[Talib Kweli talking]
 The other day I was walking passing when you was on the way to
 meet my pops  you know  and this white boy stops me  talking
 'bout  he be in the National Socialist something or other
 trying to sell me a paper and  give me some  uh  Free Mumia
 pamphlets. So you know I'm in a hurry  right  and i told him
 right  and he tried to check me  like 'Have you ever even heard
 of the Black Panthers, and Mumia was fighting so you could go to
 college, and...' All this, and I'm like, "dude, you don't even know
 me, man. I don't even fucking go here, man. I know who the
 fuck Mumia is, man. Innocent niggas get locked up every day, man.
 That ain't nothing new..."
 But, yo, on the other hand, you tell some brothers Mumia's on
 death row, and they think he's making records with Suge Knight.
 I don't know, man, I guess it just really where you at, you know
 what I'm sayin'...Bust it.

 [Talib Kweli]
 Niggas on the street running like slaves
 Trying to eat, yo, we averages
 Twenty one years from the graves, back to baby carriages
 The same hypocrites screaming pro-life and marriages
 Be using religion to justify our savageness
 'How bad is this?'
 You and the creator need a mediator
 Your priest is human
 Your relationship with God is greater
 The men who think they hard
 Steady issuing death penalties
 The people got no right to life cause they all slaves mentally
 You turned'Thou Shall Not Kill' into a sham of a commandment
 Your interpretation I cram to understand it
 Like light
 So if America is majority white
 The the prison's another country like James Baldwin
 Blacks and latinos all in the system
 Like it's a calling to fall in the trap


 That's why our blocks are infested with drugs and gats
 In fact, cats on their throat cause the way they think is illegal
 One thing you can't forget when you're dealing with people

 [Chorus 4x]
 The Human Element
 (scratched)
 "Done somethings bad, done somethings good"

 [Tae]
 I done walked on these streets 24 revolutions
 Gon' start for play me more just from raw evolution
 Fucking up your system like P&D pollution
 Staten niggas free be in (?) institutions
 It's the term of the century
 Ohio got twenty seven penitentiaries
 44,000 for each entity
 See a nigga on the street, snatch him instantly
 Here come the infantry, they shoot to kill intentionally
 word is you could be disturbed mentally
 Police balk, but that's business officially
 What you thought, they supposed to show sympathy
 We born enemies, they sworn to get ridda me
 Protect to serve, you gotta be kidding me
 Eventually, my conscious state made 'em contemplate
 The price of freedom is your life man you compensate
 Now think that all the way through, and let me commentate
 And every common state be seem to dominate
 And man accomodate laws they abominate
 Through bars to combinate
 And guards to confrontate
 Souls are irrevelant
 In cells like melanin
 Judge without intelligence

 Chorus 4x

 [Talib Kweli]
 My nigga starving in prison for bartering with ism
 You tell me which is civilization and which is barbarism
 He fell into the traps he knew was put here by the system
 Some people got the knowledge, but they never apply the wisdom
 If you ain't got it, then replicate it
 Or join the growing ranks of the ill-fated
 Slated to be publicly humiliated
 If you ain't the problem, then the solution you have to be
 We'll start a hoodlum intelligence agency like tragedy
 We majesty, stay focused with thought and meditation
 Deviling this Babylon with strength and dedication
 Like that, and we don't stop
 My A of life gon' remain on top
 It's the Reflection, and we got the sureshot
 And we only drop that pure hip-hop
 This goes out to freedom fighters, graffiti writers
 Innocent lifers, grassroots organizers
 This goes out to single mothers
 Soul bad brothers
 Young lovers of the revolution that solutions
 This goes out to cats raising babies
 The the ones who react, say, when the world get crazy
 Blaze one for the MOVE organization
 Ramona Africa, and those that know truth is liberation

 Chorus 2x

 Hi-Tek put it on 'em
 Free Mumia