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DC... Somalia... North Philly... Philippines all ghettos... (Houston)... all barrios...
(New Orleans)... worldwide what you know about this poor man's journey?
he's got holes in his shoes and his jeans are hella dirty
smile on his face with a wealth not worldly with a style and a grace that got all these
heads turning high hopes, high debts
and pockets stay broken no dope, high stress
in the streets discerning though all the false hopes and the lies they
feed to you trying to build a future out of something
feasible but average income to some is just unreachable
me, living like a cross of Che and PiƱero resembling them both in that same scenario
survivor of the third world since he was a day old
you learn to bundle up when you heat your house with a stove
same house is a home for like 20 of your folks i've grown between a war-torn family
that came to America and still don't understand me (why?)
cause i just won't settle for they money or they schools
i care about my life more than american rules not just to be a fool but look what it's doing
to you Africa is dying and we all just tryna move
from Seattle to Soweto all African ghettos
LA, Palestine and the body, soul, mind
Vieques, Chiapas they just can't stop us
to Addis, Asmera don't you forget Rwanda
Brooklyn, Planet Rockers the belly of the monster
Senegal and on to Haiti and the D.R. everywhere that we are
to anywhere that we are still living like the third world even in
the first i rep for the second generation of African
immigrants resisting assimilation
i've traced this lineage in my bones with Chocolatey Undertones
to indigenous folks from Anahuak where i rock with a passion
slight Amharic accent ain't no rites of passage
and it ain't no kind of magic on how i came to be a man
i dare to just imagine and question everything they said up in this
land of *** it's hard to tell the pimps from the poets
and the pastors while real men like MOVE and the Panthers
get forgotten writing books while in handcuffs
i look up to men behind bars and women that struggle hard
everyday and every way, just ain't treated the same
and most times, guys look the other way it wouldn't be fair to say i understand the
pain but sister you are my hero
and i'll never turn away from Seattle to Soweto
all African ghettos LA, Palestine
and the body, soul, mind Vieques, Chiapas
they just can't stop us to Addis, Asmera
don't you forget Rwanda Brooklyn, Planet Rockers
the belly of the monster Senegal and on to Haiti and the D.R.
everywhere that we are to anywhere that we are
still living like the third world even in the first
some days i don't know how i'm gonna eat and everybody in Seattle wants me to rhyme
on they beats like i'm in too deep to sleep
when i do, my dreams i see faces of little me, facing they new enemy
schools and the prisons be the same damn industry the whole rap world is just not really interesting
it stopped speaking to me when i started speaking to kids
16 years old and doing his second bid for his age and he spits hella better than
i did only difference is he got caught for ***
that i did at his age and got away with
i'm not smarter his skin is darker and the process is harder
3 strikes now and you a martyr in America's favorite game
that hasn't changed since the first Africans were brought in chains
to now we move by choice but got colonized brains
from Seattle to Soweto all African ghettos
LA, Palestine and the body, soul, mind
Vieques, Chiapas they just can't stop us
to Addis, Asmera don't you forget Rwanda
Brooklyn, Planet Rockers the belly of the monster
Senegal and on to Haiti and the D.R. everywhere that we are
to anywhere that we are still living like the third world...