(Verse One)

The money, power, or fame,
how many people be screamin’ your name,
doesn’t equate to success or freedom to me.
I just wana live and let my art breathe
I just want be, I just want to be, I just want to be-be
I just want to be free.


What happened to Kurt, Janis Joplin or Jimi,
Miles, Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Amy Winehouse, or Whitney.
That fame shit is shifty.
Call it narcissism or call it the drugs.
Call it too much power or the wrong type of love.

And everyone mad at Dave Chappelle
for savin’ himself.
I’m like, well. . .
My music can’t translate to money,
sonny. My music is infinity. Fuck 50 million.
You can’t buy my dignity.

They put Lupe in a bind.
The Roots been low budget for a long time.

Paris Hilton barley does a day,
but if you a rapper they give you the max and throw the key away.
Picture Talib Kweli questioned by the FBI,
listening to Stokely (Carmichael) and they wanna know why.

I imagine all the people like John Lennon
but then I remember all the people like John Lennon:
Malcom, Huey, King, Kennedys, too many names to mention.

Arizona Sheriffs and vigilantes with raw aggression,
raw aggression.

(Chorus)

I don’t want to be famous
cuz that shit will kill you.
I don’t want to be famous
cuz that shit will kill you.
And I don’t wanna be,
and I don’t need to be,
and I don’t wanna be,
and I don’t need to be,
but I got to feed my family.


(Verse Two)

Dave Chappelle’s black white supremacist hit.
Kids in my class memorized the skit,
couldn’t interpret what Dave was tryin’ to say:
that ignorance is blind and so is hate.
So they actin’ all KKK, runin’ the hall way all day
yellin’, “Go back to your country. White power.”

Stupid kids thinkin’ racism was cool,
unaware that the Chapelle joke was aimed at you.

If I blew, these fools would misconstrue
the shit that I do.

You
say its the year of the white MC.
That don’t mean shit to me,
I’m bi-racial homie.
I ain’t got no fake ID,

and because I speak about race thing,
I’d be the first they paint crazy.

America loves Slim Shady,
cuz that’s poor white American rage,
kicked over music built on black American pain.

And I too break free
from break beats built from the cracks and the inequality.

I’m just a small town kid big city adopted,
raised into a man,
funky Finiquera where I stand.
Who I am? Just a lonely mestizo
lettin’ ink flow
on the alchemist instrumental.
I write
knowin’ people goin’ paint me black or white,
but worse come to worse my people come first
and I fight

(Chorus)

I don’t want to be famous
cuz that shit will kill you.
I don’t want to be famous
cuz that shit will kill you.
And I don’t wanna be,
and I don’t need to be,
and I don’t wanna be,
and I don’t need to be,
but I got to feed my family.


(Verse, Three)

I never believed in such a thing as bad music,
just misguided lyrics and crap that’s useless.
I don’t believe in white music.
I don’t believe in black music.
I believe the fact is that black people were the first to do this,
created American music,
then the white kids started started groovin’ and wanted to do the same shit.
From hip hop to jazz
they called it devil music or a fad
cuz the music was born black,
but it takes both, you know.
White man invents the saxophone,
oppresses black man.
Black man teaches the white man
how to dance and make that motherfuckin’ horn blow,
ey yo!

Don’t get me wrong. I love legends like Dylan’s and Lennon’s.
I just
make objections when people say rock and roll and only white names get mentioned.
What happened to Muddy, Chuck, and Kool Herc?
The ones who made that shit groove first?
Hey, I give no love to a hip hop Elvis,
black or lilly white, wearin’ a block of ice in the summer time.
You the type to get held over the balcony by a Suge Knight.
Stars fall.
Vanilla ice.
Yikes.

Hip Hop ain’t that black and white.

The truth is
the first b-boys were Puerta Ricans,
and you can’t get no Run DMC without out no Rick Rueben,
and he’s Jewish,
so don’t ask me what the fuck I’m doin’.


(Chorus)

I don’t want to be famous
cuz that shit will kill you.
I don’t want to be famous
cuz that shit will kill you.
And I don’t wanna be,
and I don’t need to be,
and I don’t wanna be,
and I don’t need to be,
but I got to feed my family.