State of the Union - Marlon Craft

The state of the union is that there isn’t one

If a house divided can’t stand, we been sitting but sitting officials lettin'

you starve and die

They’d say for a party, I say it’s dogma to America’s artful lie

Sniffin' the party line, intoxicated from white

That fake superiority created by authority to convince the poorest he still one

caste up

'Cause at least you not black, and if at least you not that

And if you see and got mad

That the elite eat on backs of your labor, you’d point at your neighbor —

instead of up

To keep you off track, they told you your sins weren’t sins but,

benath that hatred is shame

Your humanity was picked and sold with th cotton of slaves

System is fucked, we benefit passively

White liberals and such, make a social identity from giving a fuck

But that privilege they may acknowledge, they ain’t giving it up

We ain’t living it much, the ego’s driving the car

And it just depends on where it got it’s license

How many of us really choose our own thoughts and vices?

You don’t get paid, but you a walking advertisement

Made us all addicted to fame, so that we’d work for free

Million factless 'cause their schools ain’t teach 'em how to find them

If they get to choose, they pick the ones that their wants align with

Can you track your opinion to it’s origin?

If not, aight then

We move without intent, they profit when we not decisive

Rappers been lazily referencing The Matrix for years

Who knew algorithms would really dictate what we cheer?

Too lazy to care, afraid to look inward

We’d live in our own noose 'fore we live in our own truth

Vague tweets about how you love everyone

You won’t even wear a mask to save somebody’s grandmother

Entitled to the lies of freedom, you in denial

I seen this shit for a while

It’s lethal man, word to Dan Glover

You can’t fake lightning but you can plan thunder

Pay a racist brand before we’d pay attention

I sit in damn wonder

And everyone talking generational wealth

But outside making money for ourselves

We won’t give the next generation no help

It may already be too late to save the fucking planet

If we don’t stop playing, there will be no more generations to help

We trained people for survival of the fittest

In traumatic conditions and sold them things that kill 'em

We made life into a gamble, in the name of capitalism

Then tried to hit the democracy switch when COVID hit and that was destined to

fail

You can’t abuse populations, leave 'em destitute and vacant and then ask them

to care

About anything but their next move, our own nation to blame

So I get why we at the club, still I ain’t say I’m not enraged

I want better from us, I just don’t expect it

Trauma is cyclical, the most likely ones to neglect are the neglected

They had Future sellin' you — Molly, Lean, Percocet

And you think for a check, they need a scheme on vaccine injections?

Lot of the soft bigotry of low expectations

Lot of fetishization, celebrating regressive themes in the name of progression

And when something truly powerful come

It’s hesitation

And there’s this fishy correlation, between what’s considered cool and what

profits for corporations

Rappers streamin' tens of mills considered not as poppin'

'Cause on their next endeavor, no label holds an option

Soul vacancy across the culture

So when they say they do it for it, man I gotta wonder

The only culture is validate wins, and win equals money

The truth’s like my chest in '06, it’s beneath where the rug be

I don’t even like talking this direct

I ain’t no book report ass rapper but I object

To the marriage to greed and clout, without heeding doubt of what winnin' means

Ask why we on different teams

We don’t play the same sport

Started getting to some places I been tryna go and lookin' round like

Yo, this ain’t what I came for

So if I gotta give up what’s righteous to get it, you can keep it

Fuck a popular lie I’d rather be a truthful secret

Herd immunity to truth and self-assestment

Truth is if not for COVID, Trump would’ve won re-election in a landslide

So we evaded armageddon, for good old store brand oppression

But if a leader more savvy, and less sociopathic with true fascist aspirations

come along, it’s gon' be tragic

74 million proved if the right rhetoric is used

We could end up on the wrong side of World War II 2

And to defeat white supremacy, you gotta first want to defeat white supremacy

I don’t think most of us really do

How many white mirror convos really bearing fruit?

The only hope is that this moment in history

Looks the same in both timelines of what the end could be

Whether this the infection rising up and we fight and quell, or if it

outscrapes us, and humanity just dies and fails

It was always gon' get worse 'fore it got better

Racism was never gon' go quietly to the night

It never will but I do believe that it along with greed, can make it’s way out

of our institutions so that all are free one day

I ain’t say that it will, but today looks like today

In both versions of the story

So gon' grab you a quill

It depends what we do, there’s only one person the future starts and ends with

It’s you