Hip Hop for Respect - A Tree Never Grown lyrics

Yo, this is 88 this is for Amadou Diallo
Rest in peace, you still here

Yo, I'm in a brownstone
Singin like Brownstone
Bird's eye view of the bodega
No Omega like Rakim
Thinkin about brother Diallo
I find it hard to swallow
Cause 41 is a hard act to follow
Who is it, it can happen tomorrow
Goes down all the time
In some African community
This one just hit closer to home
Cause it happened in our backyard
This that shit bring us closer to home
They ask "What you writin fo'? What
You writin on that paper fo'?"
Don't ask me nothing, just tell me
Who Howard Safir got it safer for
That's why my raps sour
My peoples screamin "Black power!"
And "La Raza!"
From the Bronx, police bustin
It's redemption time

Now on the squad car
CPR's supposed to be the motto
But in they minds, they be like "Yo
I'ma do Diallo" i guess master's noose was a
Bitter pill to swallow cause nowadays
Tips ain't the only things that's hollow
Constitution, 41 more holes in it
And cops swingin sticks like they
Tryin to win the pennant
And stickin sticks places where they
Ashamed to admit it
But that's the straw that
Broke the camel's back they gon' get it!

Possessed by a nervous twitch
And itchy writing finger
41 strokes through the barrel
Of pen for Amadou
More than a few of my personal friends
Since the beginning
It seems like it never ends the story
Ancient as biblical allegory and
It's all gory
The Little Shop of City Hall Horrors
Who bakes infiltrate, agent
Provocateur mission statement
Assassinate the Senate candidate
Heavenly mandate

We proceeded on a country road
His mother's eyes withered swoll
Her child was never comin home
Said a prayer for his soul
As the coffin had closed
Committed to the earth below
First seed she had sewn
Would be a tree never grown
Shade that was never known
Who controls the Terrordome
The men with hearts made of stone
Who love only what they own

Stay on your toes for a
Troop whose description match
Blue suit's, walkin round wit a stick and
Ready to blast with the wrath of a hollow tip
And the fact is my taxes are scholarship
I feel it in my chest cavity
The only death's apathy
So I change it for who's next after me
And that's the fullest reward
Keep the face of the lost
On my bulletin board

Yo yo, it's blue uniform, sirens, names
And badge numbers clubs, walkie talkies
Recipes for bad summers
Frisked, pissed after I tuck in my stuff
I really think they just like touchin my nuts
What's real stain they thoughts
Swear, but they won't say it in court
All they do is change the report
Riots, tryin to keep the crowd in control
They even got shows, Cops, LAPD
Highway Patrol yo yo

From the cradle to the grave
They made you a slave
Brainwashed to kill each other
That's the plague that they made
I search em like readin scripts
That could save you today
White is right, black is wrong
That's the label they gave
Fryin in hell, applyin jails
They got you dyin in cells
Triple six in the mix, Levine to?spell?
Prepare for the worst
And try to hope for the best
I take a stare at the hearse
Can we cope wit the stress?

See I live in the land of plungers
Illegal chokeholds and excessive gunshots
Where there's one millionaire for
Every million empty pot
And Adolf Guili think we static but
He's in for a shock
They come wit automatics but we flip it
Use the one, create the four Glocks and
While stocks get washed
While school doors get locked and
When jobs get blocked
The confi-dence get's rock
And when the welfare's drop into
The jails we stock now
After Amadou wrestlin wit freedom tacks
My mind into a headlock
But fuck H&R, I'm a true cat
Refundin power back to our Blocks

Good life, you can bubble or struggle
But use your brain muscle if you hustle
Don't let nobody touch you
Don't even trust the ones that trust you
Cause the ones you showin love
To might bust you seekin as a cancer
My man got shot by Haitians or Jamaicans
Confrontations and school my mind's racin
I pride these sensations over this
Now I'm hopin this we shine for
I never got a chance to rhyme for
My role models sold bottles and stole cars
And when they got locked
I accepted all the phone calls
That's when niggas was real
Back before I had a deal
Back when people called Vailsburg Hoodaville
ILL!

My mind wonders on melodic jams
An exotic bird, caged with the rage and the
Violence of my words
The same things I down I turn around and do
The white cops say nigga, but I say nigga too
Truth be told we hypocrites
In a materialistic society
Spirituality shunned or
While young kinds get gunned on
Hibernatin in projects, which you project-ing
The pigs is crucifyin but
Africans is resurrectin, jane Doe

Pataki, sending cops to come and catch me
He better send a running back
To run a track meet
When I'm running through the back streets
The rat teeth of beast loving the black meat
Eatin brothers like our pigment
Color is that sweet
To lock a man up in prison
The standard of living
Thinking they make a better brand of man
Than the man when he went in
Rub up a man for sinnin
Handcuff his hands to the system
Banned from his wisdom with insanity in him
His mind roams like a cyclone
Damagin victim
His eyes hold savage within him
Wrath with the venom, poison his life
No ointment to boisten the might
If it's on the left, walk to the right
Until death, do your part through your life
Like a boyfriend and wife
Because the day times shorter than night
You know?

Yo, black is fragile remember that
Cherish everyday
Live life to the fullest, aight?