Take, Hold, Fire! Mr. Lif (Ft. Aesop Rock & El-P)

[Verse One: Mr. Lif]
Take my check, take my intellect
Take my self-respect
Ban my dialect, hang me from a tree
Slice my neck
Take my head as a monument of the hatred of opposites
Take the time to sell my culture
Count how you profited
Take a break, take two
What's it gonna take to make you
Understand the man I equate to
I create crews
One thousand, two thousand
Fuck it, bring the whole central housing
Take a trip to free brothers from penitentiares
Judges steady handing out centuries
That nigga got life for growing weed
Ah! See the plan?
He could never be a man
Never get to help his fam
Just like Apartheid that didn't die back in '91
Parents were subject to interference
If they caught you late trying to raise a son or daughter
They'd use a gun or a knife as they summoned slaughter
And I wish I could wring the blood out of your clothes
Give you back your afros and your strong black nose
But what's done is done
Who's gone is gone
Once again, the sun illuminates bodies at dawn
And I yawn and grow weary
Succumbed to old theory
That strips my wits of thoughts I used to hold dearly
So clearly the gold nearly ended existence
A young brother who hungers, laying there listless
A rich brother who hovers, hoarding his riches
A fatal divide
Acts of the colonized
It's a worldwide unwise data that leaks when we speak
Repeats 'till decency depletes
Then leaks through our moral fabric forming havoc
We're left reminiscing what was written on a tablet
It's a path we've forgotten - lost in our heads
And I know they're listening - so P.S.: fuck the feds!