This is the part where I'm supposed to say something poetic
Fuck that
Imma be honest
War was declared specifically on black people
African people
And even those who choose to ignore their blackness
Since the opportunity presented itself to oppress us
Almost every social, political, economic, educational, medical, legal, business
And cultural decision, trend or shift
Has been rooted in the desire to erase our existence
This isn't art
This isn't creativity
This isn't me showcasing wit or wordplay
This isn't an act or a persona on a song
This is life or death
How do you compromise with killers
Who know that they can only survive through your genocide

Strike 1
Strike 2
Strike 3

Strike 1, the color of your skin is too dark
Strike 2, your hair is too nappy and too harsh
Strike 3, you can never be better than us
You ain't American, you're just another black man in America

Alone he stands this man from a foreign land
Outsider on the inside of other sands
As he dips his hands in his pants he feels lesser of a person
Like his native people his pocket lining is malnourished
In a place where social status is determined by commerce
And money is god he's thinking of turning a convert
All he has is his nap sack and his Converse
And his dreams of rocking a big concert
As he exits the ship
He's having visions of women children and men
Who not long ago faced the same shit
Built in rage from 146,000 days of complacency
Pain from faceless thieves
Basically, his place on this little planet of earth
Is to fulfill a basic vacancy
And as he stands all alone for the first time on this earth
All he really could do is just wait and see

Strike 1, the color of your skin is too dark
Strike 2, your hair is too nappy and too harsh
Strike 3 you can never be better than us
You ain't American, you're just black man in America

Alone he walks but nobody will talk to em
This type of behavior is strange and off to him
On a search for bare necessities, food clothing and shelter
But everywhere he went, nobody would help him
Starring up at the bright lights and tall buildings
He's feeling out of place tall thoughts but small ceilings
Are keeping him concealed in his own mind
And as the darkness starts to seep in the streets are his home for the night
He goes into the local merchant, to purchase
A pack of cigarettes a magazine and some bourbon
Perches on the stoop like the pigeons on the awning
Tryna keep cool in the heat of this steamy August
The heat he's used to but the people will shoot you
Ron and Nicole you, stab your back and juice you like O.J
OK things getting crucial
As the tears of bewilderment fall down from his pupils

Strike 1, the color of your skin is too dark
Strike 2, your hair is too nappy and too harsh
Strike 3 you can never be better than us
You ain't American, you're just black man in America

Alone he travels, his toes and his shoes in the gravel
Convinced that he's fighting in a losing battle
He heads to the local barbershop on the avenue
Removes the hat from top of his head and he unravels
His natural locks, slides the barber a 10, sits in the chair
And watches 10 years carefully drop
While everybody else is laughing in shock
And its too late to ask him to stop
Now it's back to the block, the golden paved pavement he once thought laid
Was playing with his fate laughing in his face trapped up in the place huh
Such a hateful existence
The agents kicking him keeping him in the matrix
This makeshift, land of the free, home of the braves
That got paid to make way for all of the slavery
The made paper from the faces of hatred
And the only way he's ever getting any is complacency

Strike 1, the color of your skin is too dark
Strike 2, your hair is too nappy and too harsh
Strike 3 you can never be better than us
You ain't American, you're just black man in America
Strike 1, the color of your skin is too dark
Strike 2, your hair is too nappy and too harsh
Strike 3 you can never be better than us
You ain't American, you're just black man in America

And I watched as these ridiculous people, umm restrained Eric Garner
Brought him down to the ground and killed him onsite
And for me that was literally the first time in my life where I realized
No criminal record
Not even a moving, violation uh ticket, nothing umm
Working with young people
Academic
All that good shit
My chances are no better or worse than somebody who has a record
And I'm not even necessarily I'm not saying that to say I'm on a hierarchy over Somebody that doesn't have a record or something like that
But it's just there's no different chance
Just because of the skin the color of my skin
And that struck a type of fear in me that I've been holding till this day
So everything that I've done up to the point of this album has been
A lot of like 3rd person experiences
You see things from your own experiences and you inference the rest
And you make good music or whatever
Artists know how to do that right
Umm this album is uh for the most part
Very much like my own feelings my own emotions
My own struggles my own fears, so on and so forth and so that's like why we're here

Copyright: O/B/O DistroKid
Writer(s): James Gantt