House Shoes - Locusts lyrics

[Verse 1: Finale] Condos remodel my old turf For what it's worth, soul got left in the earth On a search I stood in front of Compuware The Hudson Building spoke first and said I was here From old bricks all over downtown To Sears with the Roebuck attachment Purple Gang used to move through your block Like a Mafia pageant Move around in my town Where spittas talk And if you leave, forget us And try to come back? I hope you turn into a pillar of salt Every jackhammer cracking the concrete That's a lost and forgotten piece of the D We'll never see in a book or paper Replaced with a temp casino Strip mall, liquor store Another stadium doubling as a palladium, eateries The D speaks to me Now watch yesterday get swept away beneath a pile of debris Committees picking from a lottery For the hottest riverfront property Sign over your deed Shocking to see us go from Peoplemover to people movers Let the people choose a better way They set up shop and sped away Landmarks come and go like a john with a pro Led astray and they run up on Detroit for consumption So I look back and see my city Under construction Look back and see my city Under construction [Hook] By the locusts Surrounding suffocating the city and trying to choke us Ravaging the crops making the situation hopeless But we staying focused Never let the locusts approach us [Verse 2: Invincible] Locusts and buzzards circle and hover above the Abandoned houses shattered windows with the crooked shutters Cross the street construct a cookie cutter condominium Lining Woodward, it's the prime meridian You divide the city and In the hood, wonder why you pay two times the premiums? They been redlining the dark-skinned Owners of homes where they loan with a sharks fin Arson the property probably for the insurance policy It's a prophecy that's self fulfilling They claim to cure us of poverty, BUT It's serving removal Of residents with urban renewal The reverend is the realtor Here to save and heal ya! They even “buy ugly houses” And its memorabilia Of a myth of a city that's a mystery Auto industry's widow On the auction floor they start to bid low On houses with hanging gutters and peeling shingles Purchased at a nervous pace and a cadence I heard a wrecking ball hit a building that's mistaken for vacant A sleeping city awakened By bulldozers and the wool pulled over our eyes It comes as no surprise Why the rents are more from the French to Ford To the Ilitches Trying to pillage the village and milk it for all that it's worth While they k**ing us But we still got resilience [Hook] [Verse 3: Invincible] Selective memory, convenient amnesia Enemies scheming on land seizures Pretend to be well meaning but stampede us I know you not supposed to bite the hand that feeds ya But it's poisonous, spread injustice like fungus candida Predatory planning Eminent domain Mowed down Motown For parking lot next to the game Empty sentiment of development for pennies to gain Forget memory lane This is history It's like erasing Proof–only remembering Eminem's name Many stories Only one written in pen will remain With jobs – we at least in a drought Met a construction worker hates demolishing buildings But gotta feed his seeds and his spouse Told me the city pushes people into leaving they house They cut the lights and gas it freezes em out Who decided the divide between suburb and ghetto corner? Henry Ford swinging his chain, the Nazi medal of honor [Verse 4: Finale] I'm looking at this strip Where Lottie the body she probably shook them hips The malnourished and wild flourish Among style murderers Who wanna pile dirt on us The word on the street is that we won't last long And is it me? But if the history of my city was pa**ed on Could we physically, in spirit and mind, find a way to move And grab at this song? And I was young but snuck in Mahogany put stars in orbit Unsupported foundation, we aborted sound Allowed rape and now It's a bar where men and women got to frequent And spit a slick thing in each of your ear And sip a mixed drink and beer for sport And now the block can not hear And how we got here We'll never know They showed a broken up Hip Hop Shop board on VH1 Like, "ay come here come see where they from" And that sh** was too hard for me to chew Like I hate gum And y'all can play dumb like Jim, man All I want is another Lush Lounge for us A new united sounds around to bus So people can see us Before the debris and dust and what was And I am not trying to rap, man I'm time travelin'