EMERGENCE

ShapeShifters (2008)

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STATE OF EMERGENCY
Lyrics by Invincible

(Its a state of emergency. Its a state of emergence see)

Since 'Last Warning,' I showed you I'm transforming
Like the grain that pass through hour glasses shaped by sandstorm wind
Put em in a trance with the recording
See the hands swarming
In the crowd I ran towards em
And my wing span soaring
Like I'm Flash Gordon with an aerial view
Of the mitten next to Ontario
I bury ya crew
Detroit city, shoot for three points hit me
From the top of the key like i'm on the Shock
And you shocked that its me
While Kwame defending his texts and descending in debt
I got the opposition copping a plea
But musically we setting the standards
You cats are biting and forgettin your manners
While every sentence cinematic stretching the canvas
Paint a picture of war like Guernica
All you gotta do is let it bang turn it up!
I spit the flows
'til i'm six below
My job's to make the "revolution irresistable"
So listen close
Dangerous to speak the truth–that complicated the matters
I guess its just an occupational hazard
In the trenches, I'm underground like the salt mines
Throwing the wrenches
Now they defenseless
We hit the fault lines
Awakening the senses we all blind
First i gotta make it through the entrance
By the time I hit the exit
You'll all rewind

(state of emergency, its a state of emergence see, say it with urgency, its a state of emergence see/emergency)

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LOOONGAWAITED
Lyrics by Invincible. Lyrics on hook co-writen by Vaughan T.

(Yes, its here, the longawaited, all these years of stompin pavement, cut the nonsense, just accomplish, aint no way to rush the process)

Born in Champaign, Illinois
Ever since then been on a campaign to fill the voids
And missing links I drips my ink on topics that you still avoid
Cynics say our troubles can't change but I kill the noise
Heaters that's built to destroy
Speakers front to back–turn the volume up!
Smash these cats like Gallagher soon as I wrap the album up
Thought I'd never finish it
For more than minute I wished to end this shit
Put down my penmanship, and get a carpentry apprenticeship
Swinging sledgehammers for a minimum wage
Renovate a DV shelter for women with AIDS
Least I'd have some benefits and I could see a dentist quick
Still my thirst I wasn't quenchin it by learning a trade
Chopped my signature braids
New beginning enter the stage–of nothing to lose–a hundred percentage to gain
Witness my train of thought, three minutes and change
Its the longawaited song
I layed it over tracks that Vaughan created

HOOK:
Yall been waiting
I've been making moves
Gotta do it right can't lose
Got my ducks lined up and I'm on my grind
Its the mission Invincible accomplished
You wanna classic? You gotta wait for it
You want good music? You gotta support it
You want change? Its a daily choice
You want a dope show than yall should make noise!

I'm striving to be one of the best period
Not just one of the best with breasts and a period
Styles blessed with a myriad
We take the independent route and win–that's what my man Wes theory is
Call me every A&R's worst nightmare
When your label drops ya fade to dark
We still bright glare
And this is razor sharp
I make my mark
We don't fight fair
Cuz we taking ya spot
Its state of the art
Ahead of yall by light years
Picture me rapping slow–sample Barry Manilow
And switchin up my baggy clothes for camel toes?
No that'll have to go
I don't battle no more
Make an album so dope you stranded up shit's creed without a paddle boat.
I don't write rhymes
I write ransom notes
Demanding a check
Demanding respect
Demanding spins from hands on a deck
These ain't rhymes this is a ransom note
Demanding a change
Demanding the truth be told on this anthem that bangs

HOOK

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SLEDGEHAMMER!
Lyrics by Invincible. Lyrics on hook co-written by Abeer.

Listen
I got a passion for spittin
Smashin the competition
Vocals the logo for the back-to-back world champion Pistons
Undebatable
Flesh is biodegradable
People ego deflatable
See no evil and play the role?
I'm Peter Gabriel
With a sledgehammer
Red handed
Bled stanzas
Set standards
Dedicated to Dilla, Proof, Abel Meeropol, Fannie Lou Hammer, Marlin Riggs, Nina
And Fred Hampton
There goes the neighborhood like
Fred Sanford next door to Ned Flanders
These cats pop off at the mouth like Orville Redenbacher
My lyrics open up the portal to your seven chakras
Helicopters circling
Watch the exchange of Betty Crocker
Soap operas inventing drama
Prevent it
Remember Nakba
SMASH various barriers
Bury us under road blocks
You don't get it. Get it yet? Do you?
The struggle don't stop
It don't quit,
Worldwide winning with style like Globetrotters
Don't try this at home
If you stuck in time with broke watches

