Back When It Mattered

Summer breeze through the window

Moms frying fish up

Spades on the stoop

Every hand was a bishop

Henny in the brown bag

Folded like a scripture

We ain't have much

But the vibe still richer

Graffiti on the train car

Future in the ink

Before clout was a drug

We had time to think

I wrote lines in my rhyme book

Cold with the pen

Did it for the cipher

Not for follows or trends

Now the city moves faster

The faces blur

But I still hear Jungle shoutin

Yo Kid word

They ain't know our pain

But they sampled our voice

Now the youth echo stories

That we ain't had a choice in

We ain't have a choice in

Take me back to the roots

Where the rhythm was deep

Where the cypher was church

And the lessons would preach

We were young but we knew

What the struggle could teach

Back when it mattered

Back when it mattered to me

Young queen with a mic

And a soul to uplift

Melanin rich

We were taught to resist

I sang through the static

Through pain and the bliss

When the label said hush

I said God gave me this

We danced on the concrete

Made gold outta dust

Taught the children the math

How to build and trust

Now they scrolling for love

Algorithms betray

But back then we'd speak

Just to brighten the day

My brother passed the blunt

And the wisdom too

And I held on to hope

When the skies weren't blue

Now I walk through the past

In designer shoes

But the soul never left

It just sang new blues

Take me back to the stoop

Where the speakers would knock

Where the truth got passed

Like a beatbox drop

We were poor but we rich

In the roots of the block

Back when it mattered

Back when it mattered a lot

Streetlights flicker

Memory plays

I still hum the tune

From those golden days

And if I forget

Just replay that beat

Cause the past lives on

Through the rhymes we speak