tryin’ the find the perfect place for me to shit on/niggas hear about me and discretely set up and date to meet me to see if they can defeat me/So I ain’t ready to let no muthafucka eat me/That’s why you find little pieces of MCs in my fieces weekly” —DJ Clue "Wrong Side of the Tracks" Freestyle (1997)

"We rob niggas for they presents at they Bar Mitzvahs/We rob niggas for they body organs, and sold em to the highest bidders/Things like hearts and livers/One and a half million in cash when it's delivered/Then go to Yom Kippur and beg for God to forgive us" —"Watch Who You Beef With," 2000 B.C. (Before Can-I-Bus) (2000)

“Breakin ‘The Facts of Life’ down like Tutti/ I'm raw like sushi with more ‘Vocab’ than three fuckin’ Fugees” —“Buckingham Palace,” Can-I-Bus (1998)