The Gift

My mum used to listen to Janis Ian
While one brother listened to Rush
The other brother listened to dub from the Caribbean
Another brother listened to "Hush"
Dad was Lead Belly, Dylan and Byrd
It was a gift from my family, everything that I heard
Without music, I would've been a different man
Now, put your hands in the air like it's a stickup
Bang

Yeah
My dad used to put on the blues
I could hear his head banging on the wall in the next room
And after he had passed
I realized it was music that he had passed
It's a river that runs inside you
And just like a river, it will provide you
In church, they sing to the Lord above
'Cause you sing when you're in love

(It's the music, woo!) For the love of sweet music
Ever since I was a cub with sheet music
It's such a deep movement
Like hearing "Ante Up" in the club and we lose it
What's the first thing we give our kids? We sing to them
And that's 'cause of all the joy that it brings to them
I haven't gone a day without it
A second of a song can make me nostalgic

It laid the foundation
I felt the vibration
The building blocks of who I'd become

It's the music passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway with love
It's the music passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway with love (with love)

We inherit the gift
Bestowed on the road that we tread as a kid
The sound of guitar in the house from my father
No doubt was the start of the lesson I lived
At home, it was Eagles, Stones or the Beatles
Zeppelin and Hendrix, no one his equal
That's all I've known, and if we've all
Grown, I'm a patchwork sewn from my people

Feel like that was contagious
Big bro was L.A. rap, and the Raiders
My neighbors, Tupac on their playlist
I was more Biggie, back in the days with

Every song painted my heart
Facets of a window, stained in glass
Now, I see the world through the shade they cast
And it shaped what became of us

It laid the foundation
I felt the vibration
The building blocks of who I'd become

It's the music passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway with love (yeah, yeah, yeah)
It's the music passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust (in dust)
Gift of music passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway with love (with love)

I felt the sweetness deep in my bones
When I fell asleep on the couch in headphones
Could melt my weakness away on its own
Was a well so deep, it felt like a home
Woah
Yeah, felt like a home
Na, na, na
Felt like a home
Felt like a home