Lyrics That Power - Childish Gambino

That Power

All these haters, see you later
All that I could do, but you don’t even feel me though
I know you know I know you got that power
That power
Oh, oh oh
So CG, but a nigga stay real though
I’m fly, I’m ill, I’m runnin' shit
3-points, field goal
Rappers used to laugh like I tripped and fell
Cause I don’t stunt a gold cross like I Christian, bail
Yeah, they starin' at me jealous 'cause I do shows bigger
But your looks don’t help like an old gold digger
Uncool, but lyrically I’m a stone cold killer
So it’s 400 blows to these Truffaut niggas
Yeah, now that’s the line of the century
Niggas missed it, too busy, they lyin' 'bout penitentiary
Man, you ain’t been there, nigga you been scared
And I’m still livin' single like Synclaire
Lovin' white dudes who call me white and then try to hate
When I wasn’t white enough to use your pool when I was eight
Stone Mountain, you raised me well
I’m stared at by Confederates, but hard as hell
Tight jeans, penny loafers, but I still drink a fo' dime
Staying on my me shit, but hated on by both sides
I’m just a kid who blowin' up with my father’s name
And every black «You're not black enough»
Is a white «you're all the same»
Mm Food like Rapp Snitch Knishes
'Cause it’s Oreos, Twinkies, coconuts, delicious
How many gold plaques you want inside your dining room?
I said, «I want a full house»
They said, «You got it, dude»
All these haters, see you later
All that I could do, but you don’t even feel me though (Brra)
I know you know I know you got that power
That power
Oh, oh oh
Holla, holla, holla, holla at your boy
Like your dad when he’s pissed off
Got flow, I could make a cripple crip walk
Niggas' breath stank, all they do is shit talk
People want a real man, I made 'em wait this long
Maybe if he bombs, he’ll quit and keep actin'
And save paper like your aunt does with McDonald napkins
How’d it happen?
Honesty did it
See all of my competition at the bodies exhibit
Yeah, I bodied the limits and I deaded them fakers
Motherfuck if you hate it, cremated them haters
So, my studio be a funeral
Yeah, this is our year, oh you didn’t know?
Uh, yeah I’m killin' you, step inside the lion’s den
Man I’m hov if the 'O' was an 'I' instead
On stage wit' my family in front of me
I am what I am: everything I wanna be
All these haters, see you later
All that I could do, but you don’t even feel me though
I know you know I know you got that power
That power
Oh, oh oh
This is on a bus back from camp
I’m thirteen and so are you
Before I left for camp I imagined it would be me and three or four other dudes
I hadn’t met yet, running around all summer, getting into trouble
It turned out it would be me and just one girl.
That’s you
And we’re still at camp as long as we’re on the bus
And not at the pickup point where our parents would be waiting for us
We’re still wearing our orange camp t-shirts.
We still smell like pineneedles
I like you and you like me and I more-than-like you
But I don’t know if you do or don’t more-than-like me
You’ve never said, so I haven’t been saying anything all summer
Content to enjoy the small miracle of a girl choosing to talk to me
And choosing to do so again the next day and so on
A girl who’s smart and funny and who, if I say something dumb for a laugh
Is willing to say something two or three times as dumb to make me laugh
But who also gets weird and wise sometimes in a way I could never be
A girl who reads books that no one’s assigned to her
Whose curly brown hair has a line running through it
From where she put a tie to hold it up while it was still wet
Back in the real world we don’t go to the same school
And unless one of our families moves to a dramatically different neighborhood
We won’t go to the same high school
So, this is kind of it for us.
Unless I say something
And it might especially be it for us if I actually do say something
The sun’s gone down and the bus is quiet.
A lot of kids are asleep
We’re talking in whispers about a tree we saw at a rest stop
That looks like a kid we know
And then I’m like, «Can I tell you something?»
And all of a sudden I’m telling you
And I keep telling you and it all comes out of me and it keeps coming
And your face is there and gone and there and gone
As we pass underneath the orange lamps that line the sides of the highway
And there’s no expression on it
And I think just after a point I’m just talking to lengthen the time
Where we live in a world where you haven’t said «yes» or «no» yet
And regrettably I end up using the word «destiny»
I don’t remember in what context.
Doesn’t really matter
Before long I’m out of stuff to say and you smile and say, «okay»
I don’t know exactly what you mean by it, but it seems vaguely positive
And I would leave in order not to spoil the moment
But there’s nowhere to go because we’re on a bus
So I pretend like I’m asleep and before long, I really am
I wake up, the bus isn’t moving anymore
The domed lights that line the center aisle are all on
I turn and you’re not there
Then again a lot of kids aren’t in their seats anymore
We’re parked at the pick-up point, which is in the parking lot of a Methodist
church
The bus is half empty.
You might be in your dad’s car by now
Your bags and things piled high in the trunk
The girls in the back of the bus are shrieking and laughing and taking their
sweet time
Disembarking as I swing my legs out into the aisle to get up off the bus
Just as one of them reaches my row
It used to be our row, on our way off
It’s Michelle, a girl who got suspended from third grade for a week
After throwing rocks at my head
Adolescence is doing her a ton of favors body-wise
She stops and looks down at me
And her head is blasted from behind by the dome light, so I can’t really see
her face
But I can see her smile.
And she says one word: «destiny»
Then her and the girls clogging the aisles behind her all laugh
And then she turns and leads them off the bus
I didn’t know you were friends with them
I find my dad in the parking lot.
He drives me back to our house and camp is
over
So is summer, even though there’s two weeks until school starts
This isn’t a story about how girls are evil or how love is bad
This is a story about how I learned something and I’m not saying this thing is
true or not
I’m just saying it’s what I learned
I told you something.
It was just for you and you told everybody
So I learned cut out the middle man, make it all for everybody, always
Everybody can’t turn around and tell everybody, everybody already knows,
I told them
But this means there isn’t a place in my life for you or someone like you
Is it sad?
Sure.
But it’s a sadness I chose
I wish I could say this was a story about how I got on the bus a boy
And got off a man more cynical, hardened, and mature and shit
But that’s not true.
The truth is I got on the bus a boy.
And I never got off
the bus
I still haven’t