Caught in a Hustle lyrics

They say the odds against me are crooked and impossible

Like I was born with a hole in my heart as an obstacle

I was left to die by the doctors in the Children's Hospital

But I never lose hope, success is psychological

The world is volatile and the street is my education

Shapin' the nation, like the blueprint of a Mason

While Shawshank record deals get you raped on occasion

So I'm focused on my economic situation

I'm like the little kids on TV that dig through the trash

I hustle regardless of the way you talk shit and laugh

A lot of niggas drop science, but they don't know the math

Because their mind is narrower than the righteous path

It's funny how on the block niggas will kill you for cash

But never raise the gun and cry out, "Freedom at last!"

The cold war is over, but the world is still gettin' colder

Atlas walkin' through the projects, with the hood on my shoulders

I would like to raise my children to grow to be soldiers

But then a general will decide when their life would be over

So I work hard until my personality's split

Like the Black Panthers, into the Bloods and the Crips

They said I would never be shit, but now I sit and reminisce

Like Yeshua ben Yusef flippin' through Genesis

Ignorance is venomous, and it murders the soul

Spreadin' like a virus, runnin' rampant, out of control

So if I should ever fall and get caught in the hustle

Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle

From the hoodrats to the rich kids lost in a bubble

Spray paintin' on the streets and at the subway tunnels

Write it down and remember that we never gave in

The mind of a child is where the revolution begins

So if the solution has never been to look in yourself

How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else?

Immortal Technique in the streets, back on the hustle

‘Cause three strikes will get you life for stuffin' cracks in a duffle

Upstate, behind steel gates, attacked in a scuffle

Razor blades stuck on the side of pencils hacked through your muscle

But the emptiness is what bleeds you to death when it cuts you

And it's the lawyers, not the inmates, schemin' to fuck you

Tryna fight the system from inside eventually corrupts you

But that's what you get when you put a corporation above you

And it's the people that love you that seem to hurt you the most

Sometimes when they die, you find yourself cursin' their ghost

But you make success, nobody delivers your fate

Sometimes you give and you take since prehistoric vertebrates

Crawled out of the lakes and that's the truth about life

Or to do it to ghetto and your car, rims, and your ice

Because even though we survived through the struggle that made us

We still look at ourselves through the eyes of people that hate us

But I'm going to make it regardless of the trumped up charges

And semi-automatic barrages that empty the cartridge

Post-traumatically scarred kids that try to be brave

Because niggas backstab each other just to try to get paid

Turn cannibal, like knights during the crusades

Afraid of responsibility, addicted to greed

Beatin' their girl, purposefully losin' a seed

As if we were bound to the destiny we used to receive

So if I should ever fall and get caught in the hustle

Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle

From the hoodrats to the rich kids lost in a bubble

Spray paintin' on the streets and at the subway tunnels

Write it down and remember that we never gave in

The mind of a child is where the revolution begins

So if the solution has never been to look in yourself

How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else?

I used to wonder (I used to wonder) about people who don't believe in themselves

But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else

That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves

Blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves

I used to wonder (I used to wonder) about people who don't believe in themselves

But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else

That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves

Blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves

I used to wonder…

• Artist:Immortal Technique
• Album:Revolutionary Vol. 1