Caught In the Hustle

They say the odds against me are crooked and impossible Like I was born with a hole in my heart is an obstacle I was left to die by the doctors in the Children's Hospital But I never lose hope, success is psychological The world is volatile and the street is my education Shaping the nation like the blueprint of a mason While Shawshank record deals get you raped on occasion So I'm focused on my economic situation I'm like the little kids on TV that dig through the trash I hustle regardless of the way you talk shit and laugh A lot of niggaz drop science but they don't know the math Because their mind is narrower than the righteous path It's funny how on the block niggaz will kill you for cash But never raise the gun and cry out, "Freedom at last" The cold war is over but the world is still gettin' colder Atlas walking through the projects with the hood on my shoulders I would like to raise my children to grow to be soldiers But then the general would decide when their life would be over So I work hard until my personality split Like the Black Panthers, into the Bloods and the Crips They said I would never be shit but now I sit and reminisce Like Yeshua Ben Yusef flippin' through Genesis Ignorance is venomous and it murders the soul Spreading like a virus running rampant but out of control So if I should ever fall and get caught in a hustle Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle From the hood rats to the rich kids lost in a bubble Spray painting on the streets and at the subway tunnels Write it down and remember that we never gave in The mind of a child is where the revolution begins So if the solution has never been to look in yourself How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else? Immortal Technique in the streets, back on the hustle 'Cause three strikes will get you life for stuffin' cracks in a duffel Upstate behind steel gates, intact in the scuffle Razor blades stuck on the side of pencils, hacked to your muscle But the emptiness is what bleeds you to death when it cuts you And it's the lawyers, not the inmates scheming to fuck you Trying to fight the system from inside eventually corrupts you But that's what you get when you put a corporation above you And it's the people that love you that seem to hurt you the most Sometimes when they die, you find yourself cursing their ghost But you make success, nobody delivers your fate Sometimes you give and you take Since prehistoric vertebrates crawled out of the lakes And that's the truth about life Or to do it to ghetto and your car, rims and your ice Because even though we survived through the struggle that made us We still look at ourselves through the eyes of people that hate us But I'm going to make it regardless of the trumped up charges And semi-automatic barrages that empty the cartridge Post-traumatically scar kids that try to be brave Because niggaz back stab each other, just to try to get paid Turn cannibal like knights during the Crusades Afraid of responsibility, addicted to greed Beating their girls purposefully, losing a seed As if we were bound to the destiny we used to receive So if I should ever fall and get caught in a hustle Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle From the hood rats to the rich kids lost in a bubble Spray painting on the streets and at the subway tunnels Write it down and remember that we never gave in The mind of a child is where the revolution begins So if the solution has never been to look in yourself How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else? I used to wonder about people who don't believe in themselves (I used to wonder) But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves Blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves I used to wonder about people who don't believe in themselves (I used to wonder) But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves Blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves I used to wonder