The Struggle
Or the true lies from an enemy that befriends me because my shadow’s glow blinds like a welder’s arc even when I decide to choose step out of the lime light. Even if you covered me in black paint and drape me in black clothes then threw me in a black pit that’s deeper than the black hole in pitch black night and I’d still step out to shine bright.
My time is right now, and right now is the time I put my right foot forward in a defensive stance. Defending my pride, my integrity, my honor, my morality and anything else that may have been forgotten from any other instances.
I come from crumbs to bricks from bricks to buildings. Lived in the slums in the ghetto around punks, prostitutes, dope dealers, nappy head children and many killings.
Still envisioning police brutality beatings from crooked cops that are thieving from a society they once swore to serve and protect. Acting like they shit don’t stink, so they use a pistol and pepper spray to try to demand they’re respect.
Just adding more havoc to the struggle I’ve preached my sermon to the whole choir about. Meanwhile we have a president whose mind seems to still reside and live in the old retired south.
A man that only has conflict and debris flying from the hole in his mouth that will never learn. The same man that was in charge when the twin towers burned. And when my people needed help from the weather he was the same man that had his back turned. Then four days later he was the same man that gave a piss poor attempt to act concerned.
It seems like I’ve struggled my whole life to search for a yellow straight pin needle in a hay stack. But for any other man that has the testicular fortitude to struggle through the contents of my mind it’s like searching for a silver stray straw of hay in a needle patch.
I seemed to match up words with thoughts and feelings then grab them back in a single snatch to leave the mind in a quiver. I taught a man to fish but he struggled with the concept so hard, he grab the hook a line and threw the reel and rod in the river.
I am that clever nigga up the street with no degree on the grind clean from head to feet with no worries on his mind. I once ran into another from Daytona with a college diploma up shit creek without a paddle, peddling with his hands and feet in the muddy water about to commit a crime.
The struggle is what I recite and preach. The hustle is what I might teach. If I tell you I found a way to beat the struggles of the clan go cut three holes in a white sheet.
Because can’t no man out fight me in a battle of wits for knowledge. I may be the only man I know that didn’t get educated from a struggling for a degree in college.
I got it from what I see in the streets. Young misguided and undecided struggling single mothers on a money hustle selling food stamps to get treats.
That’s a struggle. Or ex cons past their second strike getting denied second rate jobs even when they’re above second best on a score card.
That’s a struggle. Or getting falsely profiled and muscled down to the ground by a crooked cop’s billy club pound even after getting bitten by his hound. That’s a struggle
The price of gas is high. Struggle. The price of sitting in class is high. Struggle. Even the price after getting caught with good grass is high. Struggle. My mind is like that rabid pit bull enraged that broke from a cage and it will never be captured, tamed or in a mussel.
I will stay on the loose. Educating and delegating about recent struggles like the Jena Six, the white tree and what happened when it was draped with a white noose.
Some call me the dark truth. I am pride, power and inspiration. I am the eye of the tiger on any night and the fight. I am determination. I am the absolute last of a dying breed representing a suffering nation.
I’m the look in the eyes of a date-raped victim in the doctor’s office with aids patiently waiting. I’m the falsely accused, and the miscarriage child whose sperm donor is still missing. I am that laid off father of three with bills like no other to see that’s about to lose his place to live in and no food to cook in the kitchen.
Yet, I still have a mission, a black man pacing full of faith even if some may be still wishing and hoping. I am the pain, sweat and tears from childhood fears and lost dope fiends in the streets steady coping.
And after that, I am the aftermath. I am the struggle. I am the spoken word even when the word is not really spoken.
The sole product of my environment. A living progress still living within the struggle.
My time is right now, and right now is the time I put my right foot forward in a defensive stance. Defending my pride, my integrity, my honor, my morality and anything else that may have been forgotten from any other instances.
I come from crumbs to bricks from bricks to buildings. Lived in the slums in the ghetto around punks, prostitutes, dope dealers, nappy head children and many killings.
Still envisioning police brutality beatings from crooked cops that are thieving from a society they once swore to serve and protect. Acting like they shit don’t stink, so they use a pistol and pepper spray to try to demand they’re respect.
