This track is real talk! It's been kicking around for a bit but it's still relevant.
There is some crap coming from the mainstream music market right now. No disrespect to folks that attended a community college (I did) but it's like mainstream music is turning into a community college, because anyone and everyone can get in. The music industry use to be Harvard but now it's your local community college spot.
Here's the forumla: Just give us a catchy hook and no content... Oh, and a dance step or too also. Who cares, right?! Labels don't care about artist development, because you'll be out and irelevant when the next instructional-dance-ringtone-song hits the scene. Nah, I want more from my music.
For music cats out here just looking to enter the industry for a job to make money, look elsewhere if you don't have any passion or love for your craft, because it's disrespectful. Be an artist, because right now a lot of these cats are record company employees. You know the difference? An artist does what's in their heart and an employee does exactly what their boss says.
Check this Soul Position joint, Hand Me Downs. Happy Monday and enjoy!
[Chorus]
Come on say it loud
Look what we handed down
Don't it make you proud?
Look what we Handed Down
Come on say it loud
Look what we handed down
Don't it make you proud?
Look What We Handed Down
[Verse 1]
My mommy gave me Donny Hathaway
I miss the Positivity, I want to bring it back
But Rap now-a-days is by a bunch of ignorant cats
No young gifted and black
Just guns, bitches and crack
I react by turning off BET and Sambo's telling me what blackness is supposed to be
Used to give us world news now it's all videos replaced Tavis Smiley with reality shows
If you let the TV define what black is you think ice and violence is all we think that matters
I guess this is what happens when rappers look up to thugs
And kids look up to rappers
To some of y'all if I don't talk about the gat enough
Or sell crack enough
I ain't black enough
But I rather be a pro at being myself
Than be an idiot trying to be somebody else, what?!
[Chorus]
Come on say it loud
Look what we handed down
Don't it make you proud?
Look What we Handed Down
Come on say it loud
Look what we handed down
Don't it make you proud?
Look What We Handed Down
[Verse 2]
I'm at the bus stop with my bike
Been there for awhile
Mom's taught me how to catch this route when I was a child
-Another kid walks up freakin up black and mild
Fifteen same age, I learn shits wild
An older lady walks up greets us with a smile
Asks how we both doing and sits down
She knows what's it's like to grow up in the south
Civil Rights when the whites was hosing us down
I started thinking to myself that even though that time's were tougher
They still took time out to speak to one another
But look at us, me and this young brother
Acting to proud to break down and speak to each other
So inside I felt ashamed
Not sure of how to but I wanna change
And as long as I'm alive than the fact remains
That it's never too late for us to break the chains
Come on y'all
[Chorus]
Come on say it loud
Look what we handed down
Don't it make you proud?
Look What we Handed Down
Come on say it loud
Look what we handed down
Don't it make you proud?
Look What We Handed Down
