Gangland Lyrics - Church Clothes 3 - Lecrae

We not playin' out here, it's for real. We livin' out here for life, we tryna to get it. Ain't nobody finna take our life. I keep my young homies out here with these things, my big homies out keep handlin' me. And we keep it crackin'. My other name should've been Jesse James cause I stay with my cannon. I didn't have no choice, I was raised right around the corner from where we stand. Hollow points in it and all of that, I'm ready. We gang bangin'! 

My cousin beep was a killer 

He done pulled a lot of triggers 

He done made a lot of mothers drop 

And if you ask him why he do it he'd just say, "I'm young and foolish" 

Bang only, right before he made them bullets fly 

He ain't have no sense of dignity, his daddy was a mystery 

He'll probably end up dead or sittin' in a penitentary 

And tell the judge he can go to hell for the sentence 

And it probably make no sense if you would listen to the history 

The new Jim Crow or the old one 

People out here fightin' for equality and honestly I think they owe some 

Back and forth some 

Cleaver got a message for the people 

Bunch you with 'em and they tryna stop the evil 

And they cliqued up with they fist up 

The whole neighborhood feelin' like they meant somethin' 

Then it was a mix-up, fair's got 'em fixed up 

End of the movement, back to the bricks, bruh 

And Raymond Washington about to start the Crips up 

They gettin' bigger every day and tryna fix stuff 

They saw Geronimo Pratt dodgin' bullets from attacks 

Guess they figure, "We don't really want it this much" 

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You know originally, the gangs were created to protect everybody in the community. There was lynching and bombing going on and the gangs were there to protect. What people don't understand is that a lot of the leaders died. Medgar Evers (has been shot), Bunchy Carter (has been shot), Fred Hampton (has been shot), MLK (has been shot in Memphis Tennessee). These youngsters didn't have any direction. No leaders to look up to so they went rogue on 'em 

They say that Crip stands for Community 

Revolutionary and Interparty Service 

Way before the genocide and the murders 

A little after integration was the verdict 

When bombs might go off at the Sunday service (baow!) 

They protectin' they community 

Then it turn into diplomatic immunity 

Then a fight against oppression was the pressin' 

Now they keep on losin' battles and they started losin' unity 

Now they beat each other blue-black 

Force fed self hate 'till the truth crack 

Got they own folks hidin' on the rooftops 

They ain't finna take no more, they finna shoot back (baow!) 

Now they bond like a family they all bloods 

From the concrete jungle to the small hoods 

Throwin' signs up, now the crime's up 

We was meant to kill oppression now we loadin' 9's up 

But never mind us, grind us 

Factory the clothes, now a lot of people jobless 

Now they got the drugs comin' in from Nicaragua 

Government done turned a blind eye, or they liars 

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It was a perfect storm. I mean, we're talkin' post-segregation. And what are you gonna do? The factories have closed and no one's hiring anybody from the urban community because of what you look like. And now there's a war going on in Nicaragua and drugs are being imported into your community. Are you gonna to sell drugs or are you gonna be homeless? Cause the government's not paying attention 

Huh, man you tell me 

What's a reasonable man to say? 

There's a high school in Alabama named after Robert E. Lee And it's 89% black, you don't see the irony? 

What it do to a psyche, it's simple, you don't like me 

What I'm 'posed to do now? 

Delusional calling that system criminal justice 

Where the rich and the guilty are safer than the poor and the innocent 

Why would we listen? 

When American churches scuff they Toms on our brother's dead bodies 

As they march to stop gay marriage 

We had issues with Planned Parenthood too 

We just cared about black lives outside the womb just as much as in 

Young man gon' find purpose somehow 

And a nation was at least around 

And when them vice lords told him he was of royal decent 

And that war on drugs felt much more like war on the poor 

He figured forget it 

So why don't you come stay a while? 

Tell us that the son of man walked on Egyptian 

And Eastern soil and wasn't just a Western construct 

Or master used to control us 

But what the master used to free us 

And it was a crooked system just like this that left the King of Kings bloodless 

Yeah, we are truly a descendant of a King 

Only his reign is infinite 

And being right is a distant second to the joy or compassion 

Why don't you come stay a while?