HOOK:
SMASH the walls of hate
End it for the next descendants
Watchin em fall from grace
Reppin for the independents
Futuristic sound
You just missed it now
Present with the essence
To evolve, put it all at stake
(You don't pay attention man)
That's why your power is the size of your attention span
(You don't pay attention man)
That's why your respect's the size of your attention span

Its fresh air when I'm speakin to yall
Sometimes it falls upon deaf ears like I'm speakin to walls
I ain't preachin to yall
Breakin cycles of violence
Not repeatin they flaws
Open up your memory bank
I got the key to the vault
Servin the antidote to Alzheimer's
Delete and install
Ginkgo biloba think it over
We the leaders we've all been waiting for
Believe it
Heed the call
Breathe it
Keeping involved
These lyrics heat seekers
Deplete tweeters til the speakers dissolve
"Each generation must find its mission, fulfill or betray it."
I know that ours is more than just being killers or players
Or making millions of papers
Our blood is spilling
They hate us
Too much injustice among us to sit still n complacent

HOOK

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PEOPLE NOT PLACES
Lyrics by Invincible

Prepare for take off
Touch down Ben-Gurion
Strict search make sure nobody enters with bombs
Blue white flags
For the Birthright Tour I’m on
Never mention three villages the airport is on
Recent history buried
But it speaks through the sand
All Jews: Law of Return
I don’t seem to understand
"A land without a people for people without a land"?
But I see a man standing with a key and a deed in his hand
First stop: museum of the Holocaust
Walkin outside–in the distance–saw a ghost throwing a Molotov
Houses burnt with kerosene
Mass graves
Couldn’t bare the scene
It wasn’t a pogrom–it was the ruins of Deir Yassin
Next stop: shopping at the Kenyon Malcha
Built it on the back of the town Al-Malha
Wishing we could call it its name
Uphauled by the change
And now a mall full of chains
Is all that remains

HOOK:
My Ima misses people not places
Has she seen the towns with names in Arabic the Hebrew replaces?
The policies are evil and racist, deceitful and heinous
You’ll never be a peaceful state with legal displacement

Remember the names of our cities before you came and replaced it
Remember and tell me how am I supposed not to miss a nation living within us?
[Translated from Arabic]

At the Wailing Wall I’m rollin a wish
Then stick it in between the hole in the bricks
I’m feelin more than melancholy
This used to be the Moroccan quarter
Until we stopped em short and
Now their grandkids is the ones that’s throwing rocks at borders
I aint one to play and I don’t pray often
So I’m AWOL'n
While you making native sons
Feel like a stranger in they own land like James Baldwin
This aint about a Qur'an or a synagogue or Mosque or Torah
The colonizer break it into acres and dunums
Erasing the culture
Changed Haifa to Chaifa
Changed Yaffa to Yaffo
The old city left to haunt
Hummus pronounced chumoos, we ate in a restaurant
Next hit the discotheque
Yes we on the list of guests
Palestinians cant get in
Its blatant disrespect
Cops stop em for speakin they language
Its dangerous
To repeat it when
With history we disconnect

HOOK

200 year old olive trees
Uprooted the groves
To build a wall
Now their future enclosed
Settlements spreading like cancer and toxic sewage polluted the roads
Now full of checkpoints
I superimpose the truth and it shows
Village ruins overgrown with planted trees
Who’d have thought the "desert blooms" and Tu Bishvat
I cant believe
This aint environmental
Disguising lies, extincting lives like manatees
Callin it a transfer? Please–
More like a catastrophe!
Birthright tours recruiting em, confuse em into moving in
Claim its only names and words but denying the root of them
Power been abusing it
Our past never excusing them
60 years since 48 and 40 since Jerusalem
My boy Shadi wanted to visit it so badly
He lied he’s diabetic to see it for five seconds
One Nine Four ruled the courts in the case
Mom, you can’t disconnect a people from the importance of place

HOOK

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SPACIOUS SKIES
Lyrics by Invincible

