Gangland - Lecrae/Propaganda/Larry Griffin Jr. /Jason Petty/Luis Manuel Martinez Jr.
We not playin' out here it's for real
We livin' out here for life we tryna to get it
Ain't nobody finna take our life
I keep my young homies out here with these things my big homies out keep handlin' me
And we keep it crackin'
My other name should've been Jesse James cause I stay with my cannon
I didn't have no choice I was raised right around the corner from where we stand
Hollow points in it and all of that I'm ready
We gang bangin'
My cousin beep was a killer
He done pulled a lot of triggers
He done made a lot of mothers drop
And if you ask him why he do it he'd just say I'm young and foolish
Bang only right before he made them bullets fly
He ain't have no sense of dignity his daddy was a mystery
He'll probably end up dead or sittin' in a penitentary
And tell the judge he can go to hell for the sentence
And it probably make no sense if you would listen to the history
The new Jim Crow or the old one
People out here fightin' for equality and honestly I think they owe some
Back and forth some
Cleaver got a message for the people
Bunch you with 'em and they tryna stop the evil
And they cliqued up with they fist up
The whole neighborhood feelin' like they meant somethin'
Then it was a mix-up fair's got 'em fixed up
End of the movement back to the bricks bruh
And Raymond Washington about to start the Crips up
They gettin' bigger every day and tryna fix stuff
They saw Geronimo Pratt dodgin' bullets from attacks
Guess they figure
We don't really want it this much
You know originally the gangs were created to protect everybody in the community
There was lynching and bombing going on and the gangs were there to protect
What people don't understand is that a lot of the leaders died
Medgar Evers (has been shot) Bunchy Carter (has been shot) Fred Hampton (has been shot)
MLK (has been shot in Memphis Tennessee)
These youngsters didn't have any direction
No leaders to look up to so they went rogue on 'em
They say that Crip stands for Community
Revolutionary and Interparty Service
Way before the genocide and the murders
A little after integration was the verdict
When bombs might go off at the Sunday service (baow)
They protectin' they community
Then it turn into diplomatic immunity
Then a fight against oppression was the pressin'
Now they keep on losin' battles and they started losin' unity
Now they beat each other blue-black
Force fed self hate 'till the truth crack
Got they own folks hidin' on the rooftops
They ain't finna take no more they finna shoot back (baow)
Now they bond like a family they all bloods
From the concrete jungle to the small hoods
Throwin' signs up now the crime's up
We was meant to kill oppression now we loadin' 9's up
But never mind us grind us
Factory the clothes now a lot of people jobless
Now they got the *** comin' in from Nicaragua
Government done turned a blind eye or they liars
It was a perfect storm
I mean we're talkin' post-segregation
And what are you gonna do
The factories have closed and no one's hiring anybody from the urban community
Because of what you look like
And now there's a war going on in Nicaragua and *** are being imported into your community
Are you gonna to sell *** or are you gonna be homeless
Cause the government's not paying attention
Huh man you tell me
What's a reasonable man to say
There's a high school in Alabama named after Robert E Lee And it's 89% black
You don't see the irony
What it do to a psyche it's simple you don't like me
What I'm 'posed to do now
Delusional calling that system criminal justice
Where the rich and the guilty are safer than the poor and the innocent
Why would we listen
When American churches scuff they Toms on our brother's dead bodies
As they march to stop gay marriage
We had issues with Planned Parenthood too
We just cared about black lives outside the womb just as much as in
Young man gon' find purpose somehow
And a nation was at least around
And when them vice lords told him he was of royal decent
And that war on *** felt much more like war on the poor
He figured forget it
So why don't you come stay a while
Tell us that the son of man walked on Egyptian
And Eastern soil and wasn't just a Western construct
Or master used to control us
But what the master used to free us
And it was a crooked system just like this that left the King of Kings bloodless
Yeah we are truly a descendant of a King
Only his reign is infinite
And being right is a distant second to the joy or compassion
Why don't you come stay a while
