Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free)

[Intro]
Yeah
Great American Rap, resurrect...
Rest in peace, Young F
'Porting live from the set
Uh
'Porting live from the set, yeah!

[Verse 1]
First off, say "Peace" to Pine Ridge
Shame at all the damage that the white man wine did
Ghost Dance, Trail of Tears, five million beers a year
And all that other crime did
More peace to the teachers of blind kids
To rebels in small cells keeping their mind big
Say everything's hostile, suicide bombers
And prosperity gospels, emaciated models
With cocaine and blood pouring out their nostrils
They got to, just to stay awake
On the catwalk of life where everybody watch you
Straight hair, high heels, and a handbag
Crucifixes, racism, and a land grab
Katrina, FEMA trailers, human body sandbags
A peace sign and a pants sag
A money toss cause a nine-stripper mad dash
A friend request, follow, and a hashtag
Now everybody want it like the last laugh
A Michael Jackson jacket or a Daft mask
Purple Jordans or the mixed girl in your math class
Stable is when the Ba'ath had Baghdad
But corporate jets really had to have that gas bad
War and they hope they all fall from the ratatat
'Cause that's just more dinosaur for their Cadillac

[Chorus]
Live from the other side, what you see?
A bunch of nonsense on my TV
Heaven on Earth is what I need
But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe
'Porting live from the other side, what you hear?
A bunch of nonsense all in my ear
Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay
'Cause freedom ain't free, 'specially round my way

[Verse 2]
And we marvel at the state of Ottoman
Then turn around and treat Ghana like a garbage can
America's a big motherfuckin' garbageman
If you ain't know, you're part and parcel of the problem
You say no you ain't, and I say yes you is
Soon as you find out what planned obsolescence is
You say no they didn't, and I say yes they did
The definition of unnecessary-ness
Manifested
Say that we should protest just to get arrested
That goes against all my hustling ethics
A bunch of jail niggas say it's highly ineffective
Depart from Martin, connect on Malcolm X tip
Insert Baldwin to similar the separate
To me, the truth is more fulfilling than a meth hit
Or finding really fast internet to have some sex with
It's all one song short of a set list
Couple croissants shy of a continental breakfast
Or blowing out your birthday candles just to make a death wish
So absurd, word to Chief Bone Necklace
Down at the Lakota Sioux Casino
A whole culture boiled down to giving you pokeno
I go as left as a heart in the chest
'Cause the Horn of Africa is now starving to death

[Chorus]
Live from the other side, what you see?
A bunch of nonsense on my TV
Heaven on Earth is what I need
But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe
'Porting live from the other side, what you hear?
A bunch of nonsense all in my ear
Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay
'Cause freedom ain't free, 'specially round my way

[Verse 3]
An all-white Los Angeles, the dream of Mr. Chandler
Hope and pray they take Columbus Day up off the calendar
South Central, an example of God's gifts
So shout to all the mothers raising babies in SPA 6
The projects of Oakland city, Detroit ghost towns
Monopolies on poverty where D-boy coke bound
It’s parts of Manila like the video for "Thriller"
But the U.S. Embassy is reminiscent of a villa
If poverty is chocolate and privilege, vanilla
Then what’s the flavor of the Sunday preacher’s pedophilia?
Cash rules everything around these niggas
As classrooms everywhere around me wither
Hither you can be Mr. Burns or Mr. Smithers
The tyrant or the slave, but nowhere in the mid-ler
Of the extremes of America’s dream
Freud fighting Neo, Freddy Krueger refereeing, now…

[Chorus]
Live from the other side, what you see?
A bunch of nonsense on my TV
Heaven on Earth is what I need
But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe
'Porting live from the other side, what you hear?
A bunch of nonsense all in my ear
Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay
'Cause freedom ain't free, 'specially round my way

[Outro]
Great American rap resurrect...
Lupe on the check
Westside till I die!

[Produced by Simonsayz and B Sides; Additional production by Lupe Fiasco and Chill]