Recollecting when we first met
Friends of yours advised me come pursue ya
Hypnotized by your spell and smell
Sprung by your perfume
I flew over–no delay or run ins with the steward
Yeah, our love was younger, newer then
When we were honeymooners
Now our days with sun are fewer
Nights are numbered
Lunar eclipse, glitter and glitz
Hate to admit
Dismissed a hundred rumors
As imaginations figments
Spread like tumors
Diagnosed malignant
Radiation patient hunting for the cure
You’re so immature
Unreliable
Never liable
Blaming the entire globe
And call em evil-doers
But i’m sure
There’s no reparations
For sweat and lost energy
Considered best comrades
Become my worst enemy
Hurtful abusive
Blood curdles and oozes
Under the surface of epidermis
The purplest bruises
Truth is, your gorgeous
But hunger for power gorges
With armed forces
Contorts your slim figure to enormous

HOOK:
Oh beautiful
With your spacious skies
I wanna love you but you hide behind a fake disguise
Oh beautiful

Planned your birthday party for July Fourth
I was dis-invited
Ride your high horse
To a black tie affair with your peers
Who can apply force
Oh beautiful
Really wanna make this fit
Promised me to change ya ways
But keep on repeating the same mistakes and slip
Blow your candles make a wish
Erase the taste
In meltin pots
Blood on auction blocks
Now felons caught in cells
I seldom thought
We’d 86 relationships
Obsolete like laser discs
Jealous thoughts possessive so in
Self defense I’m raising fists
Still you fail to hear
The trail of tears
And broken treaties
Border Walls we
Wrote graffiti
Tag it like your toe
You’ll go alone and greedy
Even though you know you need me
No pretending we co-dependent
You killin in my name I get the blame
Your co-defendant
So much arrogance
Its an embarrassment
Go see a therapist
For your paranoia of terrorists
While terrorizing
Analyze the flaws in your character
Do u really love me–or just lust for power–America?

HOOK

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NO EASY ANSWERS
Lyrics by Invincible

(You know how people say, "Love is the answer," then what the fuck is the question??)

L.O.V.E. Hell no. It isn't easy
Temp rising breathing faster
I can't get no easy answers
Study up and read the chapters
I can't get no easy answers
(True love) aint the answer said a former lover through the issues
But was is real or was it superficial?
If its really (love) whether emotional abuse or if they bruise and hit you
Would you be confused or choose a loose or chipped tooth?
Why is it (love) needs a ring and city hall papers to prove official?
Is it something you fall in
Or a thing that soothe and lifts you? (love)
Defying gravity
But rather than the latter we
In Pat Benetar's "battlefield"
Where's the seminar to help a tattered heart that's shattered heal?
Why rally up and chant for nation states that hate to reconciliate
When two people who loved each other can't?
Is it chemistry? cuz if the recipe is off it leaves you saltier than MSG
We got (love) sparks
Like a finger in the socket by mistake
Is it the opposite of fear or opposite of hate?
Is your (love) guarded with your life
Locked up in a safe?
Or if its free
Why you feeling trapped and plotting your escape?

Searching for greener pastures
I can't get no easy answers
Caught up in the heat of passion
You can't get no easy answers
Turning to complete disaster
I can't get no easy answers
Somebody deceived the masses
Cuz there aint no easy answers

(Love) Supreme like Coltrane
A no brainer, do u try to own it,
Or keep it open with no hang ups? (love)
Is it a baby in her mother's arms?
Or maybe it's the way you got me open with your southern charm?
No Ordinary (Love) and other songs by Sade
Sweet as agave
There's romance and slow dance but what about agape? (love)
Is it a verb or a noun?
Why some disturbed I prefer her and wish that we would burn to the ground?
Is it (love) only in between the sheets?
To me its ONLY true if I'm told when I got food between my teeth!
That's real (love)
Do u believe in soul mates or mating souls?
Why so many relationships just fill a gaping hole?
Instead of (love), Reflect, Elevate and Grow
Can you truly love another if u relegate your goals?
I heard (love) is breaking all the chains
Take away the pain
Live it
Flying higher than a thousand paper cranes

Temp rising breathing faster
I can't get no easy answers
Study up and read the chapters
I can't get no easy answers
Somebody deceived the masses
Cuz there aint no easy answers
Yep, it both frees and captures
I can't get no easy answers

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DEUCE/YPSI
Lyrics by Invincible, Buff1, SUN, and PL. NOTE: only Invincible verses are included below.

