“Cans of spam, hand to hand
No deals made, dolla for dolla, gram for gram
Follow me and see just how much a man can stand
Before we go off the deep end
Come in your crib and creep in
Help us get home invaded
The hustlas they gon’ get raided
Eventually, but for now they stay thuggin’ and motivated
“Misguided miseducated
We barely be graduated
And our lack of skills lead to some deadly infatuations
In the ghetto, the barrio, the hood, the slums
Government funds fill my city up with drugs and guns
And I can’t go for being broke so I’mma go on the run
Momma can’t stand the way I live but can’t give up on her son
Even though I know she hear about my habits through the grape vine
Stealin’ the car on Sundays, to hit the state line
Gettin’ drunk and twisted off liquor all through the daytime
Handshakes and gang signs, don’t play with mine”
Notably, reminding us:
“The ghetto ain’t just a place it’s a mentality
Most of us carry with us constantly causing casualties…”
—Messina
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“The Ghetto” by Freddie Gibbs (b. 1982)
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[Image entitled “Freddie-Gibbs-10” by SwaGibbs – Own work. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia; licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.]
LUMPENPROLETARIAT—Talkin’ ’bout the fonky, fonky ghetto… I done lived in the ghettos of California and now I done lived in the ghettos of Kansas City, which JC Nichols made the blueprint for the USA’s ghettos.
We commend those who have survived the world’s ghettos. And we implore those survivors to help our neighbour’s still trapped in them. We implore survivors to help our neighbours in the ghettos to transform their ghettos into healthy communities, on terms decided by those who live in the ghettos, through critical and mindful analysis.