Joe Budden - Freedom lyrics

I can't really do shit cause
They got me handcuffed it's okay mommy
I can't believe they just did this
I'm fuckin'
It's okay, I'm right here with you!

Now, what we've been doing is
Looking at the data and we know that police
Somehow manage to deescalate
Disarm and not kill white people
Everyday so what's going
To happen is we are going to have
Equal rights and justice in
Our own country or
We will restructure their function and ours

Let's take a moment to stand and
Observe the Hell we live in
No matter how high the fire
It never melts the system
Some can help but didn't
We fill up the jails and prisons
You don't believe that's a business
Only yourself you're kiddin'
But now they killin' our people
It's all on television
Them cops went home to their people
Turn on the television i tell my son
Careful what you learn on television
He 15, he don't know what I mean
Don't know about yet, doubt and suspect
Out sets of controlled outlets
From those who don't wanna let us out yet
Land of the free, the home of the brave (nah)
Can't let us be, we've grown from slaves
It's there if you wanna read
I mean it's all on the page
Say it's police, I just know when it's race
Now it's just thrown in our face
Maybe I'm lost, signs are vital to me
Sandra Bland didn't come off
As suicidal to me
Y'all play around, thinkin' we on safe ground
They killed Tamir Rice and his rights
Right on that playground
Eric was selling cigarettes
"I can't breathe, " it was said
The bigger threat he was a nigga, I bet
But listen
Last year I went to church with my Mother Fay
We sat behind Ms garner
And it was Mother's Day
She sat strong, inside I cried for her
My eyes tucking the water as
I was hugging his daughter
Philando Castillo told him he
Had a weapons permit
Was murdered moments after without
A complexion permit
That's bloodshed with his daughter in the car
I'm only upset for our
Sons and daughters tomorrow
Question, how many cities we
Gotta march through? Signs we gotta hold up
Or are they tryna provoke us?
Cause when them 9s load up
And land mines blow up
And the crime don't slow up
They'll chime in and say they told us
Or is it only a crime when done by poor us
Food for thought
My mind don't run off of cold cuts
Raw and evident, Alton was offed, heaven sent
Recorded the negligence
They just ignore the evidence
And make it seem as if we in y'all way
Maybe our government is governed by the NRA
That would make a diseased Capitol
In need of capital
They even legalized weed for the Capitol
But be black, sell in the street
They get mad at you casually clap at you
It's Uncle Sam sayin' taxes due
Our epidemic systemic
Black Panther fist at Olympics
They just condemn it, hold up
Said the Klan marched in Piedmont
Even worse
They were protected by police arms
In Baton Rouge it's pictures of
Them in riot gear it tells me they know it's
Plenty reason to riot there
Yet we just keep on praying
All while we feeling it racism still alive
Now they not concealing it
It's revamped, shackles are gone
Now we get house slippers
And all us millionaires are the house niggers
Irony, the only ones naked
Are urban outfitters
White people seeing us murdered are
Even down with us
They sayin' let's make America great again
I'm curious
What time would you like to place us in?
Were we degraded then? Did
They enslave us then?
Or is it ignorant of me to even say again?
If it's civil war
Then what are we civil for?
It's this is freedom to y'all
You better get us some more
Freedom! Freedom! I can't move
Freedom, cut me loose!
Freedom! Freedom! Where are you?
Cause, I need freedom too!
I break chains all by myself
Won't let my freedom rot in hell
Hey! I'ma keep running
Cause a winner don't quit on themselves

And we're done watching and
Waiting while this
Invention called whiteness uses
And abuses us
Burying black people out of sight and out of
Mind while extracting our
Culture, our dollars
Our entertainment like oil -
Black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our
Creations then stealing them
Gentrifying our genius and then trying
Us on like costumes
Before discarding our bodies like
Rinds of strange fruit