White picket fences, green lawns, nice, rich, expensive
College campus, so progressive
Every child advances
Lies and deception
Difference is tolerated
With a few exceptions
So liberal and colorblind you hear a "beep" when you cross the street
Let the bubble pop from culture shock and the cost of deceit
Off the beaten path
Reaching in my past
How'd i get involved?
Trying to keep the Klan from speaking on the roof of city hall
But analyze oppression on the daily
The truth of the deuce, city that raised me and failed me
Even worse than the Klan, still asking
Why across the street from Braeburn and Forest Hills is where they built the landfill?
Colorful like mill creek–
Most of us we grew apart but some of us we still speak
Introduction to america, Bryant Elementary
Childhood friends from Stonybrook now in the penitentiary
It ain't coincidentally
Tracked before middle school as criminals
By teachers who belittled you, claiming they're "liberal"
By 14 most of my feminine friends raped
Many males expelled to Stone or Clemente
Detroit was another planet–broken and abandoned
We so blinded, close minded, hoping to expand it

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RANSOM NOTE
Lyrics by Invincible and ANOMOLIES

Invincible:
Storm up to the door thinking that we kicking down using a trojan horse
It wont open with force, our moments short, so what's the last resort?
Picking the lock–plan B skeleton key sticking
Covered up in gloves and hats so they cant match our description

Helixx:
A.N.S. masked marauders
Hip hop's doctors without borders
Operation: No More Lies
Kidnaps the daughter of a media mogul
Who hijacked the hip hop game
We took her to close the gap
We demand a prisoner exchange

Pri:
Now, run in the back room. Don't nobody say shit
Helixx C grab that chick before she runs quick
Don't worry bout her man he done made me mad
Fold that ni**a like a press shirt and fold him in a body bag

Big Tara:
In the hummer now we're off as i proudly thought my crew
Initiates the long awaited media coup
A car passes blastin music from the bullshit charts
Ain't no turning back from here ANOMOLIES is going hard

(There's been a big kidnapping...she screams when the men burst in and started beating her fiance. The young heiress was forced into the trunk of a white car...Police say the whole thing was carried out with commando-like precision...What we received in the mail today appears to be a seven page statement plus a tape recording...and according to the demands we will outline here it says all these things must be publicized in full...which is what we're doing now.)

Pri:
Now, listen up people: This is our communiqué
If you want your daughter be wise and do just what we say

Invincible:
Tell the truth you own both right wing AMs full of haters
And the FM's who cater to the lowest common denominator

Tara:
Tell the truth about payola-based quotas and your motives
To hold our attention so you sell it to the highest donor

Helixx:
Truth is, your companies wanting to stifle freedom of speech
Cuz without neutrality, the net will filter what you see

Invincible:
We resorted to these tactics cuz you know you can afford it
We demand our own stations so our voices aint distorted

Tara:
We demand you break bread for the babies–they need educating
Updated books and computers for the future they're creating

Helixx:
We demand that you give us our wireless citywide
And make it free so we can truly end the digital divide

Pri:
We demand that you stop making hip hop commercialized
Before it meets its own demise by the devil in diguise.

(Dad, i'm ok, i just hope that you'll do what they say, dad, and do it quickly.... I just want you to know that I'm going to do everything I can to get you out of there. Its a little frightening because the initial demand is one thats impossible to meet. However in the next 24-48 hrs i'll be trying my best to come back with sometime of a counter offer thats acceptable.)

Invincible:
A station, they said you could have it right here, fill out this bureaucratic nightmare
They'll tell us if its up to standard in 5 years.

Tara:
Gave excuses no books or computers to the youth
Free stickers and hats to every single public school

Helixx:
They said they're giving us the wireless its trash
Taxing us with hidden fees they profit while we crash.

Pri:
Just because you throw a bone that don't make it grub
Rap stars and Nascar thats not what we asked for

Invincible:
You want your daughter? come and get her

Tara:
But when he arrived, surprise! All that he found was a letter.

Invincible:
She said, "Pops i've known since i've been grown, you hijacked the minds of the masses gave em stockholm syndrome
I helped ANOMOLIES plot all along
To take your monopoly spot, and while you're reading this we're gone."

