Lyrics
[Intro - A sampled speech from a 1960s civil rights leader, scratched and looped over a warm, fuzzy bass line. A saxophone plays a dissonant riff.] (Are you angry? ... angry?) (Waiting too long... too long...) (Kweli.) (Brooklyn stand up.) (Yeah, the question is simple, but the answer is complex.) (Listen.) [Verse 1 - Talib's flow is fast, articulate, almost spoken-word poetry but locked to the snare. Very lyrical and dense.] Yo, are you angry at the texture of the ceiling? Or searching for a better life to harvest the feeling? We stay waiting in the lobby of the soul's resurrection. Too long have we paused in the mirrors of reflection. Ask me, "What holds us back?" It's the shackles of the mind. The linear time designed to leave the spirit behind. I got the kerosene, burn the bridges to the culture of the hate. The culture that taught us fear is the keeper of the gate. Taught us to live like cogs in a machine—rust and rot. Turning in the engine for the profit that they got. Not like lovers, friends, and kin in a circle of trust. But like isolated atoms crumbling back into dust. (Dust to dust.) (Yeah.) [Chorus - Female soul singer delivers the hook, melodic and melancholic, over a piano loop.] How can you help but feel depressed? (So heavy on the chest.) Get up in the morning and get dressed. (Put the armor on the vest.) Look out the window through rush hour smog. (Lost in the fog.) Smoke and drink the world away... drowning the monologue. 'Cause what the politicians say is just noise in the fray. Won't answer any of my questions... anyway. (None of 'em.) (Silence.) [Verse 2 - Talib Kweli switches flows, riding the bassline. More aggressive and focused on the revolution.] Why am I angry? Is it the chemicals in the food? Or the systematic dismantle of the gratitude? What am I searching for in the ruins of the empire? Is it a better way to live? Or just fuel for the fire? Why am I hopeless when the hope is inside? Have I been waiting too long for the turn of the tide? To strike back against this state of affairs, we need the clarity. Strike the match in the dark, illuminate the disparity. I see the smog on the glass, but the vision is lucid. The system is distinct, but the freedom is elusive. Smoke and drink to numb the sting of the fact. That we act like machines, but the machine can't react. (It can't love.) (It can't breathe.) Burn the culture to the ground, replant the seed. [Outro - Scratched vocal samples fading into a drum solo.] (State of affairs...) (Searching...) (Are you waiting?) (Or are you moving?) (Burn the bridge.) (Strike back.) [Fades into static]