Текст песни The Roots - Why (What's Going On?)

Roots
The Tipping Point
Why (What's Going On?
[Verse 1: Black Thought]

Yo, sky is the limit
So you know I gun rise and shine
I got to do my thing
I’m kinda getting a li’l tired of all this sitting
That’s the reason I’ma speak my mind
Keep from goin insane
Now work wit it, we in the last inning
The world keep spinning
My people, steady losing
While the rich keep winning
It’s like, we never smile and then the devil steady grinning
Killing what we representing even our children and women
2-K-4 living above and under the law
Young teen join the Marines said he’d die for the Corps
Inducted up into the governments war
As if for land or money or oil
Funny how a’int none of it’s yours
But can’t speak, yo I’m paranoid
It’s code orange, it’s far from right
I guess that’s why I feel so wrong
To see the world getting stripped outta of every resource
Some people pray to Coca-Cola now instead of their god
What’s going on?

Chorus: Why? (repeated)

[Verse 2]

Keeping your head above water
Hustling to survive
Some people chasing a dream
Others just chasing a high
Some people blind leading the blind
They chasing a lie
Some people choking, backs broken
Barely making it by
But still they working all they life
The pushing for the light
Giving everything they got
They stitching them swishes on your Nike’s
Putting pockets on our jeans
Mining diamonds for the rings
Rewarded with small change
And bullets in they brains
And it make me feel strange
Everything we take for granted
At times I feel stranded on this planet of mine
Now should I pull a hammer, clap it out, and laugh about it
Or stand up, be counted while I cast my ballot
When the undertaker’s busy and the prison’s is crowded
People living in fear because their vision is clouded
But the sky’s the limit I a’int crying you a river
Gotta move me a mountain I’ma get up and shower
Yea

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]

When I dream there’s hounds on my heels gaining momentum
I’m tired, can’t get on the spot or quit running
I can feel them only inches behind
I escape, I survive
Somehow I got to decide
How much I wanna grow
Is anybody listening
Without a pocket pissing
If I disappear I wonder
If the world will know I’m missing
Who my support system
It’s not the court system
I got a letter what it said is;
“You will not avoid prison”
We beneath the microscope
Cause we defining the culture
They smile and insult ya
Like you shining they loafers
Them old heads saw we need a modern-day Moses
When the leaders is posers, we need us some soilders
This the X generation
The anger in the nation
Got the writing on the wall
So clear that I can taste it
Like a kid sniffing glue somewhere
Trying to escape because he’s
Vulnerable and naked
We got to show him he can make it

[Chorus]