I Won’t Be Held Down - Lyrics.

Intro

If there’s a difference between fate 
                                                         and the path that you actually take

Let it be that you took the path
                                                     that the haters would hate

Verse I

Why am I still walking this road?
Why I keep breaking these bones, I’m 
letting opportunities flow by

Why is my throat tight?
Why is the place my flows hide 
the same place where the rope ties?

                                   How can I just float on cloud nine?

Keep my eyes on the heavens:
                                keep preventing these nose dives

How can I treasure the role I’ve been given
when my son is a signet 
               and my wife is a goldmine?

Why can’t I just feed my soul right?
When this hunger in my belly
is a shark at high tide

How can I stop 
getting stabbed in the back
when I try to lay the blame 
and the blade 
is my own knife?

And my haters are so nice!
                    tough online 
but when I see them
      – they’re ghostlike

Alright 
I’ll shadow box down the phoneline

OK
I’ll shadow box in my own mind

My inner demons are laughing and I can hear em
saying: 
you got a dream, but how you gonna get near it?

Why the hell have I been wasting my own time?
When my gifts are a present
            and the present  just goes by.

From now on I’m embedding my prose lines
carving out my name into gutters and coastlines

Praying to become a messenger of the most high
                      praying that the keys to my cage are close by…

My hail mary’s 
                a hail mary
every kick
      is a switch stance chance to stay ready
every hit
        is a prayer my fears will stay buried
until I read my damn name
                    under king
                              in the library.

Tell the world that the victory’s near
  we’re making history here

I see the mist in the air
                                   despite the risk and fears

I’ll be wearing the crown:
I won’t 
be held 
down

Verse II

They told me I was too deep to hold

The problem was two fold:
I was too bold 
to fit inside their new mold
too fresh 
too cold
too talented 
to hold back

Too self-assured:
I fell off track
I gave my best years
to healing in silence
feeling for guidance
blinded by the tyrants 
of inherited violence
faced the ghosts hiding behind both of my eyelids

Faced the dead forces 
of wars I never fought
bandaging the wounds 
from my grandfather’s swords
holding my heart 
with my hands full of gauze
horses gallop towards 
I fall to the floor

Searching for some light
in this darkness
searching for some life 
in this carcass
searching for release 
from this harness

I know my heart can reach infinity 
but the limits of this room are the hardest

So I grab my paper and my pen 
and I scribe it again

Papercuts on my palms 
like I’m hanging with Him

Pour my blood on the page 
like a faber with ink

Pray my ancestors plans 
                        come and favour my hand

I know that I can be a vessel: a believer
I know that I can be a messenger and evil
can become crushed beneath the crest of the eagle
lethal, to all weapons formed against 
me and my people

I can seek my enemies 
                            and crush them

I am pure energy combustion
I am the warriors and hunters:
                    dead friends and lost ones
resurrected in the eye of a dust storm

I will triumph
despite the liars 
and falsifiers 
and the fake messiahs

I’ll keep on fighting
In the midst of a riot 
I’ll be wearing a crown:

I won’t 

be held

down.