BETHLEHEM/SC FREESTYLE - Victor Kwesi Mensah

Yeah

Man, this nigga Thelonious always give me sumn I can breathe on

Bleed on

Shout to Johnny Smalls

Uh, this is ground zero, I’m rising from the ashes, uh

The first step on the road to Damascus

I redefined my narrative I’m Frederick Douglas, uh

I can’t harbor hate, although they never loved us, nah

I tell my guys I miss 'em, they in dire conditions

Tryna survive in prison, praying they don’t die in Dixon

Bro said send him some pics of me with Australian bitches

Back in America, they treat us like we Aborigines

Original man, they tried to whit out our history

As if the first universities wasn’t Egyptian

Lauryn Hill said it bst, it’s just miseducation

And Section Eight is just modern-day segregation

I’m drinking from the whites-only fountain of youth

They heard the caged bird sing, so I bought me a coupe

Pardon the roof, it gets shy in the summertime

When momma said, «Be home before ten,» I had my number nine

Thugging outside with them Hooligans, ditching school again

The 'Raq was my holy land, like the tribe of Judah and them

Persecuted at home, like Philistines in Hebron is

I’m staring past the wall, from a rooftop in Bethlehem

Remind me of project halls in Lawless Gardens

It’s the same if you go back to Africa, Marcus Garvey

A people without knowledge is a tree without roots

I’m a walking contradiction, I’m in Saint Laurent boots

Mobbin', standing on the Westside with Chairman Fred Hampton

'Bout to catch a red-eye, back to my bed in a mansion, yeah

When did hip-hop turn into hip propaganda?

(Uh)

They killed Dr. Sebi, they make mills off of cancer

The business is keep us addicted to pharmacists

So we too preoccupied with prescriptions for politics

Give 'em mass incarceration, leave the children fatherless

I’m the voice of a generation, we won’t be silenced, uh

It’s the business my love

I’m from the home of the Black Stone Rangers

Where they invented gang banging

And they twist up they fingas, like they opps in a backwood

From where Gotti Moe was hanging, he got killed there

Pulled him out his wheelchair, photographed him with his pants around his ankles

Where they indoctrinate young, hit the freight trains for guns

Drive 'em up from Indiana, or Tennessee with the 'Bamas

And blue police camera’s sit high, like gargoyles

Crack your head to the yolk for thinking you hard-boiled

Better, simmer it down, take that shit downtown

Six flags on Halloween, it’s fright night in Terror Town

And them killers in Killer Ward, catch you in River North

If you whippin' foreign, they pull your ass out the doors of your Aventador

Eat Flaming Hots for breakfast, 'cause that’s all they can afford

Forty-four percent of Englewood beneath the poverty line from where they living

poor

And they can’t make up their mind

Who’s the best of all time Larry Hoover or Jeff Fort

Who drop dimes?

Load Glock 9's and John Doe 'em

Where they changed the name from the Chi to the 'Raq to Drillinois

And the winter is brutal, put the toaster to your strudel, make you doo-doo

You on bed rest, living off ramen noodles

Where the North pole is bundled, and it’s Cobras out in Humboldt

You could get booked like Mowgli by the Moes out in the Jungle

And the Lord’s in Holy City will make you do the holy ghost

Shake you down like Diddy, if they suspect that you holding dope

You can’t play around in K-Town

It’s get down or lay down, buss downs, grey hounds

Throwing L’s in L-Town, bumping DJ L sounds

Active shooters in the city, this is not a drill, trust me it’s real now

Came for a photo op' to show your opps

You wanted to visit O Block, ended up having to stay 'cause you got shot, nigga