Trying to keep my head above water
 Selling myself short to meet the fucking quota
 Still there's niggas at my heels to get my paper
 Stacking up in the bank  the layers on the cake a
 Thinking like Jimmy  Tami  oh it's low down
 Niggas be getting mad as I go 'round like Pac
 The shit don't stop  I hid the rock in my sock
 Did my day and a half  now it's autographs I be signing
 Instead of police papers
 Caught scheming, not pulling capers, no fed time
 Just mental healing
 What you dealing with? The angelic uplift
 It's a way to save everything with your gift
 (Yeah)
 Now a seed to a tree was to be
 (Yeah)
 A boy to a man comes up quickest like a dream
 You really don't understand why
 'Til you gone and dead
 So when your time comes
 Just remember what I said
 Human'll find truth to tell a lie
 Take away my past and don't show me I can fly
 Sly like Stone, it's on, you say peace
 I can't relate homes, I'm on the fucking streets
 Believe it or not, I'm sure there be calmer situations
 When dirty cops approach me joe, I'm on probation
 Hesitating could get me took
 What can I do? Mildew?
 Can I take your place on your next trip to
 The islands of Alto, so it's going down like that
 I'm back to bat dropping wits on wax
 To fit into the mix of the rich and scan'lous
 Can't let 'em handle us any kind of way, fuck it
 And run away, I don't want it torn joe
 I think they gay, don't wanna play my shit up north
 But that's okay, jealousy can go a long way
 And what goes around comes around in the A-town

 [Big Gipp]

 Have you ever thought about what it would be like
 If everybody woke up and said "Fuck work"
 Webs of small talk, people caught up in this thing
 I try to relax, but I stay shaking like the blue flame
 It keeps coming, this and that, that and this
 Another suing me, well I add him to the list
 Flows and flows, with the girls with the tight clothes
 Saying anything to get off in these back doors
 Irritating like what's on them thirties
 Ain't looking for no more friends, I got enough buddies
 A thousand attempts with thirty cents to their name
 I got enough pine but I can't find the flame
 Sweet like honeysuckles, country like that cha cha on the green
 Jumping fences and rooms with large laughter
 Original gene grafter, more and more ways to eat
 Brews tested by the astronauts, turn the turn the watts up
 Listen to what I said
 CNN all day in your eyes and your head

 [Khujo]

 No longer can I ask when I'm in your presence
 Now it's hard to tell whether you're trying to hurt or help me
 At the bottom of this barrel scraping
 Next time I promise to stand for self-determination
 Instead of always taking from cool
 Keeping the same color as you and me, continue to battle DNA
 Let's travel to a remote city get back, have mercy
 Unravel and break the chains of chemical dependency
 Plastic can eventually explode bits and pieces of my soul
 Shattering, just not being put back together
 We can rule, but still brothers won't use that tool
 In between their shoulders, click
 Hearts cold as bricks, nipples what better way to cripple
 An entire race on the paper chase
 Getting my toes stepped on, then kicked in my face
 Every time I open my mouth I represent the South
 Dirty like red, it was the lifestyle I led
 Worshipping vanity, fornicating out of wedlock
 Locked in yesterday's trunk of secrets, I fled
 Went from sugar to sheet rock
 Get your rocks, sweet licks turn sour
 By the hour, over on tiger flower
 If that light went on that meant go
 Say what you really mean, I atone
 For all the women I abused as a youngster
 People got four fifths out this dumpster

 [Cee-Lo]

 Compositions should be able to make the connections
 From reflections of living
 Why every breath is God-given
 Appreciating, especially waiting
 Letting time do the educating
 In order to know
 Sunshine and the rain are both needed
 Or the seed can't grow
 It's given me some form of inner vision
 How the paragraphs are prepared with precision
 Unveiling evidence that this is no coincidence
 We've been sent
 Judge not by my skin color but my character's content
 In no way is this an attempt to claim to be exempt
 From my people's situations, but I have moral obligations
 See I want to be all right with God
 Long conversations at night with God
 My arms are gonna always be too short to fight with God
 To all this might not be appealing
 But I can't help feeling the way I do
 I realize that my reward won't come from any of you
 See everybody got a little light under the sunshine
 But unselfishly I still want to share mine
 And what you choose to do is on you
 You've got to stand on your own feet cause I ain't got but two
 I can't knock you for not knowing
 But I could for you not wanting to learn
 Nor for asking, but I could for you not wanting to earn
 No I can't, cause somebody even had to tell me twice
 So this music is my sacrifice, so I'll be dedicated
 Determinated and dependable, to demonstrate directly
 And use the opportunity correctly
 So forget the gold teeth
 And uh, and uh
 Forget the bald head
 Forget it sound country
 Just remember what I said