Helixx:
Creating our own outlets even if it aint out yet
Seeing typical trends through a critical lens
Making media, music, so you have no influence

Invincible and Helixx:
Mobilizing a movement so your brainwashing is useless

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SHAPESHIFTERS
Lyrics by Invincible

Music's not a mirror to reflect reality
Its a hammer
With which we shape it*

HOOK:
To all my crate diggers
We the shape shifters
The fire flame spitters
We the shape shifters
To all the freight bombers
Break jitters
Mic stage rippers
Tell em get they weight bigger
We the shape shifters

Man I hate hate but I hate bigots
Especially the ones who make eight digits
His maid underpaid
And while she's making his steak dinner
Unaware of her tears
He wonders why the taste bitter
Caught the itis heavy eyelids
Sleep too deep to wake him
In his dream state cleans plates
And his feet are aching
Leans weight side to side
Chemicals make his hands peel
Realize he's seein thru her eyes
But he cant feel
Pillow only brillo pads
Wishin he was middle class at least
Cooks a feast pours a drink
But can't sip the glass
Mental telepathy
Possess him with her recipe
To make him feel some empathy
Hears her thinking "set us free"

Back in his own bed sunlight is spilled
Between the window blinds
He then decides to write his will
Their lives are intertwined
Him and this young lady
Give away his whole fortune
Did a 180

HOOK

A great plague spread/ crept into the space age
Transmitting hate rape climate change
My brigade with senses sharper than laser rays
Equipped with 88 keys, a 808 bass
To save the whole Homo sapien race
21 hours 180 minutes shorter than 8 days
To prepare for the events about to take place
Invading with a treatment and aimin at point blank range
Injected by a form undetected to the forces
Who are hoarding resources to make a quarter
We gain our supporters going door to door ta
Reconnect the cord from the brain to the aorta
Stop nothing short of
Everyone understanding
That all the power's within em to counteract this
United never defeated
Long as the fight is strategic
Self-reliance and sound as the tactic

HOOK

Take a deep breath only one week left
Oxygen levels lowering with each step
Business tycoons sending typhoons
Seems the mic's doomed
Now we're only down to five moons
Schools closing
Breakin in to pop the lock
Cops mace babies–Krylon their eye sockets slots
Getaway high speed chase youth lead the way
Round up the dj's only down to three days
And survival hinges on the motto that the knowledge is within us
Make the cynical wake up
Change their chemical make up
The plagues energy fading to a vague memory
The last is the fastest day
Transform like Muhammad Ali did from Cassius Clay
Time travel to the next art form we adapt to
They'll sample this resistance time capsule

HOOK

*adapted from the famous Bertolt Brecht quote

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Ropes
Lyrics by Invincible

Its hard to get a glimpse of hope
When you against the ropes
Try to penny pinch but after bills and rent ya broke
Life it always throws a wrench like Emp at Interscope
You in the aftermath succumb to numb it with a drink or smoke
To Ease the pain I sleep all day
Relieves the hangover from the E and J
Lookin for a tunnels end a light to lead the way
But the shame has been ingrained into my DNA
Cuz pop's was a failure
Mom was on lithium
Always settled for less than the best
No one to pity em
No one to drop a pretty gem
At seven tied a plastic bag over my head
Like, "What's the point but getting older and dead?"
So innocent, searching for missing links
Surrounded by the carcasses of instruments
Of dreams departed hardened by the sentiments
Out of tune and sharpened by the artists who neglected it
I'm scarred by my resemblance

Hook [performed by Tiombe Lockhart]:
Silly things
That I do to feel life
I realize
I drink and I smoke
Scrambling for a hint of hope
My tight rope

You know the one where a rabbi, imam and pastor walk in
To a bar to discuss what happens if the caskets dropping
The one inside committed suicide
Family spastic sobbin
The answers come in more flavors than Baskin-Robbins
Will god forgive em for the sin
and will they ever make amends
Or was it the last option off of the path they walked in?
Depending on if they believed in hell or heaven
Or if there was a chemical imbalance in their cerebellum
Or if the pain was overwhelming full of self loathing
Feeling plagued by failure like the first males chosen
Or what if hell's frozen, and life was only this purgatory?
Full of greed, and murder, war
See I know you heard the story
What if they wait and have faith to reincarnate?
With luck they won't be stuck again between a rock and hard place
Running in a hamster wheel
We wondering what answer's real
And star gaze pray someone above to keep our heart safe.

