Joe Tea the Producer - Bootstraps Lyrics

Grab ya bootstraps and pull 'em up
Cause it's ya own damn fault ya government's corrupt
School system's broke as f*ck? Tough luck kid
Fix it ya damn self. That's what the ancestors did
And on that note, why don't you have a house
Granddaddy was 10, with all that AND a spouse
Sittin on some land. So what's wrong with you
You call this shit music? You should've stayed in school

Respectability
Yall be killin me
Like it's my fault we're the victims of brutality
We can't win. No matter what era we in
We even get flak from our friends and kin
Telling us if we'd just act right
Then the police'd have no reason to fight
Yeah right! Don't make me laugh
No matter how we act, we still get our skull bashed
Only to hear the nonsense from our folks
Black lives matter? What about Chicago
Black-on-black crime! Clean up the block
We can't cry about the cops till all this killin stop
Even IF we managed to make that work
Police still hiding racists on their turf
Now, do ya hear how stupid as f*ck you sound
Sorry, can't hear you with my face slammed in the ground

Yall yungins just need to grab your bootstraps
Pull 'em up with ya pants cause you in a trap
That's the problem with these young cats today
If you worked a real job ya wouldn't have time to play
Pull ya dress tail down, pick ya self up
Maybe then ya folks would have more respect for ya
What else you expect from men when you show so much skin
Need I remind you of the wages of sin

Fundamentally, on some of this stuff
We agree
But there's still a couple of issues, chief
Gentrification is a biggie, see
But we couldn't buy the streets cause we didn't have nearly enough money
Minimum wage job, you know
Not much education to be had in the ghetto
Schools got drained years ago
No money from the state means they close the doors, so
We do what it takes to feed the kid
Can't have a garden. The city codes forbid
Around the same time, they closed the last grocery store
Now we living in a food desert, so our health is poor
Constantly agitated, with no good paying job
Through no fault of our own. Last resort is to rob
And all of this started decades ago
But we'll still get the blame, cause yall ain't hearing me though

Yall yungins just need to grab your bootstraps
Pull 'em up with ya pants cause you in a trap
That's the problem with these young cats today
If you worked a real job ya wouldn't have time to play
Pull ya dress tail down, pick ya self up
Maybe then ya folks would have more respect for ya
What else you expect from men when you show so much skin
Need I remind you of the wages of sin

Grab ya bootstraps and pull 'em up
Cause it's ya own damn fault ya government's corrupt
School system's broke as f*ck? Tough luck kid
Fix it ya damn self. That's what the ancestors did
And on that note, why don't you have a house
Granddaddy was 10, with all that AND a spouse
Sittin on some land. So what's wrong with you
You call this sh*t music? You should've stayed in school