Caught In The Hustle

[00:20.89] They say the odds against me are crooked and impossible
[00:23.58] Like I was born with a hole in my heart is an obstacle
[00:26.22] I was left to die by the doctors in the Children's Hospital
[00:28.02] But I never lose hope, success is psychological
[00:30.68] The world is volatile and the street is my education
[00:33.58] Shaping the nation like the blueprint of a mason
[00:36.20] While Shawshank record deals get you raped on occasion
[00:38.90] So I'm focused on my economic situation
[00:41.66] I'm like the little kids on TV that dig through the trash
[00:44.43] I hustle regardless of the way you talk shit and laugh
[00:47.16] A lot of niggaz drop science but they don't know the math
[00:49.82] Because their mind is narrower than the righteous path
[00:52.55] It's funny how on the block niggaz will kill you for cash
[00:55.25] But never raise the gun and cry out, "Freedom at last"
[00:58.18] The cold war is over but the world is still gettin' colder
[01:00.47] Atlas walking through the projects with the hood on my shoulders
[01:03.16] I would like to raise my children to grow to be soldiers
[01:05.87] But then the general would decide when their life would be over
[01:08.66] So I work hard until my personality split
[01:10.82] Like the Black Panthers, into the Bloods and the Crips
[01:13.51] They said I would never be shit but now I sit and reminisce
[01:16.25] Like Yeshua Ben Yusef flippin' through Genesis
[01:18.94] Ignorance is venomous and it murders the soul
[01:21.78] Spreading like a virus running rampant but out of control
[01:24.45] So if I should ever fall and get caught in a hustle
[01:27.19] Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle
[01:29.82] From the hood rats to the rich kids lost in a bubble
[01:32.58] Spray painting on the streets and at the subway tunnels
[01:35.23] Write it down and remember that we never gave in
[01:37.68] The mind of a child is where the revolution begins
[01:40.25] So if the solution has never been to look in yourself
[01:42.63] How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else?
[01:45.37] Immortal Technique in the streets, back on the hustle
[01:48.17] 'Cause three strikes will get you life for stuffin' cracks in a duffel
[01:50.85] Upstate behind steel gates, intact in the scuffle
[01:53.66] Razor blades stuck on the side of pencils, hacked to your muscle
[01:56.36] But the emptiness is what bleeds you to death when it cuts you
[01:59.05] And it's the lawyers, not the inmates scheming to fuck you
[02:01.76] Trying to fight the system from inside eventually corrupts you
[02:04.42] But that's what you get when you put a corporation above you
[02:07.19] And it's the people that love you that seem to hurt you the most
[02:09.93] Sometimes when they die, you find yourself cursing their ghost
[02:12.65] But you make success, nobody delivers your fate
[02:15.34] Sometimes you give and you take
[02:16.28] Since prehistoric vertebrates crawled out of the lakes
[02:18.94] And that's the truth about life
[02:20.72] Or to do it to ghetto and your car, rims and your ice
[02:23.15] Because even though we survived through the struggle that made us
[02:25.50] We still look at ourselves through the eyes of people that hate us
[02:28.58] But I'm going to make it regardless of the trumped up charges
[02:30.77] And semi-automatic barrages that empty the cartridge
[02:33.52] Post-traumatically scar kids that try to be brave
[02:36.33] Because niggaz back stab each other, just to try to get paid
[02:39.02] Turn cannibal like knights during the Crusades
[02:41.71] Afraid of responsibility, addicted to greed
[02:44.49] Beating their girls purposefully, losing a seed
[02:46.61] As if we were bound to the destiny we used to receive
[02:49.83] So if I should ever fall and get caught in a hustle
[02:52.57] Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle
[02:55.25] From the hood rats to the rich kids lost in a bubble
[02:58.02] Spray painting on the streets and at the subway tunnels
[03:00.72] Write it down and remember that we never gave in
[03:02.58] The mind of a child is where the revolution begins
[03:05.39] So if the solution has never been to look in yourself
[03:08.00] How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else?
[03:10.73] I used to wonder about people who don't believe in themselves
[03:13.06] (I used to wonder)
[03:14.06] But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else
[03:16.29] That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves
[03:18.92] Blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves
[03:21.78] I used to wonder about people who don't believe in themselves
[03:22.88] (I used to wonder)
[03:23.86] But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else
[03:26.63] That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves
[03:29.43] Blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves
[03:32.14] I used to wonder
[03:32.97]