Classic Verse: Scarface’s “I Seen a Man Die” (Video & Lyrics)

While he almost never gets mentioned in the "best emcees of all-time" conversation, most likely because of the Southern bias, Houston great Scarface at the very least deserves a mention. Any man that can put out a track like "I Seen A Man Die", off his 1994 album "Diary", is not your usual emcee.


"He greets his father with his hands out
Rehabilitated slightly, glad to be the man's child
The world is different since he's seen it last
Out of jail been seven years and he's happy that he's free at last
All he had was his mother's letters
Now he's home and he's gotta make a change and make it for the bettah
But he's black so he's got one strike against him
And he's young plus he came up in the system
But he's smart and he's finally makin' eighteen
And his goals to get on top and try to stay clean
So he's calling up his homie who dun came up
Livin' like this now they dealin' with the same stuff
And had that attitude that who he was was worth it
And with that fucked up attitude he killed his first mate
Now it's different he done did dirt
And realized killin' men meant coming up but it still hurt
And can't nobody change this
It's ninteen-ninety-foe and we up against the same shit
I nevah understand why
I could nevah seen a man cry, til I seen a man die."

Now this is how you deliver a storytelling rap. Scarface delivers his verse so smoothly, but with that trademark rasp, that you don't realize the incredible amount of ground he covers. In one verse we get a young man's backstory and his present situation, along with subtle commentary on the prison system and some rawly honest views on the emotional price a man pays who kills another man. It sounds preachy, but by embedding the tale so deeply into his flow, and providing gripping detail, Scarface makes his verse realer than real. Pay attention aspiring emcees, this is how it's done.