Vanity Slaves Songtext

von Kendrick Lamar

Sometimes I want to leave, sometimes I want to cry
Sometimes I hate to bear the truth, sometimes I want to lie
Sometimes I want to school the youth, sometimes I want to ride
Sometimes I want to not think, sometimes I want to vibe
Sometimes I want to bump Tribe and zone out
This song's 'bout a young boy that's gone wild inside
When my world collide
With your world where your girl and your kids reside
We killed the facades, we feel free to fly
We're birds that reserve in the charismatic sky
I care about my pride too much
If my clothes is new, if my ride is plush
If my hair is cut, if my diamonds is crushed
I look in the mirror, I'm trendy enough? Wrong
Insecurity roams the black community
Homes where kids must have jewelry
The high school female need earrings and details
So she can be cool to be, amongst popularity
The various name brands that reached the price scan
It's not about the right price but more like the right scam
To rule us all, confuse us all
Hit the bank within five minutes and then withdraw
Now let's draw
The picture of a rapper with a chain and Range that is not paid for
My cousin from the South said he just bought him a house
That lives around his neck like a white collar
So I fast forward, then I rewind
A time machine can help me double back to slavery times
Picking cotton from a field that a white man own
The blacker you are, farther you're from the white man's home
Negro spiritual songs, gave us some type of sanity
Before your vanity, they parted our families
They put us in hundred degree shade and outside we bathed
The more we were afraid, the more they made rules
And trapped our minds in a cage, our freedom was so vague
Couldn't see it with the eyes of Tracee Ross (uh)
And school was exempt, see we couldn't have smarts
And a smirk could get you hurt, wounded first from a scar
400 years of nothing, 400 years of suffering
400 years of tears, and tribulations, miseducation
See what we facing is now coming back to the roots
Remember whips on our back and if we would run they would shoot
Called us niggers and figured that we never live in pursuit
Of happiness, we capture these feelings in things that we do
Thought of abstinence of slavery but we made it come to
About a perspective, my shoe selection gotta be Louie
Her hand bag gotta be Gucci, it's fake then she fool me
She still bad though, and her fake Gucci ain't that bad though
We filling up the gas for Rollies
Upgrade to 26's after riding Kobes
My cousin from the South, slavery start in the South and I bet ya
He overcompensates for the life of his ancestors
So blame it on the 400 years we never saw
The reason why the next 400 we gotta floss
Slaves

I said the 400 years we never had nothing
Barely had clothes on our back
Is the reason why when we get a little bit of change
We over exaggerate on our living expenses
So if you get your first big check and you cop a chain before you buy a house
You're a vanity slave
If you're a female and you got 4,5,6 rings on your finger
Four holes in your left ear and a nose piercing
You're a vanity slave
If you got an 02' Monte Carlo with 24's on it
And on the back of the window it says *get on my level ho*
You're a vanity slave

We're all vanity slaves, and with that being said
Can somebody please tell me where the mall at?
I'm not from around here, hey Ali, where we at? Idaho?
Yeah nigga, you know the first of the month, checks coming in
I'm tryna get some
What up?