Around My Way (Freedom Ain't Free) - Lupe Fiasco

First off say peace to Pine Ridge

Shame at all the damage that the white man wine did

Ghost dance, Trail of Tears, 5 million beers a year

And all that other crime did

More peace to the teachers of blind kids

To rebels in small cells keeping their mind big

Say everything's hostile

Suicide bombers and prosperity gospels, emaciated models

With cocaine and blood pouring out their nostrils, they got to

Just to stay awake on the catwalk of life where everybody watch you

Straight hair, high heels and a handbag

Crucifixes, racism and a land grab

Katrina, FEMA trailers, human body sandbags

A peace sign and a pants sag

A money toss cause a 9 stripper mad dash

A friend request following a hash tag

Now everybody want it like a last laugh

A Michael Jackson jacket or a daft mask

Purple Jordans or the mixed girl in your math class

Stable is when the Ba'ath had Baghdad

But corporate jets really had to have that gas bad

War and they hope they all fall from the ratatat

Cause that's just more dinosaur for the Cadillac

Live from the other side what you see

A bunch of nonsense on my TV

Heaven on Earth is what I need

But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe

Reporting live from the other side what you hear

A bunch of nonsense all in my ear

Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay

Cause freedom ain't free, especially 'round my way

And we marvel at the state of Ottoman

Then turn around and treat Ghana like a garbage can

America's a big motherfuckin' garbageman

If you ain't know, you're part and parcel of the problem

You say no you ain't, and I say yes you is

Soon as you find out what planned obsolescence is

You say no they didn't, and I say yes they did

The definition of unnecessary-ness manifested

Say that we should protest just to get arrested

That goes against all my hustling ethics

A bunch of jail niggas say its highly ineffective

Depart from Martin, connect on Malcolm X tip

Insert Baldwin to similar the separate

To me, the truth is more fulfilling than a meth hit

Or finding really fast internet to have some sex with

It's all one song short of a set list

Couple croissants shy of a continental breakfast

Or blowing out your birthday candles just to make a death wish

So absurd, word to Chief Bone Necklace

Down at the Lakota Sioux Casino

A whole culture boiled down to giving you pokeno

I go as left as a heart in the chest

Cause the Horn of Africa is now starving to death

Live from the other side what you see

A bunch of nonsense on my TV

Heaven on Earth is what I need

But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe

Reporting live from the other side what you hear

A bunch of nonsense all in my ear

Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay

Cause freedom ain't free, especially 'round my way

An all white Los Angeles, the dream of Mr. Chandler

Hope and pray they take Columbus day up off the calendar

South Central an example of God's gifts

So shout to all the mothers raising babies in SPA 6

The projects of Oakland city, Detroit ghost towns

Monopolies on poverty where D-boy coke bound

It’s parts of Manila like the video for "Thriller"

But the US Embassy is reminiscent of a villa

If poverty is chocolate and privilege vanilla

Then what’s the flavor of the Sunday preacher’s pedophilia

Cash rules everything around these niggas

As classrooms everywhere around me wither

Hither you can be Mr. Burns or Mr. Smithers

The tyrant or the slave but nowhere in the middle

Of the extremes of America’s dream

Freud fighting Neo, Freddy Krueger refereeing, now…

Live from the other side what you see

A bunch of nonsense on my TV

Heaven on Earth is what I need

But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe

Reporting live from the other side what you hear

A bunch of nonsense all in my ear

Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay

Cause freedom ain't free, especially 'round my way