Buying and selling,
Buying and selling.
It's the law of supply and demand.
The more is demanded,
The greater the supply. 
Buying and selling, 
Buying and selling,
Buying and selling.

Buying.
The diseases ravages the mind, 
Forces you, zombified
To buy and consume, 
Buy and consume, 
Buy and consume. 
Hoard and inhale
Like a dragon 
Guarding its keep. 

Selling. 
Could be just a bit of fun,
Money on the side. 
Or an unwilling turn on the ride: 
Momma's no good, 
Daddy's in jail.
We need this money 
To feed ourselves. 
So we stand like soldiers at our post 
Slangin’ until we're spent, 
Stoic machines:
Sliding and exchanging, 
Sliding and exchanging, 
Sliding and exchanging. 

Buying and selling, 
Buying and selling,
Buying and selling. 
It's the law of supply and demand. 
The more is demanded, 
The greater the supply.
Buying and selling, 
Buying and selling,
Buying and selling.


Buying,
Glazed over.
Selling,
Shot.

Come on is this the best you've got? 
You steal my people,
Turn them into shells.
Killing them with negligence,
Leaving us in this hell.
You've abandoned us to the concrete;
This is the family we've got.
You've thrown away your citizens.
You're the ones outraged, but we're the real victims. 

These are MY brothers dying, 
OUR mothers crying, 
MY cousins walking around in a daze, 
Brilliant minds snuffed out by the haze. 
"Do you want to see it? Do you wanna? There's a braid in the back of  my head!" 
The once genius one once said. 

These are MY friends smoking their lives away 
Not remembering what happened last night;
Coulda been raped coulda been in a fight. 
MY real fear as a car slows down in front of me; 
The reflex that causes me to duck 
Or to drop 
When I hear anything that remotely sounds like a shot.

The streets bleed for you,
Staining our arms permanently red.
A red streaked slick by the thousands of tears 
That have been and are waiting to be shed.
We sing: 
"Ease my spirit,
Ease my soul,
Please free my hands from this barren soil."
The concrete calls out for you. 

Do you listen? 
Do you even care? 
You cover your eyes, turn your face, 
And pretend that we're not there.
All you leave us with is the economics:
Buying and selling,
Buying and selling,
Buying and selling. 

The song of the ghetto gospel on our lips.