Blue Scholars - Selfportrait lyrics

Always writing, always revising

Shorty feels the pressure on his
Shoulders as he's lifting it
Wonders why the elders always tell
Him not to question it
Options at the bottom of the
Ladder got him desperate
But all he ever wanted was a
Weapon to protect him with
Riding a 36 through the veins of the beacon
The water is the heart
It's raining when it's beatin'
In the city that I sleep in
I'm dreaming while I'm awake
The miserable escape and they're too
High to ponder faith but who am I
To use their plight to illustrate a rhyme
With everything around me that I've
Never had to live, but I
Observe the inequalities to serve
The people properly
Tell them that their freedom isn't
Found in private property
Prostitutes are more than just the
Folks who sell their bodies
See this shit applies to those
Whose souls are a commodity
I can hear the colony calling me back to be
The bullet in the belly
While they lock, load, and squeeze

Rebel with a pen letting
Off buckshots in threes
Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be
They made a mockery out of the possibility
But under constant revision is the
Poem that I be rebel with a pen letting
Off buckshots in threes
Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be
I be the emcee in the place not to be
But under constant revision is the
Poem that I be

Shorty feels the pressure on his
Shoulders as he's lifting it
Wonders why the elders always tell
Him not to question it
Conjuring the courage just to conquer
Whats been killing him
He says it's fucked up cause
He knows no other synonym
Hidden from the truth
Seen youths turned to troops
Whose goal at 21 is to turn 22
True tuition's too high
And those with the privilege to pay don't
Listen, it's a shame, go figure, in
The name of the father
The son and holy lyrics
I suppose those who know what I'm
Saying when they hear it
Might rage against the system
Or hate me for dissing
The house in which they live in
As a slave to the rhythm
But, I walk the broken sidewalk
Paved with the magic
Of those who walk past it
Just to survive traffic
If paybacks a bitch, gravity's a bastard
Avenues I used to call
Familiar turned backward

Rebel with a pen letting
Off buckshots in threes
Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be
They made a mockery out of the possibility
But under constant revision is the
Poem that I be rebel with a pen letting
Off buckshots in threes
Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be
I be the emcee in the place not to be
But under constant revision is the
Poem that I be

Under constant revision is the poem that I be
Under constant revision is the poem that I be
Under constant revision is the poem that I be
The poem that I be is the poem that I be
Under constant revision is the poem that I be
Under constant revision is the poem that I be
Under constant revision the poetry I be
Under constant revision is the poem that I be

Yo shorty's getting grown old enough
To read the messages
Understands the elders as he then
Begins to question them
One generation handed down
What they've inherited
Another generation rewriting the
Master narrative
Older folks overdose on broken hopes often
Children then begin to grow
Comatose and lost up
In the clutches of the wickedest fingers
Indicative of the systems inhibited
Ability to listen to the voice of the
Dying who've been tired of crying
Nightsticks fall where projectiles are flying
Through a straight path narrow like the
Gap between heaven and hell
They skip class cause they know it's a jail
True
Students prevail when the knowledge is passed
But others sent to fail sitting
Flat on their ass
And now I be the emcee in the place not be
Under constant revision is the poem that I be

Rebel with a pen letting
Off buckshots in threes
Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be
They made a mockery out of the possibility
But under constant revision is the
Poem that I be rebel with a pen letting
Off buckshots in threes
Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be
I be the emcee in the place not to be
But under constant revision is the
Poem that I be