Kendrick Lamar
Vanity Slaves
[Verse 1]
Sometimes I wanna leave, sometimes I wanna cry
Sometimes I hate to bear the truth, sometimes I wanna lie
Sometimes I wanna school the youth, sometimes I wanna ride
Sometimes I wanna not think, sometimes I wanna vibe
Sometimes I wwanna bump Tribe and zone out
This song's 'bout a young boy that's gone wild inside
When my world collide
With your world where your girl and your kids reside
We killed the facades, we feel free to fly
We're birds that reserve in the charismatic sky
I care about my pride too much
If my clothes is new, if my ride is plush
If my hair is cut, if my diamonds is crushed
I look in the mirror, I'm trendy enough? Wrong
Insecurity roams the black community
Homes where kids must have jewelry
The high school female need earrings and details
So she can be cool to be amongst popularity
The various name brands that reached the price scan
It's not about the right price but more like the right scam
To rule us all, confuse us all
Hit the bank within five minutes and then withdraw
Now let's draw
The picture of a rapper with a chain and Range that is not paid for
My cousin from the South said he just bought him a house
That lives around his neck like a white collar
So why fast forward? Then I'll rewind, a time machine can help me double back to slavery times
Pickin' cotton from a field that a white man own
The blacker you are farther you from the white man's home
Negro spiritual songs, gave us some type of sanity
Before your vanity, they parted our families
They put us in hundred degree shade and outside we bathed
The more we were afraid, the more they made rules
And trapped our minds in a cage, our freedom was so vague
Couldn't see it with the eyes of Tracee Ross, uh
And school was exempt, see we couldn't have smarts
And a smirk could get you hurt, wounded first from a scar
Four-hundred years of nothin', four-hundred years of sufferin'
Four-hundred years of tears and tribulations, miseducation
See what we facin' is now comin' back to the roots
Remember whips on our back and if we would run they would shoot
Called us niggers and figured that we'd never live in pursuit
Of happiness, we capture these feelings in things that we do
Thought of abstinence of slavery but we made it come to
About a perspective, my shoe selection gotta be Louie
Her hand bag gotta be Gucci, it's fake then she fool me
She still bad though and her fake Gucci ain't that bad though
We fillin' up the gas for Rollies
Upgrade to twenty-sixes after ridin' Kobes
My cousin from the South, slavery start in the South and I bet ya
He overcompensate for the life of his ancestors
So blame it on the four-hundred years we never saw
The reason why the next four-hundred we gotta floss
Slaves
[Outro]
I said the four-hundred years we never had nothin'
Barely had clothes on our back
Is the reason why when we get a little bit of change
We over exaggerate on our livin' expenses
So if you get your first big check and you cop a chain before you buy a house
You're a vanity slave
If you're a female and you got four, five, six rings on your finger
Four holes in your left ear and a nose piercin'
You're a vanity slave
If you got an '02 Monte Carlo with twenty-fours on it
And on the back of the window it says, "Get on my level, ho"
You're a vanity slave
We all vanity slaves
So with that being said, can somebody please tell me where the mall at?
I'm not from around here, hey, Ali, where we at? Idaho?
Yeah, n***a, you know the first of the month, checks comin' in
I'm tryna get some
What up?