Mr. Grace (Intro)

[Intro: Derrick Grace II & Daughter]

What is America built off of? Violence and entrepreneurship

So if you had to tell another six year old like yourself what to look out for, what would you tell 'em? They would kill you for the right price

Are you a buyer or a seller? A seller

If I gave you a million dollars right now, would you buy candy or a candy store? A candy store

What is the goal to be? Independent

If you lost everything tonight, what you got tomorrow? Intellectual property

And what is intellectual property? They can take your possessions, but they can't take your mind

How do you say group economics in Spanish? Economía de grupo

How do you say barter system? Sistema de cambio

If I gave you something for 500, and you flip it to the next man for 2000, what is that called? Upselling

Alright now, me, as your leader, as your father, the person that's supposed to have your best interest

If I celebrate holidays and Christmas your entire life and you gotta go beg somebody for a job at 18, what did I do?

You failed me financially

And I want you to tell me, how fast can somebody be a victim of gun violence in America?

This fast (*Gunshot*)

[Verse: Royce da 5'9"]

Was told to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil

In a place that hears no evil, sees no evil

Where the oppressor sees no color

The investor sees no others

The erection seems so seasonal, plus illegal

Man, that's just the mode, that's just the evil

We just adjust to that, that's just machismo

I was destined to be mo' than a apple laying next to a tree, bro

Clandestine, colorful G stuck in a G code thrust into street mode

Searchin' for soul with a stolen identity

Surface low, economically

In need of capital, in search of a loan and it's a few bankin' institutions who got the remedy

But this is America, where credit is for the privileged and profit is not my amenity

I'm just here to get popped by the cops, get popular so I can get discredited in a documentary by the enemy

While in a homicidal, fratricidal cycle of wild, constant hostile energy

Lookin' down the barrel of a rifle while tryna find some inner peace

As God as my witness, through teary-eyed tyranny

Knowledge itself is the caveat and the dollar itself is the demigod

Listen, nigga, this is The Iliad

Flip the dollars for wealth until our figures resemble the myriad

We are the inventors, we are the lenders, we are the matriarchs

Only thing we didn't make was slavery laws

And on this specific day, it's the end of the prison sentence, this is the period

A rich man wrote this with a poor man's focus

A sick man quotes this, but the dope man sold this

Lookin' for a soulmate and the bitch playin' Go Fish

Provin' you got heart doin' dirt for The Tin Man in a quicksand culture

Standin' on anything I said like the kickstand open

Feelin' like Rembrandt sculpted some shit that just van Gogh get

I am the descendant of the original, physical melanin skin man

The highly-intelligent pride of the ghetto, the Zinjanthropus

The Phantom's so clean you can't see the lord sit, damn, she is gorgeous

All you see is a steerin' wheel floatin', led by a herd of stampedin' horses

Checks and balances by the curb

Steps to amateurs flyin' birds

Connected annual to a buyin' surge

Expectin' the amateurs to try and merge

To try and lessen the blesses, but you can never lessen the connection of the indefinite pentameter Ryan serves tryin' words

This is Category A

Definition, battered slave of yesterday

Recognition by cattle

Present picture, a guy battles sexuality in tight apparel, eyeshadow

That's not deep, I'm shallow

As time travels, rapper-boys get to doin' acid on stage

Wearin' satchels, catchin' cases like statutory rape

Online actin' like natural-born slaves, really

I guess it's from the back of the back to back to sittin' with my back to the shadows

With actors standin' behind me with puppets controlling nothing but shapes

But that shapes our fate

This is the Allegory of the cave theory by Plato, and this is the first chapter

The first forty-eight, "Death Of the Dope Man"