I heard him call out
I heard him call for his mother
And I didn't even call my mother
I wanted to avoid talking about the elephant in the room
The pig on my neck
The devil on detail
We were born of a people who were torn from their people
For the root of all evil
From it, sprung the trunk, the branches, and the fruit of all evil
Unless they need you, they act as if they don't see you
Besiege you, and tell you to cooperate
As if it's something you agreed to
Before criminals constitution nothing's illegal
Except people who were once property destroying property, upheaval
Keep your eye on the sparrow, the bald eagle
Defeathered and beheaded at the stoop of the steeple
Guarded by soldiers, stupid yet lethal
It doesn't matter if a liar has a republic or democracy
Or monarchy, it's malarkey
Don't mind me if I seem a little off-key, or I sing a little off-key
But when we're on keys, we can unlock things
Souls freed otherwise held hostage
On the ebony and ivory with the heart of a gnostic
But hands of a locksmith
A pharmacist, a prescription for the toxic
Eating away at our subconscious
Eight-ball in the corner pocket, eight-ball on the corner cop it
How can we stop it when the cops and the robbers
Money is their religion, they follow the same profits
So don't mind me if I seem a little off-key, or I sing a little off-key
But once we're in tune, oh
We can conduct the cosmos, conductor of the orchestra
Conductor of the underground railroad
Don't you see the kick, the thump, the heart
The crashing cymbals as symbols of shields?
No Captain America, no cap in America
If you're Black in a finger snap, fade to black in America
So don't mind me if I seem a little off-key, or I sing a little off-key
More than mere melody
Using horn and string to quarantine from a disease
That sees us as less as human and more as things
So we don't play music, we pray music
Those same nooses hang useless, raise the dead like Jesus did
We don't play music, we pray music
Vivid, lucid dreams
Let loose in the pure hearts with divine acoustics
We lay blueprints at the blue note
I come from a people transmuted, transformed by song
Until the musicians are translucent
Until you see through them and see through this
And bare witness to the oneness
That from nothingness brought forth all of existence
So don't mind me if I seem a little off-key, or I sing a little off-key
It's more than mere melody
I'm in tune
We're in tune

Copyright: CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Writer(s): Amir Sulaiman, Robert Glasper