[Intro: Dizzle Morrison]
Step out and what do I see
A bunch of other people that are black like me
Know how the world sees those black like me
But they don't understand those black like me
[Verse 1: Dizzle Morrison]
Let's take a trip into my deepest thoughts
I'll let you see what's in my mental vaults
Pray you see what life's like for me
Then maybe you'll have empathy for my n***a faults
I was born post Black Nationalism, post Black Power
Smack dab in the middle of when white powder
And baking soda, was mixed with water
Whipped like a slave, and chopped when it got harder
The crack era, way before the backpack wearers
There was a plague I like to call “The Black Terror”
That nearly erased my race while the states didn't bat an eyelash
Just covered them like mascara
Thank God for a mother like mine
Cause a lot of my homies mama's just followed in line
Along with my uncles and aunties
Turning neighborhood into a bundle of junkies
Seen Grandmama's house get robbed by her own children
Mama's let children starve while they're out filling
Gla** pipes with those rock the dope boys deal them
That got all of our fathers locked in prison
(We) prayed for a way out, drug lord show up
Drug wars go down, murder rates go up
So the kids go wild, ain't nobody show us
The right road take to do better when we grow up
No family unit or positive examples
Teachers can't teach cla**rooms are past full
Only reason kids go to school is to have food
We messed up round here, and we black too
Uneducated, unLoved
Knowing nothing better than to be young thugs
Self-hatred the generation of genocide
I'm an 80's babies trapped in that Ghetto of the Mind
[Chorus]
Ghetto of the Mind (x4)
[Verse 2: Dizzle Morrison]
Victim of that Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome
Speak with a twang they saying how I be saying sh** wrong
Shirt too big, pants sag and hang too long
Chances of us seeing 30+ ain't too strong
That's what this book told me
That's what my hood show me
It seems I go to more funerals for the lil homies
They k**ed ALL the leaders that really stood for me
Good people, but very misunderstood surely
What are we gone be, when all people see
Is slanging, gang banging, pistol toting
Ass shaking, back breaking, for money
Depend on ebt or kids go hungry
When are we gone see
We're bull-headed I'm fishing trying to get em
To a new age with better water for us to swim in
No longer submitting to THEIR system
Beating us down, but I'm down for the uplifting from that
[Chorus]
[Verse 3: Dizzle Morrison]
I'm just a n***a in limbo
Too hood to be a scholar
Too smart for the simple
Too much soul to settle down with a bimbo
Too much cla** to date low-cla** mentals
Too much Love to turn my back on my kin folk
But I got problems now
I left Vegas and moved to a college town
Where being G-H-E-T-T-O or hood is like a TV show
So everybody watch like a hawk everywhere I go
See how they're drawn to the traits that I want to change
They view my ignorance as, something that entertains
Sorry tigers, I ain't playing Sambo
Educating self is the only thing I came for
3.5 gpa is what I finished with
Black Student President, Student Body membership
Same n***a though, same etiquette
Just more intelligence with better eloquence
Came home to people not being very happy
With me expanding my brain and vocabulary
Like why you trying to use slang and the dictionary
n***a you black quit talking like Tom, Dick, and Harry
If I say gentrified or dilapidated
They say I think I'm smart cause I graduated
In school they were surprised a n***a made it
You're smart for a black guy was a common statement
Pa what's a n***a to do
Still a ni**er to most, and a ni**a to few
Thought I was moving up
Got my physical out then I find
It's much harder to shake and break that ghetto of the mind