[Intro]
Take you on this trip down memory lane
[Verse One]
I got up at 4:00 AM just to feed my kids
Shit it's hard to eat when you don't got gigs
See I'm a jazz player, I used to jam at old blues
And little missy, she used to sing the blues
Crazy Eddie used to tap his feet
And you can hear Natalie scatting a beat
But one day (one day) the Great Depression hit
But we was all black so we ain't give two shits
We figured we was already livin' it
I came up in New Orleans
Eatin' chicken and cornbread, with collared greens
And the KKK killed loud mouth teens
Yeah, there's three things I love
My family, my drums and bootleg drugs
Will it ever get better?
Huh, we didn't know
Because we became citizens of Jim Crow
[Hook] {x2}
We've been struggling for too long
You can change the year but I'll still sing the same song
Like nothin' ain't wrong
It goes on and on
[Verse Two]
I got up at 5:00 AM just to feed my kids
Shit it's hard to eat when you don't got gigs
I work hard for a livin'
I'd rather be touring the world than doing dishes in the kitchen
Make love not war was the slogan
And females ripped they bras like Hulk Hogan
Haha
We had new ways of speakin'
From groovy to jive talk, new way of thinkin'
It sucks that I'm not even a man
But The Man wanna put me in Vietnam
Hell if I care what Elvis did
I'mma stay home with them Woodstock kids
I'm gonna play guitar, I know he look bizarre
And the underarms is rank with a capital R
This is re-vote music
The king of rock is getting credit but it's up to us to do shit
[Hook]
I got up at 6 AM just to feed my kids
Shit, it’s hard to eat when you don’t got gigs
And everybody’s hat was a Kangol
And the President’s phrase was “Just Say No”
It was ‘86, crack was God
Making it to the ‘90s was hard
Milli Vanilli revealed they couldn’t sing
And Rodney King got a mil for each swing
But two cops got off
Cali was wildin’ when lights went off
Broken glass, fires got lit
They should’ve burned Hollywood for that racist shit
I got sandpaper if you need me
Cuz taggin my name became scratch-fiti
The struggle just seemed to evolve
With jazz, rock, or hip hop involved
[Hook]