| I tell you, there are no big shots in reality, y’all
|
| We’re all in the same boat, dealing with the same issues, same problems,
|
| same stuff. |
| Don’t even buy it. |
| All the perpetration… you know, all this…
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| «We don’t have problems.» |
| That’s a lie. |
| That’s a lie. |
| I know that the enemy is
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| doing the same thing to me that he’s doing to everybody else. |
| I just know now
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| that the only way to get out is through confrontation. |
| See, we always thought
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| it was retreat, you know, run away. |
| And I’m telling you, you got to confront it
|
| This is a strange song because this song -- when this song was written,
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| this is when everything sort of stopped. |
| It was written a long time ago,
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| but it was right before God just snatched me out of everything.
|
| And because I didn’t understand… Initially it was written -- I’d written it
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| about the whole Amadou Diallo situation, when it first happened.
|
| And I went to the studio, and I laid it down. |
| And it was like, strong,
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| for the first day. |
| And then it just regressed everyday after that.
|
| And I said, «What's going on? |
| What’s happening?»
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| And at the end of it there was a word that i used, «rebel.» |
| And I guess was
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| afraid. |
| It was such a hot time in the city at that point, I was afraid that if
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| Put the record out, people would misunderstand what I meant by «rebel»
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| and they’d just take it to the streets. |
| So I was very intimidated and afraid.
|
| And before I knew it a whole host of things happened. |
| Everything stopped after
|
| that. |
| And the creativity stopped. |
| Everything stopped. |
| That’s when I realized I
|
| had to understand what I was talking about before I could tell somebody else
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| what I was talking about. |
| And I had to be, you know, a living example
|
| It’s real crazy because I don’t know what the press is saying because I don’t
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| listen to the press too much. |
| But I know the view is that I’m emotionally
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| unstable, which is reality. |
| Like you aren’t?
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| I’m laughing because what I’ve realized I’ve become is one of those mad
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| scientists who does the tests on themselves first, you see, to make sure that
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| they work. |
| And that’s when you know, OK look, I got something that works.
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| You know what I’m saying? |
| I’m not gonna give you something that I haven’t
|
| tested for myself. |
| And you go through, and you’re learning by way of experience,
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| and you’re making mistakes, and you’re getting up
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| A friend of mine once said to me, he said, Look, if we weren’t supposed to turn
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| around, why does a car have a steering wheel? |
| Are we just supposed to crash
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| into the wall? |
| No, we’re supposed to say, Listen, I was going the wrong way…
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| Reverse!
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| In this particular song, now I realize that this song is about freedom. |
| You see?
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| We could look at one human being, but it’s about the spirit of freedom being
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| taken out, and how it’s taken out in all of us
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| The song is called «I Find It Hard to Say.» |
| Bear with me a little bit |