Lyrics Mr. Grace - Intro - Royce da 5'9"

What is America built off of?
(Violence and entrepreneurship)
So if you had to tell another six year old like yourself what to look out for, what would you tell 'em?
(They would kill you for the right price)
Are you a buyer or a seller?
(A seller)
If I gave you a million dollars right now, would you buy candy or a candy store?
(A candy store)
What is the goal to be?
(Independent)
If you lost everything tonight, what you got tomorrow?
(Intellectual property)
And what is intellectual property?
(They can take your possessions, but they can't take your mind)
How do you say group economics in Spanish?
(Economía de grupo)
How do you say barter system?
(Sistema de cambio)
If I gave you something for 500, and you flip it to the next man for 2000, what is that called?
(Upselling)
Alright now, me, as your leader, as your father, for the person that's supposed your best interest
If I celebrate holidays and Christmas, your entire life
And you gotta go beg somebody for a job at 18, what did I do?
(You failed me financially)
And I want you to tell me, how fast can somebody be a victim of gun violence in America?
(This fast)
Was told to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil
In a place that hears no evil, sees no evil
Where the oppressor sees no color
The investor sees no others
The erection seems so seasonal, plus illegal
Man, that's just the mode, that's just the evil
We just adjust to that, that's just machismo
I was destined to be mo' than a apple laying next to a tree, bro
Clandestine, colorful G stuck in a G code thrust into street mode
Searchin' for soul with a stolen identity
Surface low, economically
In need of capital, in search of a loan and it's a few bankin' institutions who got the remedy
But this is America, where credit is for the privileged and profit is not my amenity
I'm just here to get popped by the cops, get popular so I can get discredited in a documentary by the enemy
While in a homicidal, fratricidal cycle of wild, constant hostile energy
Lookin' down the barrel of a rifle while tryna find some inner peace
As God as my witness, through teary-eyed tyranny
Knowledge itself is the caveat, and the dollar itself is the demigod
Listen, nigga, this is The Iliad
Flip the dollars for wealth until our figures resemble the myriad
We are the inventors, we are the lenders, we are the matriarchs
Only thing we didn't make was slavery laws
And on this specific day, it's the end of the prison sentence, this is the period
A rich man wrote this with a po' man's focus
A sick man quotes this, but the dope man sold this
Lookin' for a soulmate and the bitch playin' Go Fish
Provin' you got heart doin' dirt for The Tin Man in a quicksand culture
Standin' on anything I said like the kickstand open
Feelin' like Rembrandt sculpted some shit that just van Gogh get
I am the descendant of the original, physical melanin skin man
The highly-intelligent pride of the ghetto, the Zinjanthropus
The Phantom's so clean you can't see the lord sit down, she is gorgeous
All you see is a steerin' wheel floatin', led by a herd of stampedin' horses
Checks and balances by the curb
Steps to amateurs flyin' birds
Connected annual to a buyin' surge
Expectin' the amateurs to try and merge
To try and lessen the blesses, but you can never lessen the connection of the indefinite pentameter Ryan serves tryin' words
This is Category A
Definition, battered slave of yesterday
Recognition by cattle
Present picture, a guy battles sexuality in tight apparel, eyeshadow
That's not deep, I'm shallow
As time travels, rapper-boys get to doin' acid on stage
Wearin' satchels, catchin' cases like statutory rape
Online actin' like natural-born slaves, really
I guess it's from the back of the back to back to sittin' with my back to the shadows
With actors standin' behind me with puppets controlling nothing but shapes
But that shapes our fate
This is the Allegory of the cave theory by Plato, and this is the first chapter
The first forty-eight, "Death Of the Dope Man"