Welcome to America
Where you can dream, as long as you can breathe
You can be the motherfuckin' President of United States
And get murdered right on these streets
Welcome to America
The sins of the father my pop gave me to suffer
The friends I would follow was crack babies and hustlers
It's steel sharpen steel in the block, made me a cutler
My pen is from the future like Octavia Butler (welcome to America, oh)
My grandmother sutured a flag from bloody cotton
The fruits of her labor
Alas already rotten (welcome to America, yeah, ayy)
My man said, "Yo, it's crazy how fast that we've forgotten
That we used to pull boxes and plows like we were oxen
And cows", without an option, and now it's this glorious
Victorious, story only pitched
For me to shut it down, they sold some of us down the rivers
It's such a poor level of thought, I get the shivers
It's insidious and it's always been hideous
I had to tread water and run, be amphibious
They do you so dirty for one, yo, what's cleanliness?
They make you wanna let off a gun into the emptiness like
Preach now, lover, preach now, lover
That we runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin'
(Welcome to America)
Yo, I'm ill-fated and hated, I'm hella melanated
Blackness is my religion to that I'm dedicated (welcome to America)
I follow the laws of nature by which I'm regulated
The universe my university, I'm educated
This one is for my very revolutionaries
After keeping it a hundred even though the truth is heavy
Who stand firmly and see their life is a journey
That either God or the gurney, my public defender burned me
So did the district attorney in a turbulent trial
They told me that time is master, well I'm serving it now
Tell my family I'll be making my return in a while
And every symbol of oppression, I'll be burning it down
Welcome to America (yeah)
Where you can dream
As long as you can breathe (long as you breathe)
You can be the motherfuckin' President of United States (that's right)
And get murdered right on these streets (doo, doo)
Welcome to America
Land of the brave (yeah)
And home of the free (that's bullshit, man)
You can be a saint or a sinner or a billionaire (yeah)
Or just stand on your feet
Welcome to America (keep on runnin', runnin')
America, oh Lord (keep on runnin', runnin')
Welcome to America (keep on runnin', runnin')
America, oh yeah
'Cause when it's over, the world ain't over (the world ain't over)
What they say is what we'll do (it's what we gon' do now)
We outpowered, still have power (still got power)
And that's what we cannot lose
Walking in the shadows, got my eye on the sparrow
Tomorrow may not come, at least my soul felt this love (love)
If I let you go, at least my soul felt this love
Hey now, hang now, hey now, hang now
Now, a black soul never passes alone
If it's blood spilled on the ancestor's ashes and bone
From a pure heart, the Lord fashioned after His own
Went packaged and flown to the essence of his African throne
For every lost body, crossed, tarred, feathered, and tossed
It's no way I could measure the course or ever exhaust
But whether it's yours or mine, this American cloth
Has never been soft, while history was running its course
I ran hard from Jamestown with slaves
Found Jesus and foul demons
That never be charged with malfeasance
I sat through they revival, though I never found credence
I found that we had never known shit about freedom
I've been charged with treason, I've been scarred and freezin'
I've been called a nigga and then called a heathen
When hounds found me, they couldn't even tell if I was breathin'
In America where on black men, it's open season