L.E.S. - Coolie lyrics

[Chorus: Andrew Sam] I wasn't chained down, but neither was I free Gotta ask the system, "What am I supposed to be?" I'm just nothing but a coolie No sk**s, hard work, I'm just nothing but a coolie [x2] [Verse 1: Andrew Sam] They heard I was a coolie, so they ask me if I'm cool Yes, but that's not the point, homie, take your a** to school They "emancipated" Africans / But they continued to banish 'em Exploited them for labor, Africans taken advantage of Emancipation was a trick, just to calm any revolts Tryna keep America together with nuts and bolts And if that wasn't enough, they wanted a Chinese "Great Wall" To separate whites from the Blacks, guess they weren't free after all So they brought us in, called us a racial barrier Working with Africans, we were just unsk**ed laborers We weren't slaves like Africans, we weren't free like white folks We were walking paradoxes / What is this, some kind of joke? They just wanted our labor, and no, they never wanted us We worked hard without sk**s, and we got our a**es bust They had us above Blacks, but we were still below them Between the roots and the leaves, we were just the stem Today we're in the movies, either evil or we're geeks But we worked up in the mines, getting blown up, we're not weak Just some underdogs, but we won't accept defeat We've always worked hard to show we're better than elite And most infamously, we built that long a** railroad Then white men took the credit, they got horns and not halos [Chorus: Andrew Sam] [Verse 2: Andrew Sam] Born to be a loser, so I made myself a winner Small dude with no sk**s, so I made my mind bigger Expanded my vocabulary / So people say that, "Andrew's very Smart at rapping well" / Just in case you couldn't tell It's the same game, different name, history's on repeat We were coolies back then, now the model minority Even though we're smarter with no problem getting jobs The bamboo ceiling's keeping white folks at the top It goes Whites, Asians, then everybody else Just like with the coolies, history repeats itself But now we got sk**s, and we're well-educated Yet we can never say that we really truly made it Cause they still exclude us even though we a**imilated And I extremely hate it / I'm tired of the racists Asians are just too good, biggest reason why we're hated You got a problem with me, then you'll be lyrically berated [Chorus: Andrew Sam]