Knowledge’s “4for1” is almost a compilation of his other songs, with reoccurring topics such as depression, his abusive childhood, suicide, substance abuse, the media’s promotion of music and the music industry, other rappers, and racism.
This eight-minute track features four different remixed beat...
[Verse 1]
As a child I dealt with abuse, I'm fusing pain with the mic
Felt like the world was on my shoulders, took attempts on my life
I understand that isn't healthy
Like, how the fuck could it help me?
Reflecting as an adult and realising I was selfish, but
You couldn't tell me no different
Try all you want I'm not listening
We had no shelter or place we could turn
This shit is routine and the lesson I learned
Is keep your mouth shut, the more quiet you are
No yelling or screaming inside of the house
Cause that wasn't ever allowed
See, I wasn't raised to believe I could possibly be anything that I wanted
There is no support for the kid with the home that is hectic
We were dissented
Tell me the way I should go
Everything I should already know
All the emotions I'm willing to show
My adolescence, progression, and growth were stunted
So I'm feeling mentally stuck
I live on the edge and I don't give a fuck
A handful of pills, that was never enough
The way that I cope with this is living this up
But if I recall we had been through it all
You niggas are speaking no problems of poverty
As if you actually seen it
But bitch, when we lived in that trailer we never had nothing but roaches around and we couldn't complain
My parents would bicker, it's always the same
My mother was picking us up after school
We'd be in the back of that old station waggon
96.3 on the radio blastin'
Smokey Robinson would have us relaxin'
Quiet Storm before we step in the madness
All of the peace that we had is now past us
Walk in the door but there's yelling and screaming
There wasn't a place where I ever felt safe
And I couldn't relate to the kids that I saw
Cause I felt that they all had it better than me
Cause they don't have to deal with the shit that I deal with
I stay in the middle of arguments
Shitting myself and believing this shit is my fault
Every time they would fight it was grief
Closing my eyes and my ears in my room
When I opened them up, man, that shit never ceased
And I want to be free but there's nowhere to leave
I wondered why people keep fucking with me
Cause when I was in school they would tell me I'm slow
Cause I never attend anything I was told
So they put it on me like that shit was my fault
Cause there couldn't be something that was in the way or the place that I stay
Cause I never got help
My mother got tired from busting her ass
Like, dropping us off and then going to work and then picking us up and then bringing us home
To a man that appreciates nothing at all
While he burning a cigarette, staining the wall
Monday through Saturday crushing us all
But gets up on Sunday to go praise the lord
But there's no time to time in those moments to spare
I figured it out, that life isn't fair
So do what you can
Cause nobody cares
It's all about loving the memories that you have made in your happiness while you are here
I pray that you live without fear
And you never think you're in need of materials just to complete you
Cause that ain't the truth
Don't be dependent on things that can dissipate or disappear when you need them the most
Lawd! Ey, knowledge, nigga
[Verse 2]
Look here
I've been the man for a while
My definitive plan
And I'm attentive to my terror lyrics of part too quick
Style constipated, I could never give two shits
Coming through your speaker like you need to go "Who this?"
Now you need a nigga that's only giving you elegance
I gotta kill 'em, regulator, moving with malevolence
I try to paint a positive picture while feeling negative
A sedative, I soothe 'em, assuming that I'm a sinner
While sending you serendipity, I live in misery
I'm playing Mister Misdemeanour, changing my demeanour
Feigning for the fountain of youth
I wanted wisdom and truth
I know these other mother fuckers try to give an excuse
But my style is too loose, prefer to be reclusive
I give a simple sentence, serenade ya with acoustics
I been showing the way but nobody is tryna follow me
Believin' what I'm doing, I'll never make an apology
I built the foundation for a fuckin' mauseoleum
With a citadel and mural like the Roman Colosseum
Infiltrated by an infidel, I'll see ya when I see ya
Sippin' White Zinfandel
I'm a connoisseur and conqueror
A commodore with the cadence
Occasionally I kill it
I'm giving you food for thought, it's enough for a starving village
My image you won't acknowledge
The mileage up on my brain
Time for an all-chain
Now pay attention, I switch it
Efficiently give a vision
The mission is motivated
I make it a point, I plan it
I done managed to manoeuvre
The music is too melodic
Don't play it for any novice
I'm modest? My nigga, never
I focus on getting better
Embarrassing anybody
You niggas plotting for profit
And politicking with others, evasive is what we are
I'm working but never seen
It's all a part of the plan
There's a method to the madness
You'll never understand
I can spit it any way that I want
But you thought I want the flow they never really noticed
When you giving up your time
And in your mind you're thinking "Man, I'm just a Diamond in the Ruff"
I know it's hard, you're feeling down
But when you get above the ground
I guarantee that you'll survive with nobody up on your side
Whenever you do decide you finally feel alive
We in love with the truth, we never telling a lie
I promise to give you honesty for the rest of my life
[Verse 3]
Man, I swear to god I would never give you nothing that was average
A young black savage
Fast rap bastard
Either way, you see me as the master
Owned a plantation, delicious destruction
My shit is salacious
Distribute discussions, attributing to how I think I can function
These guys on the internet think they did something
Oh no
Time for me to put them in their place, quick
Lyrically impeccable, punctually embracive
Face to face, your fade, it fades, refrains to fame is fake as fuck mistakes that I make
I gotta work with that selective amnesia
Focus on the test and follow all of the procedures
Maybe I'll take a break cause I'm tired I want a breather
I know these evil mother fuckers would like to deceive us
Jesus are you there, do you hear a nigga talking?
