Update: studio footage w/ J Carter & Jae Mitch
Light a candle, pour a glass of Arnold Palmer in a champagne glass & lemme learn ya
Trying to dream & stay focused on my mission
Want you to hear with your eyes, use your ears as your vision
What I'm about to say to you is going to be different from anything you're used to hearing. So you'll need to change your perception in order to get it all.
Nah, that ain't deep, the concept is simple as me always eating McDonalds & losing weight
I choose my fate
McDonalds has empty calories. For someone with a high metabolism as I do, as much as I eat it, it's not going to help me get in better shape. And even though fast food is ridiculously bad for us, everytime we eat it, it's a choice. So when we reap the "benefits" of a choice, we can't be mad at the options made available to us. We can only hold ourselves responsible for making that choice.
Every storm that I weathered, I swear it passed
Satan can't take nothing from me I won't let him have
& that's why he ain't stabbing me with a pitchfork
I'm grazing in the grass my ancestors was lynched for
We bring up the story of Job & how Satan had to petition God to bring harm to him. This is an old testament issue, as now since Christ is in us, the devil has no ability to do anything to us directly unless we have doorways open to allow him to do so. He'll use circumstances, other people, your insecurities...but never you directly. You're not a puppet. Life is 10% of what happens to you & 90% how you react to it. The wrong reaction will give the enemy access. And even within that, God's grace doesn't let you get destroyed. Grazing in the grass, refers to generations before me that have sacrificed, made mistakes & broke down walls to make things easier for the future. And whether we know it or not, we're doing the same thing.
And I was more concerned with Kris Kross
Wearing clothes backwards when that affected my actions
I was 8 then, now I'm 26
My house built with straw, sticks & a couple bricks
I used Kris Kross as a double entendre. At 8 yrs old, I had no idea of the sacrifices my parents, grandparents & elders made for me to live the life I have today. I was more concerned with my own life. Also, it's a lie when they tell you hip-hop has no affect on its listeners. At 8 years old, Kris Kross had me wearing clothes backwards to school & leaving the tags on my Starter cap (When that affected my actions)...and because of that, 20 years later, my house (foundation) is built on some good things (bricks) & some incorrect ideologies (straw & sticks) that could hinder my full potential.
Ain't think my past would be hard to dismiss
Never knew my heart had a lisp
Double entendre...someone very special to me has a small lisp. Also, a lisp is considered to be a deficiency, I thought I was a good person (good hearted), but my past that's so "hard to dismiss" leads me to do bad things & make wrong decisions.
Started coasting on faith, I seen my luck was running up
Easy to lie naked, much harder to cover up
Hard to ride for the cause, super easy to buckle up
Easy to kill the noise, but impossible to knuckle up
Coasting on faith = riding with God, my luck was running up because luck doesn't exist. Anything not founded on God will eventually run dry. Easy to lie naked, it's easy to tell the truth & be honest. Harder to cover up, you have to lie, remember the lies & lie to cover up the other lies. It becomes a burden. Hard to ride for the cause, nobody wants to be the 1st, super easy to buckle up, it's much easier to ride the coattails & reap the benefits of somebody else's martyrdom. Easy to kill the noise, it's easy to ignore, but impossible to take action (knuckle up)
What...oh you thought that I was different too?
I am, double check who you're listening to
Don't compare me to these everybodies
Cause it's enough lanes made for everybody
Say I sound like Common, a lil' Lupe
But what I'm saying ain't common, found me a new lane
Although there's nothing new under the sun, I believe that you can do what you do & not run into anyone else. True creativity & inspirations runs too high, far & wide to have been exhausted by now. People always compare me to Common & Lupe Fiasco, & while they are some of my favorites, I don't believe I sound anything like them. People just like to label, compare, identify & box things because boxes are safe. They are contained. If a bird flies around the house, you don't know where it's going. But if it's in its cage, you don't have to worry about it. It is where it always is.
To change the world, we gotta change our minds
Worried about illuminati, but illuminate your minds & realize
The light in the world that you're called to be
Is dim & shorting out, took your morals & whored em out
To the highest bidder, with the higest figures
Bible beside my pistol, side by side, what's bigger?
The trigger pulled? Or the bullet launched?
Do I still need a vest if I'm filled & full of God?
We're always looking for something to attach the devil to to "expose him", when it actually gives him & the situation more power. The illuminati has unfortunately been a hot topic for the last couple of years. And even though demonic influences in music, & secret societies in our culture is NOT a new idea, all of a sudden the notion of it has re-emerged & has basically began a witch hunt. And what it does in the grand scheme of things, when you focus solely on that, is it dims the "light of the world", the Bible calls us to be. You take everything that God has given you & you've whored them out, you've sold them to become apart of this witch hunt. Bible beside my pistol...the pistol is a metaphor for action. If I point a Bible @ you, nothing happens. But if I point a gun at you & pull the trigger, a bullet will come out & kill you. So what's more important? One or the other? Do I still need a vest if I believe God will protect me? Or does some sort of action need to follow these words I believe in?
Could my back handle these backgammons?
Cuz I wanna double axe-handle my backstabbers?
Backgammon is a game...
Don't win a Grammy, did I fail to fufill my mission?
Trying to please a culture I wasn't built to fit in?
As you may or nay not know, I despise being called a "Christian rapper"...or even a "rapper that's Christian"...I hate labels. There's a Jesus culture that has totally engulfed Christianity that I do NOT fit in. For the 1st few years of my walk, it hindered me because I thought I had to act like this & talk like that & do this & not do that in order to fit in with...people. When God never asked me to change who I was...He wanted to do the changing Himself. Once I realized I could still be good in God's eyes & not conform to this culture, it was a lot easier for me. But still a good chunk of my fanbase fit into this category. Do I reject them because they are what I despise? No...So if I say nigga on a record
Would all of my niggas feel disrespected?
Or if I said nigga was a state of mind not attached to a color, would I get backlash from the public?
A friend of mine released a song a few months ago & he said nigga in the track. He received a good amount of backlash, people boycotted him, denounced him, all because he said this one word. All of my life I've been the token black kid. Always was in white schools. And never did I have to deal with racism. So to me, nigga doesn't mean what it means to my father. While blacks have claimed to "destroyed the power" of the n-word, they really haven't. If anything they've just made it cool for everybody to say. While I agree with Chris Rock's "Nigger vs Black People" theory. Nigga (that -er & -a difference is malarchy) was a word used against black people because we were considered to be ignorant. Today we know that ignorance knows no color. So to me nigga = ignorance. On the other hand, I do know that the word is offensive to a lot of people & you have to respect that everybody's not going to view it the same way as you. So I am sensitive to it in that regard. That's just my take.Or should I say bump it, eff it
Focus on my efforts & let faith do the rest
If I turned my attention to everything they said
Let their opinions dance in my head
These women hear my music & tell me how much they love it
& I'm struggling with the fear of failing twice as a husband
Say they want honesty, but they're scared of it
Say they stand for the truth, but they're prepared to sit
People really don't want to face the truth. Face fears. Face rejection. Face opression & opposition. The music I've been creating lately has kinda forced people to do that. And as a result, the backlash appears.
Trying to tell em 'get on my level'
They tell me 'stack my dollars' but finna switch to Ameros
Christ is King, but sometimes I feel like Pharoahe
Invest in a Kingdom my failures say that I don't sharehold
But it's so easy to speak the truth in a room where everyone believes the same things as you
So I apologize if I said it all, before I'm dead I'ma set up the next to set it off
2Pac said "I may not change the world, but I will spark the brain who will change the world". And I believe it. Though we may not "finish the work", we will lay down the groundwork for our children to continue with it.
