Rise

[Intro] I know it’s difficult but... You know, the odds really are in our favor, man [Verse 1] Things just ain’t the same for gangsters The whole world's changed, everybody’s a stranger These young dudes running around, saying they're bangers Click their little bangers, they click and bang ya And I done seen too many teens chasing a dream End up blood stream contaminated and fiending And now they leaning on words that he said or she said, we said Look at him, he dead See, we ain’t never know Martin Luther the King Most of us probably couldn’t tell you much about a dream We like Malcolm X, cause Spike made the movie And we saw him strapped up with the AKs and Uzis So excuse me, I'm trying to connect to you, a whole generation is raised by gangsters Who probably never knew pops, we had 2Pac An old boom box, chilling in our tube socks And plus Dre taught us how to roll a 64 And Snoop Dogg taught us how to roll a sticky dro So if they wanna reach us with Jesus They gotta do better than some screaming preachers Cause homie, we don’t believe ya We’ve seen grandmas ride by these cold thieves with heaters So we skeptical, it’s easier to believe that there is a heaven for a thug then to mess with you It’s hard to rise [Verse 2] Hey, shout out to 9th Wonder No you ain't gotta ask We both on the same page like a paragraph And our music ain't the target of discussion But it seems the radio has got a problem playing substance Listen partner, they lying to us They selling pies to us They teach us how to be gangbangers and nine shooters I been where you been, seen what you seen Grew up with Old Dog looking mean on the screen When Nas was street dreaming and Biggie was still breathing And cash ruled everything around me, creaming Folks trying to make the hood life the good life While they in the burbs wishing us a good night And some rappers teach us how chin-check them But I still haven’t heard a song about being movie directors We in your hood, man, we’ve been where you’ve been Been stabbed, been shot, been pinned in the pen Difference now is when we pick up the pen We articulate about how God has made us all better men I’m a college graduate, got some God fearing role models With daughters who do not aspire to be pole models You are not what the media impose on you God made you and He rose for you So you rise!