I been calling you for years but I feel you just ignoring
Like telling your secretary, "Jot it down, he's not important
Take his name and his number and tell him I'm busy
I'll call him when I can
If I ever get the chance
If he's giving you attitude then just fuck him in advance
I ain't blowin' him up
Cause I know that nigga needed me for forgiveness of his sins
He need a pen and wanna run but he dependant on the pain
Cause that's all that he's got man, I know that's the truth
Subjecting myself to silent solitude
With no silence inside of me, soon to subdue
I'm submitting myself when I plummet
I pray they put poems inside of my casket
My posthumous spirit is piercing my peers
Don't adhere to the fear
Or the feel I appear at the peak of a pyramid
Pissing on pitiful peons for penance
There's plenty pretty petty pressing matters that I know that I need to address
My sobrieties
First I get I high in excess
That don't equal success
It just means I feel less than alive
I'm surprised that I made it as far as I have when I'm lacking a moral compass
Ain't ashamed of my past
Still remember when them niggas told me I was trash
I wanted to spit a couple of bars, but I'm aware that they would laugh
Now I never think about them cause all I did was surpass them, lawd!
[Verse 4]
I said I'm tryna make a way
I need the world to make a masterpiece
The devil's on my ass
That dastardly deviant chasin' me
Replacing my emotions
I'm motioning towards the negative
My nepotism navigates
I'll never reach the narrative
Your negligence is never necessary
It's nefarious
The window's getting smaller
Looking down a narrow barrel
Bullets flying like an arrow
Allocated by your hatred
Hindering the possibility to possibly make it
Aye please, when you rise, tell me what the fuck you really see
I pray that you can recognize and find spirituality
Hoo!
Don't you know fatalities and fallacies are definitely on the way?
It's babies killing babies basically
Cause don't nobody think I know they have secret agendas
To generalize a people of color
Formally cover but covet cash and account for a drinking
A diamond link
And give them all the tools they need to make sure that they become extinct
I try to tell all of my niggas
We are an endangered species
But am I the only one that sees or actually believes to see this
Sick and in my seat I seem to see the seed they planted
Plants are thrown out of the window of a moving vehicle
I mean I veer and steer
A benefit that fear is fabricated
Face it
Base it in my lease of predjudice and poorer confidence
Ignoring the injustice of a judicial system
That puts a race of people away at a rate that's faster than rabbits
Attack it from the inside, destroy a black family
Contra' did a lot of hurt that we have not recovered from the 80's
They put drugs and guns inside of our communities
At least the inner cities to make sure there isn't unity
Confusing that you think this isn't a genocide
We statistics mother fucker but we in need of some rest
And I supply the sentiment if there's actually any left
Cause it's either incarceration or seeing an early death
In the depths of my soul like the test of control like a test
I've been tested, they lessen the blow
On the spot they align and combine as a full
While exposing a posing impressionate person you'd personally
With their personal preference
No pardon for peasants presented for people to place an opinion
Of pitiful, pungunt, disgusting provisions
I need to prepare as I peek with a pair
That's my pain and my passion, you cannot compare
Is it clear that I'm here?
Cause I hear that they heeding my messages
Heated with heathens, they heavin'
A heater to heat up the block
And then chop when they eat up the people
They call up the cops
But they can't stop the evil
There's forces at work that will not embrace change
It's insane how they think all black people the same
Lawd!
[Outro]
Eh! 4for1. That's it. T-that's it. Next week we gon' give you 5for1 then the week after that we gonna give you an entire mixtape that's just one fuckin' track. That's it
(Good work dude.)
I appreciate that, I appreciate you recognising all the work. It is a lot of work. It is a lot of work. Fuck! That's it, 4for1