Two fifteen

Yo
The big wheel keep turnin' like ice and animes
The church kitchen hustle dinners every Saturday
Pull over, let me grab a plate
I tend to gravitate
Towards, our fish dinners from a styrofoam platter, taste
My granddaddy sport a plad Donny Hathaway
Hustlin' for everything we had 'til he passed away
When I would ask about what path to take
He used to laugh and say
No man is an island but I'm a castaway
Casualties, I seen 'em like the French Foreign Legion
On the streets, they used to carry out bizarre procedures
In jean jackets and Jabbar Adidas
Back when local R&B was just as soulful as orthopedics
Me and my man twistin' up some reefer and
Wishin' we knew On The Town
Hitman in the lights of sand Christian
On the edge of existence man, listen
Understand, respect and fear was the all-American ambition
For badass kids in the laundromat, foldin' a load
Well lo and behold, a whole 'nother fork in the road
My wish for them is that the truth is eventually told
Out on the corner, where whatever you can sell is sold
I heard murder ran a vast deserted land
Since back when Burning Man
Was blacks in Birmingham
Before the presidential election diversion scam
Matter fact, before they clapped Franz Ferdinand
You gossip on Jay and Beyonce or Kim and Kanye
But keep risin' to the top what my mind say
Picture my daughter drinkin' water with a sign
Say for colored girls, I ain't talkin' Ntozake Shange
Who said in Senegal, I was a king and general
Rich in every resource
Precious metal and mineral
Before the devil entered the land of the plentiful
With that Jamaican funk, gotta get it into who for generations
Under God, indivisible, sike, war, patience
Vampires in a interview
Book come institutionalized what a nigga do
But what we had to do to survive, none o' them could do
Who the technical culprit
I don't mess with no vultures
I'm electrical voltage, not the regular dosage
Too obsessive compulsive, I'm a fuckin' explosive
Mixed message in a bottle I left with the postman
I'm that arachnophobia, black petroleum
Ceremoniously holy, when at the podium
Even though it's hotter than weapons grade plutonium
The people try'na check for the return of the Ichiban
Obi-Wan universe, you owe me own solid
My homie Gonzalez only know gun violence
On the corner, where they probably on they 21 Savage
Catch two in your cabbage young Cesar Chavez
Revision one, yo, where we get our rhythm from
Continuum, still swingin' like a pendulum
Here the women come, sing it, like Sarah Vaughan
Heard 9th up in a house, from North Carilon'
Ain't no mannequin challenge, but y'all paralyzed
It's gettin' cold outside, a word from the wise
Y'all niggas better bundle up
But I bet it be a hotter summer not for nothin'
Yo, the cops get down, especially when it come to us
Nigga better be a Rockefeller get that out your pocket, fella
Sayin' a capella ain't a damn thing really changed
As far as I can tell it
Another soul with no name
The helicopters hunted
Look like a couple o' days
Before the doctor comin'
But that's my little cousin, watch him for me
I think the world try'na sock it to me
It kinda feel like everything is out of pocket for me
Who keep it a hundred when everythin is partial
Dignity and sanity is what the game cost you
Wake up to the battles on your chest
We had lost you
I'm just paintin' a picture like Kerry James Marshall
I'm just takin' a picture like Carrie Mae Weems
So smile and say cheese
We in 2018
In a pyramid scheme
Nightmares and day dreams
From the runaway slave
To a modern day king

Copyright: Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Writer(s): Daniel Marcel Popp, Dwight Grant, Justin Gregory Smith, Leslie Pridgen, Patrick Douthit, Shawn C. Carter, Skip Scarborough, Tarik Trotter