Harvard's Innovation Lab Speaker

We're living in some times that's the craziest
They say these legislators are the laziest
Dedicated religious figures have gone atheist
Each and every thing must change, there's no escaping this
I'm on the block, post-apocalyptic smoke covers
Coincidentally presented by the Koch Brothers
The magnitude of this is bigger than the both of us
The attitude is trying to manage not to choke from it
Go and get the bolt cutters
Open the floodgate
Any relationship I've ever been in was love-hate
The city I was living in really never was safe
For some, a temporary resolution was duct tape
Now I'mma probably be on the black list
But I don't give a fuck, so I'm gonna shrug like Atlas
And if my skepticism was a brand new practice
Would y'all be disappointed like y'all just got catfished?
It's cold blooded
I'm wholeheartedly cold-hearted and swole from it
The same unseen hand is still in control of it
I should be mining my own, like it's a gold nugget
But I'm on that same bullshit, just on a lower budget
Waiting on change that been low
'Til the day after tomorrow
I sit by the window
In a police state, like your man Michael Winslow
My kinfolk told me there's a brand new Jim Crow
I been going to bed at 10, up at 5
Hustling to the bus and ride to the job
It's feeling hot as the Fourth of July
My lady just getting home, we leading separate lives
She couldn't be one of those Stepford Wives if she tried
They shot my cousin, he died
It wasn't justified
I guess I'll see him if I make it to the other side
The corner deli owner tell me 'hurry up and buy'
Everybody is somebody, tell me who am I?
The same figure who came from Anguilla
Ain't nothing different, I think I'm addicted to pain-killer
I'm un-permitted to enter the village of Shangri-La
I'm depicted as being a killer that's dangerous, huh?
Half dozen in one hand, six in the other
Yo, this is more than a sun tan, it's living color
Black as oblivion, black as obsidian
Black as the sky at midnight ante meridian
I am black as a portrait with Diddy, 2Pac, and Biggie in
Black as the influence on the culture we living in
I survived the chitterling circuit, vaudeville and then
Managed to inspire The Beatles, and Bob Dyl' and them
But did I miss the mark cause I'm just as dark
As John Henrik Clarke's inner thoughts
At the time of the Harlem Renaissance?
After which, rights activists deviated the flight path
To Black ratchetness, putting us back, smack dab
When night catches us
We just go along for the ride: passengers
Gluttons for punishment: masochists
Still doing whatever master asks of us
Will this generation go down as the last of us?
Where being young men-while-black was hazardous?
Enter the proverbial masked avenger
All these pretenders suffer from symptoms of Affluenza
I'm just thinking aloud about extinction agendas and plans
My grandmother definitely remembers
Listen, her suits were tailor-made
Sundays, Mahalia played
Simple familiar ways
Like the way she knelt and prayed, wailing
"Lord master, forgive us our trespasses," had us real afraid
I never listened, but I still obeyed
I got to see how gangstas played at such an early age
What my father was into sent him to his early grave
Then mom started chasing that base like Willie Mays
My childhood was all of 40 nights and 40 days
Trouble was my ball and chain
Shorties would call me names
Humble beginnings, Black Thought is what that all became
My journey from a dirty hallway to the hall of fame
Music, my therapeutic way to deal with all this pain
I was headed for the drain
Soaking, before the rainwater came
And chaos, that's when the order came
I started doing what I'm supposed to do in life
Trying to move out of the dark, and closer to the light
They say when you get a chance to do it over, do it right
Tomorrow isn't promised every time we say 'goodnight'
Listen... hold up
Dope shot, mug shot, gun shot, jump shot
Take your pick, but you only got one shot
Advice, from a schoolteacher to a young tot
Applying a sticker to a Spiderman lunchbox
When even role-models tell us we're born to be felons
And we ain't getting into Harvard or Carnegie Mellon
And of these other peoples' blessings, we're gonna be jealous It's not fair that that's all they can tell us
That's why I hustle hella hard, I don't celebrate a holiday
That could be the day a brother could've struck the lotter-ay
I refuse to ever lose or throw my shot away
Or chalk it up as just another one that got away
So, I'm unapologetic
I'm on my calisthenics
If I have given it all I've got, I cannot regret it
My final destination's different from where I was headed
Cause I'mma shoot for the stars to get it
One shot