AWKWORD - The Ivory Tower lyrics

[Verse 1] Finding college tuition -- an honest man's ominous mission No denying tradition, they'd rather lock us in prison The cost of education, is less, than incarceration That don't matter to the man, tryna keep apart our nation My mom gave birth in the apartment building basement And I've lived every day surrounded by bars and pavement Cop cars, watch dogs, surveillance cameras and vagrants We learn, more from skipping school, there's no teacher engagement Life was, a 9 to 5 for pops, moms working double shift Call this middle cla**, but it feels a lot like gutter sh** 99 percent of us, on the wrong side, of their doors They get tax breaks, we pay twice, and fight their wars And we wonder why they cut, scholarships and aid It's designed to keep the status quo, we're the New Slaves No one I know, has ever seen an Ivory Tower But I'm a scrape my way to Va**ar cause, education's power [Hook] The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower National Geographic, we're an academic lesson The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower Social experiment, survive without a weapon The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower Roads paved with gold, our community, bondage The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower, The Ivory Tower Fight for a chance, for community college [Verse 2] Refuse to lose, thats the motto in my hood Confusing you? I'm not a thug cause a my, hood I'm one a the strong few, from having to fight for my rights And I've learned so many things you'll never learn in your life I've learned to survive, with just a few stacks, a pennies Living off crackers and ramen noodles, fridge is empty Lived already, like nine lives, so you'll resent me And your history's a lie, taught in elementary Evidently, we truants could a been your best students And with a GED and hard knocks degree, I ain't losing The system's set up, to make everyone fail So there's a movement right now to send you crooks to jail If you k** a man in pa**ion, that's murder in the second k** a whole damn country, thank you Mr. President In the land of hypocrites, I'm a follow my father / You can keep your Va**ar College, I'll keep my half a million dollars [Hook]