Sign Language

[Intro]
This next track has been, uh
Verbally enhanced to address the hearing impaired
Yep

[Verse 1]
I learned sign language at the age of fourteen
My older homeboys who knew it showed me
Common communication for people who don't speak
Cause they can't hear, though they can see, see?
I remember when I first learned to say my name
Then I learned how to spell and say the place I hang
By the age of fifteen, I learned the whole alphabet
Good enough to greet you with it if you came around the set
I never bothered you if you was illiterate
But if you got it and did it differently, I considered it disrespect
So I attacked, then my bigger potna blew me to the side
Then told me some people speak with an accent
I calmed down and started to only use it if we talked
And I figured that conversation was useless
Other neighborhoods assumed I never knew it
So I drive by and do it from the view just to prove it

[Chorus]
Sign language, rhyme language
Tec-9 your spine and make my language, the streets know it
Everything we wanted, we had to speak for it
The repercussions and the consequences, we know it
Sign language, rhyme language
Tec-9 your spine and make my language, the streets know it
Everything we wanted, we had to speak for it
The repercussions and the consequences, we know it

[Verse 2]
I remember bein' so proud
When I was drunk and up in public, I would show out
The bus stop was my favorite 'cause when it slowed down
I said a couple of sentences for the passengers who looked as it rolled out
And if somebody said somethin' back
I would grab the door, run to the back, confront him for that
With more sign language, make the bus driver call the cops
I would run 'cause police who understood it fired shots
And with that, lies the point where it got out of hand
The feds started training people who could talk with they hands as well
And if you get caught you speakin' it, you could land in jail
They did so identical that you can't tell
That's when I figured if play it like you can't spell
You can't talk, so you walk
The flipside to it is the fact that we was fluent, and so fluent
Suburbia's learned how to do it, but they don't know why, no lie

[Chorus]
Sign language, rhyme language
Tec-9 your spine and make my language, the streets know it
Everything we wanted, we had to speak for it
The repercussions and the consequences, we know it
Sign language, rhyme language
Tec-9 your spine and make my language, the streets know it
Everything we wanted, we had to speak for it
The repercussions and the consequences, we know it

[Verse 3]
The other day, I saw my road dogs
Say what's up in sign to an agent that was so long
The paradox, if I speak it, then I'm so gone
If I failed the sign completely, I'm gettin' rolled on
The self-squander, backfire effect
Nobody hires for the sign language tat on my neck
A merry-go-round, society runs you around in circles for learning it
'Til you quit it and then back on the set
Even liberals exploit me
Fightin' for my rights to be equal because I speak it, but they say they can't employ me
Momma avoids me
She claimin' the homies who taught me to speak it as a adolescent ended up destroying me
So even as I grow up, I acted boyishly
Sign language never got me further than my voice in me
An educational system within an educational system
That ended up poisoning me, sign language

[Chorus]
Sign language, rhyme language
Tec-9 your spine and make my language, the streets know it
Everything we wanted, we had to speak for it
The repercussions and the consequences, we know it
Sign language, rhyme language
Tec-9 your spine and make my language, the streets know it
Everything we wanted, we had to speak for it
The repercussions and the consequences, we know it