Around My Way [Freedom Ain’t Free]
First off, say "Peace" to Pine Ridge
Shame at all the damage that
The white man wine did
Ghost Dance, Trail of Tears
Five million beers a year
And all that other crime did
More peace to the teachers of blind kids
To rebels in small cells
Keeping their mind big
Say everything's hostile
Suicide bombers and prosperity gospels
Emaciated models
With cocaine and blood pouring
Out their nostrils, they got to
Just to stay awake on the catwalk
Of life where everybody watch you
Straight hair, high heels and a handbag
Crucifixes, racism and a land grab
Katrina, FEMA trailers, human body sandbags
A peace sign and a pants sag
A money toss cause a nine stripper mad dash
A friend request following a hash tag
Now everybody want it like the last laugh
A Michael Jackson jacket or a Daft mask
Purple Jordans or the mixed girl
In your math class
Stable is when the Ba'ath had Baghdad
But corporate jets really had to
Have that gas bad war and they hope they all
Fall from the ratatat
Cause that's just more dinosaur
For their Cadillacs
Live from the other side what you see
A bunch of nonsense on my TV
Heaven on Earth is what I need
But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe
Reporting live from the other
Side what you hear
A bunch of nonsense all in my ear
Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay
Cause freedom ain't free
Especially 'round my way
And we marvel at the state of Ottoman
Then turn around and treat Ghana
Like a garbage can
America's a big motherfuckin' garbageman
If you ain't know
You're part and parcel of the problem
You say no you ain't, and I say yes you is
Soon as you find out
What planned obsolescence is
You say no they didn't
And I say yes they did
The definition of unnecessary-ness
Manifested say that we should protest
Just to get arrested
That goes against all my hustling ethics
A bunch of jail niggas
Say it's highly ineffective
Depart from Martin, connect on Malcolm X tip
Insert Baldwin to similar the separate
To me
The truth is more fulfilling than a meth hit
Or finding really fast internet to
Have some sex with
It's all one song short of a set list
Couple croissants shy of
A continental breakfast
Or blowing out your birthday candles just
To make a death wish
So absurd, word to Chief Bone Necklace
Down at the Lakota Sioux Casino
A whole culture boiled down
To giving you pokeno
I go as left as a heart in the chest
Cause the Horn of Africa is
Now starving to death
Live from the other side what you see
A bunch of nonsense on my TV
Heaven on Earth is what I need
But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe
Reporting live from the other
Side what you hear
A bunch of nonsense all in my ear
Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay
Cause freedom ain't free
Especially 'round my way
An all-white Los Angeles
The dream of Mr chandler
Hope and pray they take Columbus
Day up off the calendar
South Central an example of God's gifts
So shout to all the mothers
Raising babies in SPA 6
The projects of Oakland city
Detroit ghost towns
Monopolies on poverty where D-boy coke bound
It’s parts of Manila like
The video for "Thriller"
But the US Embassy is reminiscent of a villa
If poverty is chocolate and privilege vanilla
Then what’s the flavor of
The Sunday preacher’s pedophilia?
Cash rules everything around these niggas
As classrooms everywhere around me wither
Hither you can be Mr burns or Mr smithers
The tyrant or the slave
But nowhere in the middle
Of the extremes of America’s dream
Freud fighting Neo, Freddy
Krueger refereeing, now
Live from the other side what you see
A bunch of nonsense on my TV
Heaven on Earth is what I need
But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe
Reporting live from the other
Side what you hear
A bunch of nonsense all in my ear
Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay
Cause freedom ain't free
Especially 'round my way
Great American rap resurrect
Lupe on the check westside till I die!