Performed April 20 at the Dedication of the Free Speech Monument

Verse I

Each new day I got to live
But why we gotta struggle, the hustlers hustle to provide for the kids It’s not rare if you think I gotta strain a muscle to live like Russell to get a couple gigs

It isn’t all about the paid to me
This pain I speak, this is from the heart These are words from the Lord See this work is hard and I’m only 18 African American, yeah you see how it go

Look at the white people now you see how they roll In their new fancy cars, we just die as broke But no hate, I still treat y’all people the same But where’s the forty acres and a mule…

You only gave us the violent type to use the tools The promise forgotten Hear me out, I’m still here chilling out trying to figure out why I’m still here Notice me Thoughts spoken out like poetry

Every moment I wake from the sleep and the dreams Grow older - realize it was nothing like your dreams
35-59 thinking that you never got that
Got to rearrange the soil and plot that for your little girl or boy

To proceed let me be
Born and taught up in the streets
Where pearls and ice can be lost over some beef It was nothing in this world to keep NOW LET ME PREACH!

Verse II

Let me tell y’all people where I’m from
I’m from the block, before the air screamed out of Jesus lungs a young’n use to be fun, but none son, God son Not one, but many he have Ditching the stash

They counting the cash thinking of the years back in the past Gotta get out of town before thugs bust Praying really talking to Lucifer - hoping for no ash dust One second later them thugs come and the guns blast

I’m from a place of why not, who did it
Take this, take that, smoke week, sniff crack Listen to that, cops come, lock up half the blacks Even the black cops enjoy that

Something like slavery let me escape that Back packs, school, learn, take turns, say word!
When I was young and small the world was kind of scary Now I’m all grown and realize the world is buried

I’m from a place seven to eight – five percent AIDS Do you think God sent us here to really die one day?
Go straight to hell continue to cry always Pain with flesh melt like a hot milky way

No lie, some thugs gonna feel shots one day A real man gonna get off the block one day If he has some seed, learn how to plot one day Watch them grow and be beautiful

I explain how I feel
Physical Emotional Spiritual and Musical Basically what I’m saying My word is through lyrical

I’m from a word of God, what I speak right now Every moment the world ending with judgment to every child Cuz when I have a child, a boy or a girl Please believe me they’ll deliver the letter towards the world

And when they’re born they continue to rise on As I watch them grow, I continue to die on Neva look back, continue to fast-forward Pick a president the one that leads on

I gotta job on my hands so I continue to rise higher My words like fire, my life is awful But you can never call it sad cuz I’m not the Messiah When the world war over, war scars and clothes torn Still I can say that the world has heard more