The People

[Intro] Now Usually when a party is given, right It's given by a promoter, right And the promoter has his own people distributing fliers and advertising to get people to come down to the party But this time The promoter that gave the party He was so, like, down And such a together brother, you know what I'm saying We threw down with him To try to make the party a little something Now I don't know how many people remember who gave you a flier for the party But if you didn't see it hanging up somewhere one of us probably gave it to you Cause we was busting our ass giving these fliers out Trying to get this thing, you know, a nice size for y'all [Hook] We are people yeah [Verse 1] We are the ones left to make due with the two hands the good Lord gave us With no resources enthroned to the forces that be with no one to save us The ones in the classroom where the books are outdated, teacher no longer outspoken The ones left to congregate where the pusher gives a fix to those who had their dreams broken The ones left to drown and rebuild the towns in the path of the waters from the levies The ones with the problems of the world on they back to make light of the fact that the weight is getting heavy We are the ones who have daughters and sons who commit themselves to having unsafe nights The ones who lost family in 9/11 hours after telling them to have a safe flight We are the one [Hook] [Verse 2: Chuck D] We be the soul, the human core, the planet whose blood, sweat and tears even we take for granted We the ones separated by wardens at international borders [?] to take government orders We are the ones with the same childhood dreams but adulthood brings nightmares and screams We be the raw excuse to slang, I mean, we the people they stereotype for gangs Who sowed the seed for our daughters and sons, withstand the infiltration of drugs and guns We are the ones who kneel to the young with a heart of gold to avoid being victimized by our sons We be the ones trying to raise them into all man brothers got some whipping post from coast to coast We are the people run down, lied to, cried to, still they depend on our culture to live and dance to We are the people Still the wretched of the earth At the end of God's day We persevere through the hurt We are the ones [Hook] [Break] We are the world [Verse 3] Come on, Michael, that's a motherfucking lie We the people at the fish fry We the eighty six percent with heart disease Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Nike shoes wearing, no banking accounts No misbehaving, catching the blame Same old same lotto playing Looking to Obama for deliverance But ever since they popped Malcolm and Martin We at the front of the bus now, pouting Complacence ain't nothing but a lazy man's sofa You can see the whole scope [?] With a video hostess hoe We're emotional, but if we [?] I think we're supposed to roll But we the same lying, cheating, backstabbing We part of our own struggle We would burst our neighbor's bubble Destined to meet the maker but at the same time we the same people late for his arrival Yo, a false survival No longer feeling tribal And as much as it makes me feel good to say "we are beautiful people" There's a lot of us messing it up For the people [Hook]