[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!