Gangland - Lecrae, Propaganda

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 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

standin'.

Hollow points in it and all of that, I’m ready.

We gang bangin'!

My cousin.

was a killer

He done pulled a lot of triggers

He done made a lot of mamas cry

And if you ask him why he do it he’d just say, «I'm young and foolish»

Bang on you 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 'em

somethin'

Back and forth some

Cleaver got a message for the people

Bunchy 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, fed’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 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 done closed, now a lot of people jobless

Now they got the drugs 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 drugs are being imported into

your community.

Are you gonna to sell drugs 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 drugs 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 of compassion

Why don’t you come stay a while?