Pikaia gracilens is an extinct genus of chordate animal known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Sixteen specimens are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprised 0.03% of the community. It resembles the lancelet and perhaps swam much like an eel.
P. gracilens was discovered by Charles Walcott and first described by him in 1911. It was named after Pika Peak, a mountain in Alberta, Canada. Based on the obvious and regular segmentation of the body, Walcott classified it as a polychaete worm.
During his re-examination of the Burgess Shale fauna in 1979, paleontologist Simon Conway Morris placed P. gracilens among the chordates, making it perhaps the oldest known ancestor of modern vertebrates. He did this because it seemed to have a very primitive, proto-notochord, however, the status of Pikaia as a chordate is not universally accepted; its preservational mode suggests that it had cuticle, which is uncharacteristic of the vertebrates (although characteristic of other cephalochordates); further, its tentacles are unknown from other vertebrate lineages. The presence of earlier chordates among the Chengjiang, including Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, appears to show that cuticle is not necessary for preservation, overruling the taphonomic argument, but the presence of tentacles remains intriguing, and the organism cannot be assigned conclusively, even to the vertebrate stem group. Its anatomy closely resembles the modern creature Branchiostoma.
Yo 'Pac yo, I heard you got beat up by the police
Got a big fat lawsuit and everything
Niggaz just wanna know
if you still gon' be on some crooked-ass sheeeit
[2Pac]
Please tell me what's a nigga to do, and it's true
Ain't nuttin new, so I do, what I can to get through
Now first they had me trapped and now I'm pissed
A loaded AK-47 lay under my head so I don't trip
One motherfucker from the Underground
And Big Stretch buckin niggaz if they fuck around
Yo why I got beef with police?
Ain't that a bitch that motherfuckers got a beef with me
They make it hard for me to sleep
I wake up at the slightest peep, and my sheets are 3 feet deep
I guess it's hard for you to see
But now I'm pointin the finger at police
instead of them motherfuckers blamin me
I got the right to bear a pistol
And when the punk motherfuckers get to trippin I got shit too
And maybe then you'll see the truth (hell yeah)
But until then, I gotta do what I do
and stay a crooked nigga too
[Chorus: Raphael Saadiq]
I've got to do, what I'm gon' do
I'm gon' say what I'm gon' say
I'm gon' live how I live - how else you want a nigga to live?
I'm gon' do, what I do
I'm gon' say, what I say
I'm gon' live how I live - how do you want a nigga to live?
[2Pac]
Y'know you really can't say that ya blame niggaz
Fuck bein tame, set aflame, time to aim triggers
2Pac'll spark a revolution, fuck the Constitution
I want my bucks for restitution
This time you got a bigger problem
Time to face the niggaz from South Central, Oakland, Brooklyn and Harlem
And we ain't shootin at each other
That's my motherfuckin brother, so Dave Duke, run for cover
And all the bitches from the Klan
Come feel the wrath of a black man that doesn't smoke crack and
I don't drink St. Ides (fuck that!)
Genuine Draft, ganja ganja, and my fuckin tec-9
They know they scared to see us sober
Stop drinkin King Cobra, and niggaz'll take the world over
It's all up to you (up to you)
Blame the Korean, blame the jew, or be a crooked nigga too
[Chorus]
[2Pac]
Aiyyo! Why me? Play like Jasmine Guy and try me
I'll be damned if I die, come look at the rage in my eyes G
They got my homies in a jail cell
And it's the Rebel and the Devil, and one of us is goin to Hell
I got the whole place covered, with loc'd out brothers
And nuttin but love for each other
So motherfucker make a motion
I give a fuck, slice you up, and throw your ass in the ocean
Temperatures drop; see it's cool to shoot a nigga
but they hate it when we pop the cops
That's when they gettin petrol
You better watch your step or you'll be left on death row
But I learn to look ahead of me
Stay strapped watch your back keep your eyes on the enemy
We blowin up precincts and OOOH
You can't fuck with the crew, of crooked nigga too
[Chorus]
[Raphael Saadiq]
It's the coldest town from here to Georgia
(I'm a crooked nigga too)
It's the coldest town from here to Georgia
It's the coldest town from here to Georgia
(I'm a crooked.. crooked nigga too)
It's the coldest town from here to Georgia
Y'all gon' stop fuckin with me
[Chorus - repeat to fade]