[Intro]
Back up in the studio
You know it's been a minute
But I need to get some things off my chest
So imma take you back to high school, alright?
Listen...

[Verse 1]
Every class was all white but my school had plenty blacks
Only times I seen my homies was at lunch and between class
Crazy when I think back, that I used to think that
The lack of diversity in my AP and IB classes
Was due to a lack of effort and a
Lack of foresight
Like, "Do my friends not really have their future life in sight?"
Questions of the sort used to keep me up at night
Until I saw the light
And I realized it's institutionalized
It stems back to cotton picking, whip marks yeah them slave times
If you got caught reading, strange fruit, hang time
Nowadays we focus on jumpshots and hangtime
Face it
You only strive for what you can see
When was the last time you saw a black man on TV
Flexin' with some degrees
And there ain't no fresh greens in the inner cities
Unless we talkin' 'bout weed
And how expect us to read when we can't afford books?
Well, we ain't really that broke
Just some different outlooks
We celebrate new J's, pulling girls, and whippin' clean
And all of the above
Don't really come cheap
Then you turn on the news and all you hear is fallacies
They call us all thugs, giving us mentalities
Of not knowing our self-worth
When in actuality we all black kings and queens
And I ain't talking chess piece
Then they pile on the stress, like a pavement
So if a rose can't break through, you really can't blame it
But I can't really trip because I know my road was laid
I gotta be grateful that my momma, she was raised
In a country where you're not terrorized for your melanin
They love your dark pigment like the South do the Confederate
She gave me all these tools so I could write this sentiment
In hopes that one day
I would be heard

[Chorus]
Yep, yep that's my word
Make a statement with these nouns and verbs
I represent the kids from hoods to suburbs
Listen to my nouns and verbs
Man, I wanna be heard
Like a cattle or sheep, while you sleep
I be up, cookin' up all day like a mad scientist in a laboratory
I don't care what a hater gotta say
Imma be heard

[Verse 2]
Flash forward I'm surrounded by these alkies and coke heads
If this was the hood, same kids be serving sentences
Smoke weed in the dorms and get a slap on the wrist
Carry around a fake ID just to say you're legit
Now Lil' Zay got a record, he got caught with some zips
His older cousin in jail for stealing cards to flip
And what's crazy, when you analyze both predicaments
Is that nothing's really different but the skin pigment - and location
And bro, segregation is still alive
Like Brown v. Board of Education was just a lie
Affirmative action helps out the white guys daughters
More than the black guys, facts
And I really hate when people treat me stupid 'cause my skin tone
Like I'll run laps around you, I threw my jets on
I'm getting paid to go to school
So they say I can't complain
That was just a soft flex
I really hope you felt the pain
I might be a genius
My GPA the meanest
Young, black, and educated
I'm undefeated
Imma make it to the top and imma bring my people with me
And I hope that one day that the youth will really hear me 'cause
I wanna be heard

[Chorus]
Yep, yep that's my word
Make a statement with these nouns and verbs
I represent the kids from hoods to suburbs
Listen to my nouns and verbs
Man, I wanna be heard
Like a cattle or sheep, while you sleep
I be up, cookin' up all day like a mad scientist in a laboratory
I don't care what a hater gotta say
Imma be heard

[Outro]
Hey, first and foremost shoutout to the Collective
Win, I see you man
When we gonna finish this mixtape?
Shoutout to Kendrick and Black Milk for this beat
And Michael, I feel you