Talib Kweli
This American Life
[Verse 1: The Next]
It's getting hot, we're baking under the upper crust
The apple pie that they making ain't enough for us
Think skin from hedge funds to hustlers
My president is black, but still it's getting rougher cuz'
Big man-sized checks with no amounts
While the little man is stashing his shit with no accounts
Leftovers for dinner, he lives hand to mouth
Saving for the bills, not thinking bout eatin' out
Looking at his wife, filling with creeping doubt
She sees it in his eyes, now he's sleeping on the couch
An every day occurrence across the 50
States filling up with hate, people walk with me
Why we all pissy, it' s a privilege, isn't it?
Prosperity and America should be synonyms
A wealthy nation keeping poor people living in the illest situations
Salute to the citizens

Hook:
I hustle all day, working at night
Just to try to pay the bills and keep on the lights
You struggle to feed the kids and the wife
Living this American life
They fooled us once, they robbed us twice
Now they sit back making the people pay the price
Taxing the checks, with venomous bites
We living this American life, right
[Verse 2: Talib Kweli]
Separate the fact from the mystery
Stacking up the bodies built the Statue of Liberty
Opposition is in your proposition's propaganda
Jobs is going to China, that's as popular as pandas
American Idiot is more than a play on broadway
Or a Green Day record, graduation is foreplay
Because it happens right before you get fucked,
You stuck all day with no job, watching Judge Mathis, Ellen and Maury
Waiting for the holidays, looking for a vacation
In Brooklyn the destination is stay paid, following
Booker's investigation cause a lack of education
I call myself a native but I have my reservations
Shopping escapism, we addicted to the retail
That's ignorant as racism in Paladino's emails
You probably like to fuck horses instead of females
God is in my heart but the devil is in the details

[Hook]


[Verse 3:]Immortal Technique
Millionaire rappers rhyming about welfare
Fake rich rappers that don't even have healthcare
I'll put you on the sun's surface and watch you melt there
Free Mumia, The Cuban 5 and Leonard Peltier
And a whole lot of others that you don't care about
That exemplify America's spiritual whereabouts
They prepared the rout on a slave ship to oblivion
But dressed it up like a cruise through the Caribbean
What makes time contingent on the Prime Meridian?
A cold blooded world designed by reptilians
Not snakes, but empires of civilians
With modern day human sacrifice by the millions
Shot to the plot of American Individuals
You're a fool for thinking that a Republic's original
But you don't hear me about how it's gonna end one day
Too busy watching gladiator sports on Sundays
[Hook]