Just adding more havoc to the struggle I’ve preached my sermon to the whole choir about. Meanwhile we have a president whose mind seems to still reside and live in the old retired south.
A man that only has conflict and debris flying from the hole in his mouth that will never learn. The same man that was in charge when the twin towers burned. And when my people needed help from the weather he was the same man that had his back turned. Then four days later he was the same man that gave a piss poor attempt to act concerned.
It seems like I’ve struggled my whole life to search for a yellow straight pin needle in a hay stack. But for any other man that has the testicular fortitude to struggle through the contents of my mind it’s like searching for a silver stray straw of hay in a needle patch.
I seemed to match up words with thoughts and feelings then grab them back in a single snatch to leave the mind in a quiver. I taught a man to fish but he struggled with the concept so hard, he grab the hook a line and threw the reel and rod in the river.
I am that clever nigga up the street with no degree on the grind clean from head to feet with no worries on his mind. I once ran into another from Daytona with a college diploma up shit creek without a paddle, peddling with his hands and feet in the muddy water about to commit a crime.
The struggle is what I recite and preach. The hustle is what I might teach. If I tell you I found a way to beat the struggles of the clan go cut three holes in a white sheet.
Because can’t no man out fight me in a battle of wits for knowledge. I may be the only man I know that didn’t get educated from a struggling for a degree in college.
I got it from what I see in the streets. Young misguided and undecided struggling single mothers on a money hustle selling food stamps to get treats.
That’s a struggle. Or ex cons past their second strike getting denied second rate jobs even when they’re above second best on a score card.
That’s a struggle. Or getting falsely profiled and muscled down to the ground by a crooked cop’s billy club pound even after getting bitten by his hound. That’s a struggle
The price of gas is high. Struggle. The price of sitting in class is high. Struggle. Even the price after getting caught with good grass is high. Struggle. My mind is like that rabid pit bull enraged that broke from a cage and it will never be captured, tamed or in a mussel.
I will stay on the loose. Educating and delegating about recent struggles like the Jena Six, the white tree and what happened when it was draped with a white noose.
Some call me the dark truth. I am pride, power and inspiration. I am the eye of the tiger on any night and the fight. I am determination. I am the absolute last of a dying breed representing a suffering nation.
I’m the look in the eyes of a date-raped victim in the doctor’s office with aids patiently waiting. I’m the falsely accused, and the miscarriage child whose sperm donor is still missing. I am that laid off father of three with bills like no other to see that’s about to lose his place to live in and no food to cook in the kitchen.
Yet, I still have a mission, a black man pacing full of faith even if some may be still wishing and hoping. I am the pain, sweat and tears from childhood fears and lost dope fiends in the streets steady coping.
And after that, I am the aftermath. I am the struggle. I am the spoken word even when the word is not really spoken.
The sole product of my environment. A living progress still living within the struggle.
Fredrick Douglas, 1857. There is no progress without a struggle. I am spoken word even when the word is not really spoken. Persistence overcomes resistance so I insist that you listen and bless me even before I sneeze or start choking.
When I open my palms and let poetic psalm and slip from the south tip of my tongue remember it’s not just the gift of gab I’m trying to give you. There’s no progress with out a struggle so the struggle is the story I’m telling you I was pushed, pulled, and shoved to live through.
A mind once bound by shackles and chains I’ve slipped through time like air between the droplets of water in rains to overcome animosity, powered by the sin in me. Tattooed on my chest to the left, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself so I’m not at all scared of any weapon formed up and thrown against me.
When I open my palms and let poetic psalm and slip from the south tip of my tongue remember it’s not just the gift of gab I’m trying to give you. There’s no progress with out a struggle so the struggle is the story I’m telling you I was pushed, pulled, and shoved to live through.
A mind once bound by shackles and chains I’ve slipped through time like air between the droplets of water in rains to overcome animosity, powered by the sin in me. Tattooed on my chest to the left, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself so I’m not at all scared of any weapon formed up and thrown against me.
(Soundtrack provided and produced by Ol' Skool)