In Songtext

von Lupe Fiasco

I was born in a small village
I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers
Foreign soldiers
Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language
With each new post, my masters changed
Along with the words they made me speak
With each change, I changed too
My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong
Words can kill
Time and again, the country was ruled by a foreign tongue
When he was a young boy, he lost his native language
The bedrock for any developing child
His country, his family, his face, his identity
Everything was stolen from him

Meet me on the corner, I be waiting on you
Thousand years of better right into forever
Fire on my feathers, fall from out of heaven
Fight without a weapon, life without a lesson
Lost, I'm my own boss, pay my own cost
Fill my own goals, see my own hopes
Tired of all of this, wish I had a switch
One kiss then you cut me off
Knowledge is the power, college is for cowards
Hollering for hours, swallowing the sour
Skin stuck around the rims, peeking in on a life so sweet
The other side made it, why don't we?

From ancient times, every civilization's ruler has had the same idea. When people unite under one will, they become stronger than the sum of their parts and what do rulers use to bring people together? Language. "This world will become one, I have found the way. Race, tribal affiliations, national borders - even our faces will be irrelevant. The world that the boss envisioned will finally become a reality and it will make mankind whole again

Found a friend in the words and my words and it works
Take away the pain, take away the hurt
Make a way to make a change, make it sane
Specially if you plan on staying on this Earth
Low to the lows, high to the highs
Eyes to the sky, strive to revive, dying to survive
Pool full of cries but it's cool, I'm still alive
And every breath is every left soul
And the family never kept whole
In the slum, want to quest to be the best of being less
Never let go, the best road to the next level
And the scenes where it's mean to do the right thing
Not to be a good king but the best devil
So it's horns for the crown, torn from the ground
Roses by the roots stolen from the roofs on parade days
Look at them rain down
I was brought here a slave
But I leave here a pharaoh

America is a country of liberty, a meeting of immigrants
Instead of simply assimilating, its citizens live alongside others
So the major sought a system that used information
Words to control the subconscious
In his eyes, the greatest symbiotic parasite the world's ever known isn't microbial -- it's linguistic
Words is what keep civilization, our world, alive

If you are what you say you are, the coolest
Won't you just shine down?
You are what you say you are, the coolest
Won't you just shine down?