Prison Chords

Lyrics & chords

[Verse 1]
[Am]Slavery is back.
In fact, it was never abolished.
The 13th
Amendment to the
U .S.
Constitution abolished slavery,
except in prison.
At the current rate of incarceration,
by the year 2010, the majority of all
African
American men between 18 and 40 will be in prison,
the state as their captor.
It's going to take people who are willing to fight,
not people who want to negotiate with the enemy.
[Dm]PRISM[Am]
The pits of life containment
Where reform and discipline are
[F]labeled enslave[Am]ment
From rites of passage to stacking
arraignments
We're sporting the iron bars,
just racing the pavements
It's just like cavemen from
the pages of myth
Cohabitating in darkness while
we wallow in filth
Generations of jewels will
trickle down to abyss
As blood stains these prisons
like the pyramid glyphs
Guilty [F]or innocent,
agent[Dm]s of government
Treat our hoods like picking ground
Schools or tenement,
all [F]sagging uni[Dm]form
As thugs they represent racial [E]stereotypes
Our profile for the oppressed
When [F]you witness genocide every day
[Dm]You get the hint that the ghettos are cold
Like a lab experiment
As [F]young women and [Dm]men,
street hustle before they're ten
Graduat[E]ing from doing our hauls
and up the river [Am]to the
Fear and oppression plague
[F]generation [Am]next
The house of regret locks
[F]down our street [Am]vets
Regroup and repair,
we lost sight of our mission
We're gonna re -ride for justice,
we must be mean
We trade wisdom for green,
trade life for wealth
Fools wait for lockdown to
find the knowledge to sell
I bang hard on the left,
but never fiend for cream
If you borrow, you owe it, if you take it,
you know you're going to the
Prison
The penalty for criminal states
If you're herb or bird, man,
you're study
running from
Jakes I circle with street soothers that build
and plant stakes
Free the land from
Bobby
Long, my skills
And [F]these
United
States, this [Dm]stands no debate
And restriction of law makes
us communists of hate
New [F]world, a new [Dm]focus
And streets need to deal
with new [E]purpose
Their eldership is lacking
The circus of [F]misguidance [E]is deep
In [Dm]prison state of mind of how
you're dead in the street
Yelling
P -I -M -P and you [F]stress
Fake player [Dm]cause to rest
Tell [E]youth to stay in school,
research and manifest
[Am]Slave ways from the whip to the cage
From streets to the cage
We stand dust, hook and dagger
An[F]d twelve heads decide if you
keep your street swagger
Or [Dm]be between bars,
this crazed world get spatter
I'm [Am]a key, fuckin' lesson wise,
don't let mad matter
Rock a uncle, my dog,
cause I deal with life matters
It's [Dm]strange in the sound
of my people and what's sadder
We bake devil's pie and put our heads
[C]in the batter[F][Dm][E]
[Am]
If you borrow, you owe, if you take it,
you know you owe it to the reason
They kill the cold like a lab experiment
Reason, reason, reason
Tell you to stay in school,
you fucked him in [F]the face[Dm][F][Am][Dm][E]
[F][Dm]
[F][Dm]
don't [E]want no [Esus4]pris on[E]
[Am]