Are you afraid to have someone believe in you?
Can you commit to your ideals?
Even if you think nothing of it
Are you willing to allow others to think the world of it?
And of you?
Pedagogue of young gods
All slavery ever does is free you
All anyone ever does is an example
All power is as collective energy
To abuse the privilege is to sell your soul
And that is to rent with the illusion of owning
We are the landlords
If you misunderstand us you're dead and deserve your demise
Your dominion is your overthrow
The controllers are controlled
Spread the word:
It will save you and depends on you to be understood
There is no school bell, only nursery
Our heroes reward us with stars
Ever-still, ever-moving
We sing to ourselves in our cars
Music is our sanctuary
Anywhere you put it it's ours
Our living voice
Our living testament
We dream aloud
We scream and shout
Our courage will defeat them
Our struggle will unite us
Our wisdom is ourselves
Our resources our own
Our blood ocean
Our skin oil
We are mountain and waterfall
They cannot contain us
Their prisons will not restrain us
Their customs will not un-name us
We are what they know in their hearts
You guessed it
You knew that
You felt it
You tried to doubt it
Denied it
But you knew it
Ain't nobody had to tell you
We had them from the start
A world apart, a world within
Ancient and luminous
The before before and the hereafter
We are the essence of laughter
The comforting prayer
And the gatekeepers
And the street-sweepers
A mountain of ports outside of a city of dreams
A bird that prays, yet offers its wingspan to the wind
Things are not as they seem
We hover above while giving the appearance of scurrying below
All is as it should be
We are more than we know
More than we hoped and dreamed
A generation of generators
A power source and supply
The better we learn to live
The better we learn to die
Old as anything
Old as everything
We are participants in a ritual
Older than our collective memory
A marriage of heart and mind
Secular and divine
All is as it should be
Slavery carefully bred us
No child of Greece or Rome can behead us
We are ahead of our time
Slavery was simply a state of mind
Hip-hop reminded us of confidence
Overcoming now is simply common sense
You deserve the ice and the riches of Solomon
But don't let warped values turn you into hollow men
Education is the only thing given that cannot be taken
Learn to think for yourself
an*lyze the forsaken
Pimp your fears
Surrender to love
Dance all night when you need to
Play this song for a thug
Let 'em know ain't no judgment
We all hustle and grind
Any system against us is against the divine
But there's no sense of glory in repenting
And repeating
Their mistakes
You have a greater calling
Answering it is all it takes
Take a second to hear this
And go back about your day
Know that laws don't govern us
We're governed by what we say
What we think, why we think it, how we handle
Place no blame, point no fingers, take your aim
Shoot to k**