Lyrics
Day three. She reads my bars in a blazer ... no flow, no pocket, every syllable a razor she handles with gloves. "In his own words." They were never just words. Watch how I construct a sentence. So does the DPP. Got discovered twice: once by the label, once in discovery, same catalogue, different royalties. The jury gets a lyric sheet. Laminated. Sixteen bars I wrote at nineteen in a Corolla are now "evidence of intent" ... intent to what? Rhyme? I put names near places, places near dates, fiction with good aim. That's the craft. Apparently that's the charge. My verse took the stand before I did ... State v. everything I wrote ... and a verse can't be cross-examined, can't explain its metaphors, it just sits there in Times New Roman meaning whatever she says it means. Banned from the stages in my own postcode, the setlist needed a permit. Now the back-catalogue needs a barrister. Play it back ... yeah, that sounds like me. Same vowels. Same breath. Same key. Who said that? Run it twice for the gallery. Sounds like me on the stand, sounds like me in the sleeve, sounds like me when she reads it ... she don't read it like me. Every word in evidence, every word I breathe: sounds like me, sounds like me. Doesn't mean it's mine. Bail says no phone, so my mate shows me his: number one trending ... my name, my voice, a diss I never wrote. Flow's mine. Beef's synthetic. Streams are real. Two hundred K overnight, comments saying I've still got it ... I never had it. It's not mine to have. Some kid with a free site and forty seconds of an old interview cloned the voice, not the mileage on it ... got my hunger right, got my grief generic. And it slaps. That's the sick part. It slaps. Same week my nan gets a call ... my voice, asking for money. I was in a cell with no phone privileges. The alibi is the charge sheet. Sit with that. She sent four hundred. She'd have sent it to me too ... that's what they stole. Not the sound. The trust in the sound. Fans can't tell my leaks from the generated ones. Neither can I. That's the part I don't say in interviews. I watermark my vocals now. I sign my breathing. Somewhere a model's doing a better me than me ... it doesn't smoke, doesn't grieve, never misses court. Play it back ... yeah, that sounds like me. Same vowels. Same breath. Same key. Who said that? Run it twice for the comments. Sounds like me in your feed, sounds like me on repeat, sounds like me to my nan ... and she knows me deep. Two hundred thousand streams agree: sounds like me, sounds like me. Doesn't mean it's me. "Started from the shadows, now I'm shining through the pain, real recognise real and the whole world knows my name, every scar's a story, every story's a flame..." That's not ... I would never ... "every scar's a story"? ...Two hundred thousand people think that's my best work. Closing week, the prosecutor plays something new: twelve seconds. A voice memo. My voice. A threat with a street in it. And I'm in the dock running the vowels like a sommelier ... is that my "ay"? I do drop that G. I was drunk that March. Twelve seconds of me saying something I never said ... or said and don't remember, or never said till now ... court adjourned to figure out what "me" means. My barrister requests the file history. There isn't one. There's never one. My own mum listened twice. Said "sounds like you when you're tired." Cheers, mum. Here's where it actually lands: I stopped writing. Not scared of the verdict ... scared of the archive. Every bar I cut from tonight is a future exhibit or a future forgery, and both versions outlive me, testifying against each other. The realest thing I ever made is the doubt. So when they play a tape at some appeal, years out, and it's word for word this verse ... check the date. Check the breath. I signed it. Play it back ... yeah, that sounds like me. Same vowels. Same breath. Same key. Who said that? ... Sounds like me to the judge. Sounds like me to my mum. Sounds like me in the dark when I play it for one. If it sounds like me to me ... sounds like me. Sounds like me. That's all I've got.