Not playin' out here, it's for real
We livin' out here for life
Tryin' to get it
Ain't nobody finna take our life
I keep my young homies out here with these things
My big homies out keep handling me
We keep it crackin'
My other name should have been Jesse James cause I stay with my cannon
I didn't have no choice
I was raised
By the color for which we stand
Hollow points, ..., and all that
We gang bangers!
My cousin ... was a killer
He done pulled a lot of triggers
He done made a lot of muthas drop
If you ask him why he do it
He'd just say "I'm young and foolish"
...
He ain't have no sense of dignity
His daddy was a mystery
He'll prolly end up dead or sitting in a penitentary
And tell the judge he can go to hell for the sentence
And it prolly make no sense if you would listen to the history
The new Jim Crow or the old one
People out here fighting for equality
And honestly I think they owe some
Back and forth some
Cleaver got a message for the people
Bunch you with em and they tryna stop the evil
And they cliqued up with they fist up
The whole neighborhood feeling like they meant somethin'
Then it was a mix-up, fair's got em fixed up
End of the movement, back to the bricks, bruh
And Raymond Washington about to start the Crips up
They gettin bigger every day and tryna fix stuff
They saw Geronimo Pratt dodging bullets from attacks
Guess they figure "We don't really want it this much"
You know originally, gangs were created to protect everybody in the community
There was lynching and bombing going on and the gangs were there to protect
What people don't understand is that a lot of the leaders died
Medgar Evers - Has been shot
Bunchy Carter - Has been shot
Fred Hampton - Has been shot
MLK - Has been shot in Memphis Tennessee
These youngsters didn't have any direction
No leaders to look up to so they went rogue on 'em
They say that Crip stands for Community
Revolutionary and Interparty Service
Way before the genocide and the murders
A little after integration was the verdict
When bombs may go off at the Sunday service (Baow!)
They protectin' they community
Then it turn into diplomatic immunity
Then a fight against oppression was the pressin'
Now they keep on losin' battles
And they started losin' unity
Now they beat each other blue-black
Force fed self hate 'till the truth crack
Got they own folks hidin' on the rooftops
They ain't finna take no more they finna shoot back (Baow!)
Now they bond like a family they all bloods
From the concrete jungle to the small hoods
Throwin' signs up
Now the crime's up
We was meant to kill oppression
Now we loadin nines up
But, never mind us, grind us
Factory the clothes now a lot of people jobless
Now they got the drugs coming in from Nicaragua
Government done turned a blind eye, or they lied to us
It was a perfect storm
And they gon' talk in post-segregation
And what are you gonna do
The factories have closed and nobody's hiring
Anybody from the urban community because of what you look like
And now there's a war going on in Nicaragua and
Drugs are being imported into your community
Are you going to sell drugs?
Or are you gonna be homeless
Because the government's not paying attention
Huh, man you tell me
What's a reasonable man to say?
There's a high school in Alabama named after Robert E. Lee
And it's 89% black, you don't see the irony?
What it do to a psyche, it's simple
You don't like me
What I'm supposed to do now
Delusional calling that system criminal "justice"
Where the rich and the guilty are safer
Than the poor and the innocent
Why would we listen
When American churches scuff their Toms
On our brother's dead bodies as they march
To stop gay marriage
Yo, we had issues with Planned Parenthood, too
We just cared about black lives outside the womb
Just as much as in
Young man gon' find purpose somehow
And a nation was at least around
And when them vice lords told him he was of royal decent
And that war on drugs felt much more
Like war on the poor
He figured forget it
So why don't you come stay a while
Tell us that the Son of Man walked on Egyptian
And Eastern soil and wasn't just a Western construct
Or master used to control us
But what Thee Master used to free us
And it was a crooked system just like this
That left the King of Kings bloodless
Yeah, we are truly a descendant of a King
Only his reign is infinite
And being right is a distant second to
The joy and compassion
Why don't you come stay a while?
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