Thought Process

(album: Soul Food - 1995)

Let me get a chop at this lumber niggas
From da down underground are hanging around the A-Town
Looking for a come up, working from 9 to 5
Just to get some change so T-Mo can stay alive
Not greedy or living' lavish yet but you can bet that when I do
Nobody from my crew will I forget
And if I start to get large and come up on some change
I won't change, everybody know they down
It's not the same, everyday life can be different
These laws got me ready to ball
Cause I fall a victim so I still be slanging them fat pillows
To make 'em meet, each and every day as I comb my city streets
Sometimes I wish I never had been apart of this mess
Cause the system got us fucked up
It put us to the test, women and men if you black you in
Food for the soul listen to what I tell you it don't matter
Young or old it's time we loc' up and do like we suppose
We killing each other over this bullshit and some clothes
We're trapped off in this world and society with no place else to go
So how U feel?

Frustrated, irritated, sometimes I don't know myself I be too numb
To feel something sometimes so I dig deep, get in the Cherokee
Let my mind fly free into the wilderness so I can get this shit off my mind
That's why I be smoking that dank sometimes, it keeps me from snapping
Keeps me calm, keeps my mind open, keeps me fond of what I gots to do
Off in the studio to get my old burd back on her feet, and my little bro'
In Statesboro and my little cuz Mark Twain, all my
Folks that hang with me when I was out in the trap or when I was going
Thru one of our episodes, only god knows, whut I go thru so I get down
On my knees, sometimes I come home too high to pray, but I get on my bed
Lay on my back and meditate, anyway, in the ceilings, the four walls, it's
Like cell therapy I got nothing to do but write about my L-I-F-E, put it
Down on paper...So whut chu feel?

I live for today, motherfuck another hour, it might be sour
Never know my day, so I'm praying in the shower
Look up and thank the Lord for forgiveness, a witness to bad
I'm looking for good in the Southwest, God bless my neighborhood
It's people killing in da street to eat
Surviving the day is the only goat that I set
Just to make it home, I'm not alone
Someone's out to get me when I haven't done shit wrong

My head felt swoll, mista couldn't see past my mouth
What route did you take man
Caught me by that loops of my pants
Got me on the curb letting tha traffic pass me by
No questions I said nothing
Looking for tha mutant to be bucking
Tha law naw, man Gipp show him my shit
Close my mouth then I dip
See to me G is a person who understand tha plan
Can't make no moves when you in tha hands of tha man
They got some new suites down Peachtree
Left wing for tha Feds, right wing for tha hardheads
Making more deals than Buddy Folks made with Hartsfield
Somebody don't want my face in tha place, for 96 shit's slick
Got me clean, looking fresh, dogs be scratching at my chest
Under the order of who? Guess who ain't non-iller than miller
Wanna 1, 2 your ass no more life what you gave was tha past
Cuz ain't no future wanna millicamp your case
Disgrace your face, make it seem to be safe
But ain't no place to run...

Sometimes I don't even know how I'm gon' eat
'Bout twenty dollars away from being on the street
Shit, you might see a nigga on tv
But hell it's almost like I'm rapping for free
That little money be gone...got dammit, I'm grown
Gotta help keep the heat and tights on
It would be nice to have mo' but I kinda like being po'
At least I know what my friends here fo'
I wanna lie to you sometimes, but I can't
I wanna tell you that it's all good, but it ain't
It's nigga's hurting and uncertain 'bout if they gon' make it or not
That's why we got nigga's killing
Feelin like they coming up off a little dope they sold
You can get some gold but we won't make it as a whole
Cause without you there'd be no me
And without no unity there will never be any happiness
You could smoke a pound of sess and it still won't relieve yo' stress
God bless my...thought process

The thought process...
Now as an Outkast I was born, wasn't warned of the harm
That would come to meet me like Met Life, but yet life
Done sent me through a lot of up's and down like it ain't nothing'
Like elevators but I ain't the one that's pushing the buttons
I got off at the 13th floor, when they told me that it wasn't one
They said it skipped from 12 to 14
Still smoking, still drinking, no I'm sitting on the Lincoln
4 A.M. thinking that in reality the world is like a ball full of playas
We trapped off in this maze with walls made of layers
And only prayers is the tightest game that you can have
The devil's taking a swing that might explain the broken glass
But my crystal ball see the pistol fall to the wayside
Nobody would die in cops and robbers when we used to play right

Huh, the only thang we feared was Williams, Wayne
Never though about hitting licks or slanging caine
Didn't think I'd be the one to give in to abortion
Label me murder because my ass is scorching
Hot from the glock that sits under my seat
Yeah, it's real fucked up that my floks come to get me
And it's like dat, yeah...and it's like dem