Icon (of Brooklyn Academy) - Times Have Changed lyrics

[Intro (Overlapped with Bridge and Hook): Icon] Psst. What? sh** is different now. Word up. That's millennium sh**. What? Word up. It's the start of a new beginning, kid. It's all tunes now. We're here now. Word up. Rise of the empire, n***a. Word up. sh** is different now. Not the same. Now you know. Yo, this is what we here for. Put y'all on. Yo, sh** like this [Bridge: Sample from Ella Fitzgerald's “Anything Goes”] Times have changed And we've often rewound the clock Since the Puritans got the shock When they landed on Plymouth Rock [Hook: Sample from Ella Fitzgerald's “Anything Goes”] (x4) Times have changed [Verse 1: Block McCloud] I was Little Man Tate with straight A's. Couldn't wait for my payday Step-pops was tryna say I hate my own lady Ran with the locals, broke rules in Brooklyn, looking to lay vocals Selling coke, thinking I'm so cool Cutting out of school and breaking night. Huffing coolies and weed and taking flight Two wrongs ain't make me right, so my Rhymes declined. Last line I had, I sniffed it Mind was mad lifted. Forgot that I was gifted Caught selling. Mom's yelling made it hard to speak Pops telling her I'm a villain, k**ing her ‘cause heart was weak Played boss, lays laws that I can't obey For the sake of my mom's heart breaking, I ran away Now I'm homeless, roaming the streets in the rain and thunder It's like a jungle. Sometimes, it makes me wonder How I survived rubbing shoulders with the undead I dropped a sheet and put a roof over my son's head What? [Hook: Sample from Ella Fitzgerald's “Anything Goes”] (x4) Times have changed [Verse 2: Pumpkinhead] Yo, yo, yo Since the day Adam bit on the apple, the world fell victim to the jackal Loud voices of widows in the chapel My devils cackle and tackle my brain into chains My crew aims for the fame, avoiding the flames Nowadays, we stick away from these dope fiend dames Hurting their veins with purple rain, turning insane With cracked teeth ‘cause crack's cheap on these crack streets s**ing dick, deep in fat jeeps with the black seats Actually, my mind cause words on rap sheets I stack treats thickly packed like Pamela Lee It's a world gone mad. Call a psychiatrist In my abyss, you get greeted by iron flying fists You get hit and want to spit—try and you miss Get back on the boat. Then I seen you cry on the ship If I die, I die now—don't want to die when I'm rich I pick the plants of power, dividing my hits, high in the whip Drop by on your clique, slide in the clip With black-talon raps dying to rip. My mind is equipped With all the latest technology, taking over like colonies Puffing botanies of collie weed—it's my policy Holy like the Dalai Lama. I got the shottie if you want to do my body drama My aura is my body armor Rap scholars is like piranhas in these black water harbors Times have changed, f**er [Hook: Sample from Ella Fitzgerald's “Anything Goes”] (x4) Times have changed [Verse 3: Icon] Yo, yo, yo This ghetto life changed me. Feeling like the white man hang me Where we die for the color printed on our hanky Where we die right in front of our moms I wrote a letter to The Pentagon—we getting it on If that don't work, then we gon' dead ‘em with bombs I hold enough chromes to disarm the president's guards I realize only the wisest'll rise. Me and you, son, we'll fly to the skies Five of us hang glide through Soviet lines Eleven years old, ‘ready know the meaning of war The beast with seven heads walking with the feet of a horse Deep in my thoughts, paranoid, sleep with a cross Kamikaze style, running out with meat from the stores It's iller than that—too many people k**ing for crack This ghetto life is trife—too many thoughts to spit on a track And it troubles my soul to live where we rumble with po It ain't our fault the walls of Babylon are crumbling slow And the prophecies known, foretold by the prophets are old And now, forever, we'll shine like metropolis gold f** an Illuminati. We out to body Rudolph Giuliani Where God forgave me ‘cause my murder done have proved divinely [Hook: Sample from Ella Fitzgerald's “Anything Goes”] (x8) Times have changed