Claiming the City

[Intro] Life moves pretty fast You don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it [Verse 1: Ka.lil (aka Khingz) of Abyssinian Creole] Look, I've been away from my city, the city's changes ain't pretty Babies still playing in ditchy forgotten corners The city's forgotten its warriors Who died young Eyes hating the sun that's shining before us How rotten bodies fertilizing the forest of concrete and glass Foul hearted police aiming their gats My head hang over beats I hope my ghosts stay in the past And days I couldn't play to the pad We the same kids they'd be sending to invade Iraq And "make it safe" with crack I got that Gray Goose and OJ in a glass The last day before my cousin hit the pen Down to swing I came back to the town just to be down with the king And loving surroundings it seems Just then he find out his baby cousin fell off a balcony Images of a violent paradise is drowning me Lost souls and I can't let go or tell no The same scenario that rules South Othello Black, Browns and yellow Southsiders tell the devil "hello" And heaven "bye" And it hurts too much to ask why [Hook: Abyssinian Creole] From the places with plenty To the space with no pity The forces changing our city One day at a time If I don't change what's been given What can I say to my children Who gonna be claiming this city One day... [Verse 2: Macklemore] I grew up on Capitol Hill With two parents and two cars They had a beautiful marriage We even had a swing set in our yard My mom didn't have a job, because my dad made enough Money that we could live comfortably and he could support us Now, he'd commute to Tacoma, so we knew we'd be good But then I realized everybody looked just like me in my neighborhood I'd go to school, which was diverse But indeed us, I got sandwiches and Capri-Sun's And my friends ate the free lunch It's crazy trying to look back, cause when I was growing up I didn't understand the fact was There's something called a social status And my black friends weren't in my financial bracket And then my city's divided From neighborhood to neighborhood We're polarized but we claim that we're progressive The police shoot in the hood but never once in my residence Has a white person been shot or even stopped in a Lexus? And to think that we claim that so much has changed Since Brown versus the Board of Education and Roe versus Wade But around my way it all stays the same They just figured out a way to separate the black and white face [Hook x2] [Verse 3: Gabriel Teodros of Abyssinian Creole] Say it's the richest city in the world, right? Images of Tent City in the shadows of Amazon's office site In the jungle down the slide in Jose Rizal's park There's this part in the gate, with a trail to a place over I-5 Where families survive, most my early life we've known about it Called development? They kicked them folks out And moved them around every chance they can since So scared of homelessness, but ignoring them ain't gonna change it And tearing down the 'jects ain't gonna make your ass safer For all that paper wasted just to build up Safeco While Garfield High School still remains like a slave boat We gave up on hope, a long time ago, so I wake on this floor, after pacing hours before Mind racing like a child torn in war zones With every side challenged Needing to manage and understand this balance I can't fall or falter Brother, I'm just an author And no amount of words offered has ever been enough to alter this system Swallowing souls broke My own folks roam upcoast Holding dreams close of what America was supposed to be But works for the rich only This Southend in reality Took my family back to what they was running from before When they left that war Same shit, different continent Home don't exist anymore Home don't exist anymore The 206 that raised me just ain't the same, yo [Sample] All those moments will be lost, in time Like tears in rain