HOOK

I heard the barrels cry wishing they could spare ya lives
Was feeling paralyzed but no I wasn't scared to die
Feared not livin to the fullest so i pulled it
All or nothing
Now somebody wanna call my bluff when
I tried to flinch
Told them that the suicide attempt was cause I'd rather die
Than live and ride the bench
For every victory there's like 50 times the set backs
For every revolution there's a death trap
And everytime I see police attackin with a tazer gun
A protester that's down already on the ground my face is stunned
I see people that's unaffected like "that's just for safety hun"
Turn around and tell myself: "You're not the crazy one"
To all the unfazed and numb, hope that you hear
What I've spoken is clear
So you stop repressing choking the tears
We all walk the line between insanity and sanity
And hope and despair
Hope and despair

Outro [performed by Tiombe Lockhart]:
I realize
I'm as big as the sun in the sky
Wild dreams and mild denies
Slow raw and numb outside
I dream in the snow
I drink and smoke
Hint of hope
Walking on the tight rope…

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KEEP GOIN
Lyrics by Invincible, Wordsworth and Indeed. NOTE: only Invincible verses are included below.

(I keep goin)
Even when i wanna stop
(I keep goin)
Even when i wanna stop,
Is it the release of the anger that makes me murder the tracks?
Or the silent majority turning their backs?
Is it the passion or the love or the drive or the faith?
Is it the knowledge that our lives are at stake?
Is it preparing for the moment when opportunity knocks?
(I keep goin)
Even when i wanna stop

To all the haters and biters
You motivate us in ciphers
My flows and cadence relayed it to notebooks paper papyrus
Been on tour with bronchitis laryngitis
Every night I rock despite it
Some of these cats acting like they wearing diapers
And I keep keep on
Even when my hand tires
No labels or vampires
No funders or grantwriters
Inspired by freedom fighters
Before us and coming after us
To the present survivors of human massacres–
If you "considered suicide when rainbows were not enough"
And bank rolls were clotted up
Its painful I brought it up
The truth gotta come out from different angles its bottled up
Serve it with a ladle from the cradle til my body's dust
Nothin else synonymous to the feeling i get from demanding respect
And knowing that i'm earning all my papes
(I keep goin)
Stay persistent you determining your faith
(I keep goin)
Always changing cuz I learn from my mistakes
(I keep goin)

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IN THE MOURNING
Lyrics by Invincible

They Say,
Legends aren’t legends til they pass away
Do you wonder why we have to wait
Til we bury they caskets or spreading they ashes
To be more than a half awake
Sleep on genius ahead of ya time
Style they could never define whether given credit to shine
His competitive rhymes battle shit protagonist role
Movie scripts had the actors flipped
His canvasses splattered with soul
Ephcee legacy hasn’t been told
And they called in the morning chasing the scoop
No time to mourn him late no excuse
Brought us together blessed us with beats
Rhymes live forever flesh obsolete
A mourner’s poem to the cornerstones
Two pillars Proof Dilla
So support ya own

When a momma gonna get to mourn her son?
The Reporters gone and recordings done
In this industry that extorts they young
Ask em for a fraction they short on funds
Many obstacles still
With payin hospital bills
Now who could possibly steal
From an ancestor?
I’m givin em everyone’s favorite hand gesture
Shady dealings made the millions try to buy the catalogue
For less than what ya label’s willing
Lowest bidder for the path you paved with brilliance
Skills and passion city gonna stay rebuilding
Love ur killer too–hating won’t bring you back
Stained ya name and covered up his dingy tracks
Lied you had an outburst n shot first
If we don’t stop this jealousy it’s bout to be a lot worse

No more moments of silence
We’ve been quiet for too long
That’s the same as betrayal
More than bare witness
To struggle speak out
Or be complicit
To these fake portrayals
In the D hold u a jazz funeral
March down Woodward in mass numerals
But its like the levees breaking
They coulda prevented it
Not ya death but the premature event of it
Instead of prepare for the storm
We stare and ignore em
Cry in despair and just mourn
I’d rather repair and transform
Recharge your battery pack
But now its after the fact
So wut we want a pat on the back
For the courage and compassion we lacked?
If it stays the same,
Your whole life was in vain
Love you in the mourning
By inciting a change

