The Benson Basement

This is the first gangster rap I ever wrote, back in 9th grade! It was for a book report in my history class. Technically I wasn’t calling myself G-Wizzle at the time, but I am hereby retconning this rap and saying it was written by G-Wizzle. Awwwwww yeeeeeeeaah. Anyway, you can listen to it here, or just download it as an MP3.

And here are the complete lyrics:

Yo! The other day I read a novel
About the Vikings and their arrival
At a place we like to call the New World
Now here’s how the Viking story unfurls!

Yo! There was a guy named Eric the Red
He was known as a bit of a… hothead!
He huffed and he puffed and he got revenge
Next thing he knew he was banished from Iceland!

So he sailed to a place to the west
And there he made his home, his nest.
He called the new place Greenland
So it wouldn’t sound cold to wimpy men!

When his son, Leif was a full grown man,
Eric sent him to see the Norwegians.
Leif went bringing gifts for the king
And it wasn’t just the ordinary bling bling!

While he was there Leif got in a duel
With a guy named Ketil, a real fool!
Leif sliced Ketil’s arm in a painful way
And Ketil was mad ‘cause he had to pay.

Well, Leif sailed home on his dragon ship.
It was a fairly uneventful trip.
He went home to his Pa and left again
He got back in the ship and took it for a spin.

This time he went west, to an unexplored land
He had heard about it from his father’s friend
It was full of stuff that they might need
To build, and explore, to flourish and feed.

Well, in the spring they decided to leave
They were all real sad and started to grieve
They didn’t want to leave what they called Vineland
Because it was so amazingly grand.

When they got back home, they stayed for a while
Until some decided to leave the big isle
A few hundred went back, but not Leif the Lucky,
He had to stay home, though he thought it kind of yucky.

Pretty soon the explorers ran into some trouble
They had burst the Native Americans’ bubble
After trading once, they got into a fight
Then the Vikings knew it just wasn’t right.

They went back home to icy Greenland
And that’s where the story comes to an end.
I think you oughta read about the Vikings
Just take the advice of the guy who can’t sing.