Lecrae - Gangland (feat. Propaganda) Lyrics

We not playin' out here, it's for real. We livin' out here for life, we tryna to get it. Ain't nobody finna take our life. I keep my young homies out here with these things, my big homies out keep handlin' me. And we keep it crackin'. My other name should've been Jesse James cause I stay with my cannon. I didn't have no choice, I was raised right around the corner from where we stand. Hollow points in it and all of that, I'm ready. We gang bangin'!My cousin beep was a killerHe done pulled a lot of triggersHe done made a lot of mothers dropAnd if you ask him why he do it he'd just say, "I'm young and foolish"Bang only, right before he made them bullets flyHe ain't have no sense of dignity, his daddy was a mysteryHe'll probably end up dead or sittin' in a penitentaryAnd tell the judge he can go to hell for the sentenceAnd it probably make no sense if you would listen to the historyThe new Jim Crow or the old onePeople out here fightin' for equality and honestly I think they owe someBack and forth someCleaver got a message for the peopleBunch you with 'em and they tryna stop the evilAnd they cliqued up with they fist upThe whole neighborhood feelin' like they meant somethin'Then it was a mix-up, fair's got 'em fixed upEnd of the movement, back to the bricks, bruhAnd Raymond Washington about to start the Crips upThey gettin' bigger every day and tryna fix stuffThey saw Geronimo Pratt dodgin' bullets from attacksGuess they figure, "We don't really want it this much"You know originally, the gangs were created to protect everybody in the community. There was lynching and bombing going on and the gangs were there to protect. What people don't understand is that a lot of the leaders died. Medgar Evers (has been shot), Bunchy Carter (has been shot), Fred Hampton (has been shot), MLK (has been shot in Memphis Tennessee). These youngsters didn't have any direction. No leaders to look up to so they went rogue on 'emThey say that Crip stands for CommunityRevolutionary and Interparty ServiceWay before the genocide and the murdersA little after integration was the verdictWhen bombs might go off at the Sunday service (baow!)They protectin' they communityThen it turn into diplomatic immunityThen a fight against oppression was the pressin'Now they keep on losin' battles and they started losin' unityNow they beat each other blue-blackForce fed self hate 'till the truth crackGot they own folks hidin' on the rooftopsThey ain't finna take no more, they finna shoot back (baow!)Now they bond like a family they all bloodsFrom the concrete jungle to the small hoodsThrowin' signs up, now the crime's upWe was meant to kill oppression now we loadin' 9's upBut never mind us, grind usFactory the clothes, now a lot of people joblessNow they got the drugs comin' in from NicaraguaGovernment done turned a blind eye, or they liarsIt was a perfect storm. I mean, we're talkin' post-segregation. And what are you gonna do? The factories have closed and no one's hiring anybody from the urban community because of what you look like. And now there's a war going on in Nicaragua and drugs are being imported into your community. Are you gonna to sell drugs or are you gonna be homeless? Cause the government's not paying attentionHuh, man you tell meWhat's a reasonable man to say?There's a high school in Alabama named after Robert E. Lee And it's 89% black, you don't see the irony?What it do to a psyche, it's simple, you don't like meWhat I'm 'posed to do now?Delusional calling that system criminal justiceWhere the rich and the guilty are safer than the poor and the innocentWhy would we listen?When American churches scuff they Toms on our brother's dead bodiesAs they march to stop gay marriageWe had issues with Planned Parenthood tooWe just cared about black lives outside the womb just as much as inYoung man gon' find purpose somehowAnd a nation was at least aroundAnd when them vice lords told him he was of royal decentAnd that war on drugs felt much more like war on the poorHe figured forget itSo why don't you come stay a while?Tell us that the son of man walked on EgyptianAnd Eastern soil and wasn't just a Western constructOr master used to control usBut what the master used to free usAnd it was a crooked system just like this that left the King of Kings bloodlessYeah, we are truly a descendant of a KingOnly his reign is infiniteAnd being right is a distant second to the joy or compassionWhy don't you come stay a while?