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LOCUSTS
Lyrics by Invincible and Finale

Finale:
Condos remodel my old turf
For what its worth soul got left in the earth
On a search I stood in front of Compuware
The Hudson Building spoke first and said I was here
From old bricks all over downtown
To Sears with the Roebuck attachment
Purple Gang used to move thru your block
Like a Mafia pageant
Move around in my town
Where spittas talk
And if you leave, forget us
And try to come back?
I hope you turn into a pillar of salt
Every jackhammer cracking the concrete
Thats a lost and forgotten piece of the D
We’ll never see in a book or paper
Replaced with a temp casino
Strip mall, liquor store
Another stadium doubling as a palladium, eateries
The D speaks to me
Now watch yesterday get swept away beneath a pile of debris
Committees pickin from a lottery
For the hottest riverfront property
Sign over your deed
Shocking to see us go from Peoplemover to people movers
Let the people choose a better way
They set up shop and sped away
Landmarks come and go like a john with a pro
Led astray and they run up on detroit for consumption
So i look back and see my city
Under construction
Look back and see my city
Under construction.

By the locusts
Surrounding suffocating the city and trying to choke us
Ravaging the crops making the situation hopeless
But we staying focused
Never let the locusts approach us

Invincible:
Locusts and buzzards circle and hover above the
Abandoned houses shattered windows with the crooked shutters
Cross the street construct a cookie cutter condominium
Lining woodward its the prime meridian
You divide the city in
In the hood, wonder why you pay two times the premiums?
They been redlining the dark-skinned
Owners of homes where they loan with a sharks fin
Arson the property probably for the insurance policy
Its a prophecy thats self fulfilling
They claim to cure us of poverty BUT
Its serving removal
Of residents with urban renewal
The reverend is the realtor
Here to save and heal ya!
They even “buy ugly houses”
And its memorabilia
Of a myth of a city thats a mystery
Auto industry’s widow
On the auction floor they start to bid low
On houses with hanging gutters and peeling shingles
Purchased at a nervous pace and a cadence
I heard a wrecking ball hit a building thats mistaken for vacant
A sleeping city awakened
By bulldozers and the wool pulled over our eyes
It comes as no surprise
Why the rents are more from the French to Ford
To the Illiches
Trying to pillage the village and milk it for all that its worth
While they killin us
But we still got resilience

Against the locusts
Surrounding suffocating the city and trying to choke us
Ravaging the crops making the situation hopeless
But we stayin focused
Never let the locusts approach us

Invincible:
Selective memory / convenient amnesia
Enemies scheming on land seizures
Pretend to be well meaning but stampede us
I know you not supposed to bite the hand that feeds ya
But its poisonous spread injustice like fungus/candida
Predatory planning
Eminent domain
Mowed down Motown
For parking lot next to the game
Empty sentiment of development for pennies to gain
Forget memory lane–this is history
Its like erasing Proof–only remembering Eminem’s name
Many stories
Only one written in pen will remain
With jobs–we at least in a drought
Met a construction worker hates demolishing buildings
But gotta feed his seeds and his spouse
Told me the city pushes people into leaving they house
They cut the lights and gas it freezes em out
Who decided the divide between suburb and ghetto corner?
Henry Ford swinging his chain- the Nazi medal of honor

Finale:
I'm lookin at this strip
Where Lottie tha body she prolly shook dem hips
The malnourished and wild flourish
Among style murderers
Who wanna pile dirt on us
The word on the street is that we wont last long
And is it me?
But if the history o’ my city was passed on
Could we physically, in spirit and mind, find a way ta move
And grab at this song
And I was young but snuck in
Mahogany put stahhrs in orbit
Unsupported foundation we aborted sound
Allowed rape and now
Its a bar where men and women get ta frequent
And spit a slick thing in each uhva ear
And sip a mixed drink and beer fa sport
And now the block can not hear
And how we got here
We’ll neva know
They showed a broken up Hip Hop Shop board on VH1
Like, "ay come here come see where they from"
And that shit was too hard fa me ta chew
Like I hate gum
And yall can play dumb like Jim, man
All I want is anuhva Lush Lounge fa us
A new united sounds around ta bus
So people can see us
Before the debris and dust and what was
And I am not tryna rap, man
Im time travelin…

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