Mr. Lif - Take, Hold, Fire Lyrics

(feat. Aesop Rock and El-P)

[Mr. Lif:]
Take my check
Take my intellect
Take my self-respect
Ban my dialect
Hang me from a tree
Slice my neck
Take my head as a monument of the hatred of opposites
Take the time to sell my culture
Count how you profited
Take a break
Take two
What's it gonna take to make you
Understand the man I equate to
I create crews
One thousand, two thousand
F*ck it, bring the whole central housing
Take a trip to free brothers from penitentiares
Judges steady handing out centuries
That nigga got life for growing weed
Ah! See the plan?
He could never be a man
Never get to help his fam
Just like Apartheid that didn't die back in '91
Parents were subject to interference
If they caught you late trying to raise a son or daughter
They'd use a gun or a knife as they summoned slaughter
And I wish I could ring the blood out of your clothes
Give you back your afros and your strong black nose
But what's done is done
Who's gone is gone
Once again, the sun illuminates bodies at dawn
And I yawn and grow weary
Succumbed to old theory
That strips my wits of thoughts I used to hold dearly
So clearly the gold nearly ended existence
A young brother who hungers, lying there shiftless
A rich brother who hovers, hoarding his riches
A fatal divide
Acts of the colonized
It's a worldwide unwise data that leaks when we speak
Repeats 'till decency depletes
Then leaks through our moral fabric forming havoc
We're left reminiscing what was written on a tablet
It's a path we've forgotten - lost in our heads
And I know they're listening - so P.S. f*ck the feds!

[Aesop Rock:]
And I know they're listening - so P.S. f*ck the feds!
Hold weight, hold water, hold your head above the latter
While I'm at it, hope your story holds a little when it matters
The mold inside his holding cell became proof of the leak
Now he holds his tongue behind his teeth in a room with police
One call alloted, tried to holler at his cousin
Who couldn't hold his liquor, let alone hold the discussion
20 seconds in he pass out on the hold button
'Till his quarter ran out with the dreams of ever holding something
No, it isn't folklore - Yes, it's morbid
If he hold heat, he'd probably hold grudges, not horses
We grew up in the hold it now hit it
When hold it down meant it was better to hold the crown, not the image
You bow to a gimmick, you bound to hold back the incentive
Which your friends will hold against you
When you haul back to the village
Fall back, crawl back to the killers
Who couldn't hold a candle to the actual definition of "illest"

[El-P:]
Little man said I was fired
Under artificial fire up in the sky
Florescent tungsten hovered under cubicle design
Interrupted just before final synaptic nerve could fire
And I lost count right as I got up to the last digit in Pi
What a fiery piece of trash (bastard)
Why, I ought to fire the boomstick in your face and tell the tribe that it was (magic)
You tried to take my soul but now it's (fire in the hole)
And I'm fired up
Walking through the office firing automatics
You didn't start the fire - you simply sparked it
Next time you light a fire under my ass better hope that you're flame retardant
Arson is in my bent heart - you're begging to see the (billow)
Of the smokes of the fires of Odin - enter the fire starter
See, every little monotonous moment that I punched the clock was equivalent to furnace fuel
In the form of a (fiery rock)
Welcome to trial by fire measured in Celsisus
You can fire me from the job but I promise I'm walking out the office healthiest