Locusts

[Verse 1: Finale]
Condos remodel my old turf
For what it's worth, soul got left in the earth
On a search I stood in front of Compuware
The Hudson Building spoke first and said I was here
From old bricks all over downtown
To Sears with the Roebuck attachment
Purple Gang used to move through your block
Like a Mafia pageant
Move around in my town
Where spittas talk
And if you leave, forget us
And try to come back?
I hope you turn into a pillar of salt
Every jackhammer cracking the concrete
That's a lost and forgotten piece of the D
We’ll never see in a book or paper
Replaced with a temp casino
Strip mall, liquor store
Another stadium doubling as a palladium, eateries
The D speaks to me
Now watch yesterday get swept away beneath a pile of debris
Committees picking from a lottery
For the hottest riverfront property
Sign over your deed
Shocking to see us go from Peoplemover to people movers
Let the people choose a better way
They set up shop and sped away
Landmarks come and go like a john with a pro
Led astray and they run up on Detroit for consumption
So I look back and see my city
Under construction
Look back and see my city
Under construction

[Hook]
By the locusts
Surrounding suffocating the city and trying to choke us
Ravaging the crops making the situation hopeless
But we staying focused
Never let the locusts approach us

[Verse 2: Invincible]
Locusts and buzzards circle and hover above the
Abandoned houses shattered windows with the crooked shutters
Cross the street construct a cookie cutter condominium
Lining Woodward, it's the prime meridian
You divide the city and
In the hood, wonder why you pay two times the premiums?
They been redlining the dark-skinned
Owners of homes where they loan with a sharks fin
Arson the property probably for the insurance policy
It's a prophecy that's self fulfilling
They claim to cure us of poverty, BUT
It's serving removal
Of residents with urban renewal
The reverend is the realtor
Here to save and heal ya!
They even “buy ugly houses”
And its memorabilia
Of a myth of a city that's a mystery
Auto industry’s widow
On the auction floor they start to bid low
On houses with hanging gutters and peeling shingles
Purchased at a nervous pace and a cadence
I heard a wrecking ball hit a building that's mistaken for vacant
A sleeping city awakened
By bulldozers and the wool pulled over our eyes
It comes as no surprise
Why the rents are more from the French to Ford
To the Ilitches
Trying to pillage the village and milk it for all that it's worth
While they killing us
But we still got resilience

[Hook]

[Verse 3: Invincible]
Selective memory, convenient amnesia
Enemies scheming on land seizures
Pretend to be well meaning but stampede us
I know you not supposed to bite the hand that feeds ya
But it's poisonous, spread injustice like fungus candida
Predatory planning
Eminent domain
Mowed down Motown
For parking lot next to the game
Empty sentiment of development for pennies to gain
Forget memory lane
This is history
It's like erasing Proof–only remembering Eminem’s name
Many stories
Only one written in pen will remain
With jobs – we at least in a drought
Met a construction worker hates demolishing buildings
But gotta feed his seeds and his spouse
Told me the city pushes people into leaving they house
They cut the lights and gas it freezes em out
Who decided the divide between suburb and ghetto corner?
Henry Ford swinging his chain, the Nazi medal of honor

[Verse 4: Finale]
I'm looking at this strip
Where Lottie the body she probably shook them hips
The malnourished and wild flourish
Among style murderers
Who wanna pile dirt on us
The word on the street is that we won't last long
And is it me?
But if the history of my city was passed on
Could we physically, in spirit and mind, find a way to move
And grab at this song?
And I was young but snuck in
Mahogany put stars in orbit
Unsupported foundation, we aborted sound
Allowed rape and now
It's a bar where men and women got to frequent
And spit a slick thing in each of your ear
And sip a mixed drink and beer for sport
And now the block can not hear
And how we got here
We’ll never know
They showed a broken up Hip Hop Shop board on VH1
Like, "ay come here come see where they from"
And that shit was too hard for me to chew
Like I hate gum
And y'all can play dumb like Jim, man
All I want is another Lush Lounge for us
A new united sounds around to bus
So people can see us
Before the debris and dust and what was
And I am not trying to rap, man
I'm time travelin'