Caught in a Hustle
They say the odds against me are crooked and impossibleLike I was born with a hole in my heart as an obstacleI was left to die by the doctors in the Children's HospitalBut I never lose hope, success is psychologicalThe world is volatile and the street is my educationShapin' the nation, like the blueprint of a MasonWhile Shawshank record deals get you raped on occasionSo I'm focused on my economic situationI'm like the little kids on TV that dig through the trashI hustle regardless of the way you talk shit and laughA lot of niggas drop science, but they don't know the mathBecause their mind is narrower than the righteous pathIt's funny how on the block niggas will kill you for cashBut never raise the gun and cry out, "Freedom at last!"The cold war is over, but the world is still gettin' colderAtlas walkin' through the projects, with the hood on my shouldersI would like to raise my children to grow to be soldiersBut then a general will decide when their life would be overSo I work hard until my personality's splitLike the Black Panthers, into the Bloods and the CripsThey said I would never be shit, but now I sit and reminisceLike Yeshua ben Yusef flippin' through GenesisIgnorance is venomous, and it murders the soulSpreadin' like a virus, runnin' rampant, out of control
So if I should ever fall and get caught in the hustleLet them know that I died while I fought in a struggleFrom the hoodrats to the rich kids lost in a bubbleSpray paintin' on the streets and at the subway tunnelsWrite it down and remember that we never gave inThe mind of a child is where the revolution beginsSo if the solution has never been to look in yourselfHow is it that you expect to find it anywhere else?
Immortal Technique in the streets, back on the hustle‘Cause three strikes will get you life for stuffin' cracks in a duffleUpstate, behind steel gates, attacked in a scuffleRazor blades stuck on the side of pencils hacked through your muscleBut the emptiness is what bleeds you to death when it cuts youAnd it's the lawyers, not the inmates, schemin' to fuck youTryna fight the system from inside eventually corrupts youBut that's what you get when you put a corporation above youAnd it's the people that love you that seem to hurt you the mostSometimes when they die, you find yourself cursin' their ghostBut you make success, nobody delivers your fateSometimes you give and you take since prehistoric vertebratesCrawled out of the lakes and that's the truth about lifeOr to do it to ghetto and your car, rims, and your iceBecause even though we survived through the struggle that made usWe still look at ourselves through the eyes of people that hate usBut I'm going to make it regardless of the trumped up chargesAnd semi-automatic barrages that empty the cartridgePost-traumatically scarred kids that try to be braveBecause niggas backstab each other just to try to get paidTurn cannibal, like knights during the crusadesAfraid of responsibility, addicted to greedBeatin' their girl, purposefully losin' a seedAs if we were bound to the destiny we used to receive
So if I should ever fall and get caught in the hustleLet them know that I died while I fought in a struggleFrom the hoodrats to the rich kids lost in a bubbleSpray paintin' on the streets and at the subway tunnelsWrite it down and remember that we never gave inThe mind of a child is where the revolution beginsSo if the solution has never been to look in yourselfHow is it that you expect to find it anywhere else?
I used to wonder (I used to wonder) about people who don't believe in themselvesBut then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone elseThat cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselvesBlind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves
I used to wonder (I used to wonder) about people who don't believe in themselvesBut then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone elseThat cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselvesBlind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves
I used to wonder…