Caught in the Hustle

They say the odds against me
Are crooked and impossible
Like I was born with a hole
In my heart as an obstacle
I was left to die by the
Doctors in the Children's Hospital
But I never lose hope
Success is psychological
The world is volatile and the
Street is my education shapin' the nation
Like the blueprint of a Mason
While Shawshank record deals get
You raped on occasion
So I'm focused on my economic situation
I'm like the little kids on TV
That dig through the trash
I hustle regardless of the way
You talk shit and laugh
A lot of niggas drop science
But they don't know the math
Because their mind is narrower
Than the righteous path
It's funny how on the block niggas
Will kill you for cash
But never raise the gun and cry out
"Freedom at last!" the cold war is over
But the world is still gettin' colder
Atlas walkin' through the projects
With the hood on my shoulders
I would like to raise my children
To grow to be soldiers
But then a general will decide when
Their life would be over
So I work hard until my personality's split
Like the Black Panthers
Into the Bloods and the Crips
They said I would never be shit
But now I sit and reminisce
Like Yeshua ben Yusef
Flippin' through Genesis
Ignorance is venomous
And it murders the soul
Spreadin' like a virus, runnin' rampant
Out of control

So if I should ever fall and
Get caught in the hustle
Let them know that I died while
I fought in a struggle
From the hoodrats to the rich
Kids lost in a bubble
Spray paintin' on the streets and
At the subway tunnels
Write it down and remember that
We never gave in the mind of a child is
Where the revolution begins
So if the solution has never
Been to look in yourself
How is it that you expect
To find it anywhere else?

Immortal Technique in the streets
Back on the hustle
‘Cause three strikes will get you life
For stuffin' cracks in a duffle
Upstate, behind steel gates
Attacked in a scuffle
Razor blades stuck on the side of
Pencils hacked through your muscle
But the emptiness is what bleeds you
To death when it cuts you
And it's the lawyers, not the inmates
Schemin' to fuck you
Tryna fight the system from
Inside eventually corrupts you
But that's what you get when you
Put a corporation above you
And it's the people that love you that
Seem to hurt you the most
Sometimes when they die
You find yourself cursin' their ghost
But you make success
Nobody delivers your fate
Sometimes you give and you take
Since prehistoric vertebrates crawled out
Of the lakes
And that's the truth about life
Or to do it to ghetto and your car, rims
And your ice
'Cause even though we survived through
The struggle that made us
We still look at ourselves through the
Eyes of people that hate us
But I'm going to make it regardless
Of the trumped up charges
And semi-automatic barrages that
Empty the cartridge
Post traumatically scarred kids that
Try to be brave
Because niggas backstab each other just
To try to get paid turn cannibal
Like knights during the crusades
Afraid of responsibility, addicted to greed
Beatin' their girl
Purposefully losin' a seed
As if we were bound to the
Destiny we used to receive

So if I should ever fall and
Get caught in the hustle
Let them know that I died while
I fought in a struggle
From the hoodrats to the rich
Kids lost in a bubble
Spray paintin' on the streets and
At the subway tunnels
Write it down and remember that
We never gave in the mind of a child is
Where the revolution begins
So if the solution has never
Been to look in yourself
How is it that you expect
To find it anywhere else?

I used to wonder about people
Who don't believe in themselves
But then I saw the way they
Portrayed us to everyone else
They cursed us to only see
The worst in ourselves
Blind to the fact the whole
Time we were hurtin' ourselves
I used to wonder about people
Who don't believe in themselves
But then I saw the way they
Portrayed us to everyone else
They cursed us to only see
The worst in ourselves
Blind to the fact the whole
Time we were hurtin' ourselves

I used to wonder… echo