I've Got Life

[Nina Simone]

I ain't got no home, ain't got no shoes

Ain't got no money, ain't got no class

Ain't got no friends, ain't got no schooling

Ain't got no hurt, ain't got no job

Ain't got no money, no place to stay

Ain't got no

[Lauryn Hill]

Programmed inequity, it's in the nervous system

Listen, watch the words, how they twist 'em

Two thirds of the world turned victim

Subtle energy, they capture and block chi

The unseen violence behind the democracy

Some call it hypocrisy, turn freeman into property

And logically justify not treatin' 'em properly

Invisible ink in the constitution

Meant to preserve the institution, unequal distribution

Of wealth, goods and services

Revolvin' door, no floor, just anxiety and nervousness

Trapped in circuses

Herds of us, not understandin' our purposes

When appetites and psychological types

Get caught in the hype, it's tight from morning 'til night

I'm demanding my rights

Women's suffrage then black suffrage

Or Jim Crow, the KKK

American terrorism

Murders and beatings on television

It's in the cells now, you thought that was yesterday?

But the compression stays, trauma still got most afraid

Stuck in the memory, fear gives birth to lethargy

Generations of children in jeopardy

History written in jealousy, scribes full of heresy

Full of barbarians, ch-ch-check out my melody

Musical therapy, reprogram

Africa full of coltan

Coltrane was a cold man

Black genius in a cold land tryna be the whole man

Heal the homeland

Past time for our own land

Where a grown man can be a grown man

The system has benefit for robbery is robbery

You can't run from it, God is a natural monopoly

Divine creator stuck in monotony

Bureaucracy, psyche on poverty

Self-esteem broken like pottery

No more, not me, codename anomaly

Cause there's just no match for the prodigy

Sovereignty, the god in me

Walking university, living cosmology

Without apology

[Nina Simone]

I've got life

I've got laughs

I've got headaches and toothaches

And bad times too like you, you, you

[Lauryn Hill]

OK

The more you suppress life the stronger it gets

With death life the longer it gets

I know it’s hard to admit

That you follow some bullshit

Swallow the wrong pill looking for mr bill

Repression, oppression: same thing (same thing)

Fear the shadow that’s the main thing (main thing)

They keep running from

Every action yields an equal and opposite one

Yes that means the consequence comes

Fields of cumbersome back breaking labor

Can’t be healed with just a cummerbund

I was homecoming queen call me number one

Yep that’s another one, now give the drummer some

Tell every mother’s son expression can be far more powerful than a hundred guns

See my Kalashnikov lyrics with the safety off

Now dance around these niggas like Baryshnikov

Street sweeper my words are my keeper

It’s in the ether, now what you trynna tell these preachers, It’s done

It’s done let loose your tongue

Gifted, black and young

Watch these devils run

They knew a change was gonna come

Sinner man looking for a place to run

Tell the truth in tongues’ enemy reduced by one's

Thousands 2 can put 10,000 in flight

Speak truth to power every 24 hours

[Nina Simone]

I've got life

I've got laughs

I've got headaches and toothaches

And bad times too like you, you, you

[Lauryn Hill]

(Ay let me tell you)

Imperialism is a form of Jihad

They killed and enslaved millions for gold bullion, in the name of God

The children of mammon called it spiritual famine

Can we examine, how they stole bauxite, rubber, labor, diamonds and platinum?

The building blocks of society and economy, broke humanity to build the colonies

Using reverse psychology to keep us from knowing our quality

No more human tragedy, no more mis-recognition, no more addiction

Let’s accurately diagnose our condition!

Listen

400 years of the abuse and misuse of religion

Don’t give me another person’s prescription!

I need what I need, my deeds are my deeds

As a man thinketh so is he, Mezanmi!

Take the land back, every child, woman and man back

Reevaluate history, expeditiously

Can’t live my life in apostasy

Emulate the apostrophe hang with S, you can rock with me

I come in love and truth (truth)

Look at what I went through

Now it’s time to acknowledge just what I give you: Life

[Nina Simone]

I've got life

I've got laughs

I've got headaches and toothaches

And bad times too like you, you, you

[Lauryn Hill]

There’s a whole lotta wrong to be righted, I get excited

I'ma kick this shit off like I’m on Manchester United & my attention is undivided, so you can’t divide and conquer me!

I’m sitting comfortably in a SUV, up in my SUV taking artistic liberties

Making musical history, a lil' acupuncture, structural integration, my meditation, liberating a generation & beyond that, I’m taking the bomb back. I’m splitting atoms for freedom, America needs more FREED men, able to talk right, not prone to GREED men (It’s just not what you need man)

Let your words and deeds line up, master the mind, young king man??, put your signs up, intelligent designs up!, plant your seeds, keep your dimes up, cuz no man knows when the time’s up

It’s elemental like Solomon in the temple, Ark of the Covenant, accountable to a higher government

I’m looking for love (in all the wrong places)

Somebody tell me, where them brothas went, reclaim your wealth, no more giving the enemy help, no more sympathy for the devil, let'em hang himself

Get all the billion Black people out of these bottles, suffer while grown people get coddled, you know the novel

[Nina Simone]

I've got life

I've got laughs

I've got headaches and toothaches

And bad times too like you, you, you