Straight Outta Tompkins

I’m coming straight outta Tompkins, like Basquiat and the countless
Other jobless folks that ain’t have the options
And bathed by the fountains, laid on the boxes
I came from the age of AIDS and Reaganomics

Back then when crack dens became such a problem
When black men and Latins were blamed for the drama
When gangs weren’t stopping, drug raids in the projects
Some ate from the garbage, the depraved and forgotten

Too many starved then and years later I grew
To view the start of the real estate tycoons
Community gardens disappeared, waves of whites moved
To the new apartments here, natives couldn’t quite produce

Enough to keep inside, an exodus to exorcize
All of the demonized tenants of the devil’s lies
Corrupt greedy kinds developed once they bled them dry
And ‘cause the fees would rise the whole area was gentrified

…This is modern day colonialism
Kicking the impoverished outta the homes they live in
It’s no coincidence that the visitors tone or pigment’s
So much different, the system rather the “homies” go to prison

To the present residents now that are astounded
You represent the lost houses of the dark and brown skinned
They’ll set weapons to bomb housing and char thousands
Then replace the lifeless with raised prices and blame Isis

The same crisis they staged right when the planes collided
With towers for war support but now it’s to slaughter poor
Its happened to people that’s un-wealthy I’ll make that a promise
When Ave D becomes Chelsea I’m going straight back to Tompkins