2018

Opened my heart up like tobacco paper, then burned the

Bridges over those troubled waters to keep the castle safer

Kept swimmin til I dipped from the bait-and-tackle, player

Even with enough weight on my shoulders to break a tractor-trailer

Now I’m rockin with a simple plan--to keep the game

In my palm and under my feet like a resistance band

We let the middleman play kick-the-can, cuz we had gave him

A seat at the table, and he started tippin hands

Ain’t dealin xans, but want bars? Hit the cash app

Cuz lately my bills been looking longer than a dad hat’s

But I got way more important matters to be mad at:

I’m trying to get under the pigs’ skin like fatback

I missed my shot and watched em toss the bourbon

Ignore the comments, cuz when I drop, I’m tryna rock the surface

Time is money, and I’ma work til the rhymes are worth it

Why a spark’s runnin all through these bars like bottle service

2017

I’m the white rapper wit no name at the Pivot shows diddy boppin

Just me and these beats, but I’m frontin like the city’s watchin

Yellow bricks in that road to glory, I’m pourin liquor on em

Next to the empty Henny bottles and fallen Philly droppings

Watchin the chain reactions and coppin bolt cutters

Nose runners heard my release date, and cleared their whole cupboard

Flows pumpin through my arms. Y’all gon need more tubs than two Menards

When y’all hear the Bose bubblin tunes that’s hard as pickin either Bone Thugs or Crucial Con

Don’t let me get psychodramatic. Heat got me holdin ice broke in plastic

Bags while I’m peepin five runnin red lights to breeze right over traffic jams

August Chicago degrees hit you like batterams, and a lotta rappers here

Are King Midas if he had blue magic hands

Got me thinking of a master plan, but it’s not mine, cuz

Record executives and politicians both got spines made of box twine

The revolution won’t be watched live, but I smiled when I saw

“POLICE BRUTALITY” on a sticker slapped under the letters on a stop sign

2006

Old flicks of me and crew. No surprise:

My fitted was so low, I didn’t have a nose or eyes

My track record with the ladies was like 0-for-5

...tell the truth, it was more like 0-for-nine-

-teen. Face fixed the same as a doe in high beams

Jeans sagged like they were stuffed with dough from crime sprees

Jump out the gym? Please. I wasn’t pullin the net

I was crackin mama jokes on people and catchin hooks to the chest

Rockin knockoff knockoff FUBU

And me, Ricky, and Ced were lookin like a try-hard Juice Crew

Hanging in front my parents’ crib in River Forest, how we all used to

Ced cussed at a cop car. We laughed as it’d ride off neutral

A week after, I was in the backseat when they got profiled

Cop wilded, but saw me, and his temper got slowed down

Let us go, but I wasn’t there days later on Chicago

When police knocked half of Ced’s smile into a pothole

[HOOK] (x2)

Practicin lies long enough to tell em well

Take the veil offa Lady Justice and set the scales

Out-of-towners wanna talk violence. It never fails

Ask me, “Who’s the biggest gang in the city?” I tell em 12

2015

When I met her, my heart was a window unit. Only siren in my life what they in pursuit with

Whatever was left behind my ribs were ruins, loose bricks, and bruises. Tool kits were useless

Chippin my tooth on bad attitudes when I had rattled excuses like radiators, while I was

Raising the temperature in the living room, and pretending my mood wasn’t hazy later

Fell in love with each other, but I did it clumsily. Lucky she didn’t break up with me

I put my luxury first. Like a sucker, I learned from duckin her hurt not what I would become

But we stuck with it like it was an heirloom, even when it felt like the air too

Thick for us to share, brewin up enough tension to smell the beer fumes, cuz I kept going from zero to Bear Jew

Doubled down. I was twice as wrong. Felt like I was right as long as the lights were on

Apologized, reciting psalms to the choir. Charming, nice, but flawed enough to cause a fight or four

I ignored my own advice. Saw the price it cost. Five alarms whenever I would talk

Getting cross-examined, lost my balance, she dropped the hammer, and I was gone

.

Arms were tired from tryna fight the charge. All my hot air turned to firestorms

Made the bed of nails where I was lying, sharp as everything hidden inside of a lion’s paw

She took me back, so I wasn’t trying to be present in the ways that she didn’t plan

Crazy how winning the argument never really matters in the ways that you think it can

Because...

2010

My favorite rappers were getting no airtime

Most of my best friends rocked acrylics and hair dye

I had a self-image that was thinner than a ticket for fair rides

And eyes shiftin the color of wicked witches and pear rinds

Landmines in the raps, layin punchlines like they sticky traps

Any cypher, was rippin that. Treated my ego like Fix-A-Flat

Put my fingerprints to wax. Bars made em triple back

Speedy grew his pinky nail longer so he could split the pack

Never had a chance with my summer friends, and

All that glittered wasn’t a headlight at the tunnel’s end

Mixin whiskey with the ginger ale. I was watchin the colors blend

Thinkin about the pieces of me I wanted the buzz to bend

Ducked ridealongs with Matlocks. Dialogue in caps lock

Freestylin on the clock, tryin not to get fired on a backlot

Memories sink into skin and don’t just stick cuz your brand’s hot

When those summer breezes hit you like a fistful of blacktop

[HOOK] (x2)

We were young. We were fresh. We were smart. We were sharp

We had lungs. We had chests. We had hearts. We had darts

We could breathe. We could laugh. We could sigh. We could clown

That was bliss. That was here. That was then. This is now