"Paint the Town Red" Released April 19, 2005

-Written by: T. Welbeck; Instrumentation Written by T. Anderson, Arranged by D3-

Biblical References: Proverbs 15:4, 18:21, Matthew 12:36-37, 18:6-7, Romans 10:17, Ephesians 4:29, James 3:2-6

Verse 1

This started off in parks after dark/Before it went around the world and filled up Billboard charts/This was about kids breaking and spraying on buildings/Before men saw potential for raking in millions/This wasn’t about endorsements on stage in pavilions/It was about kids rhyming and stating their feelings/Now greed has gone and corrupted the air waves/Record execs proclaims genius in hair-brains/The endless thirst for money has gone to their brains/And no one cares any longer about what they’re saying/All we ever talk about is ex and coke, sex and dope/Bling-bling and the gleam on the Lexus spokes/If I were a white man I would lock me up too/Because that’s all that we ever say we be up to/We talk about the sex and drugs, drugs and sex/Bubble hard in the double r and the bubble lex

Hook

We call it hip-hop/But it’s really hip-hopcrisy/It’s got to be more than hot beats and misogyny/We’re mocking God and we’re robbing our progeny (repeat)

Verse 2

And now our kids are starving because we’ve been feeding them garbage/We produced it, we (w)rapped it, and then we barred it/We called these neo-pimps and hustlers artists/We gave them awards when they’re thoughts are godless/And then we put it on the market, and called it harmless/But to do that, you kind of do what the Hawks did/You promised the playoffs and then you blew it and lost it/And now you’re at home watching New Jersey and Boston/You can ask Atlanta how much the cost is when you make guarantees embedded in falseness/Because faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God/So what happens when you broadcast lies and term it pop/You get kids believing words that were not God’s and then you wonder why they grow up and turn up lost/That’s why I lose myself in the music the moment, telling our kids to pray because we need atonement/

Hook

We call it hip-hop/But it’s really hip-hopcrisy/It’s got to be more than hot beats and misogyny/We’re mocking God and we’re robbing our progeny (repeat)

Verse 3

Paradise is lost, things fall apart/How do we restore the aesthetic and give this art to God/When major labels got us bound contractually/To move units and have people tap their feet/While they remind us you’re only hot temporarily/And the day that you drop in popularity/We’ll find another who’ll top your record selling feats and be more than happy to give you your bus fair and leave/The answer is simplistic, but yet we missed it/Without an artist you can’t have a big hit/Labels are able to say do what we say do/But without an artist, there’s no music to get paid to/That’s why change has to come from the lifeline from those who write rhymes not those who write checks/Because they don’t mic check, who cares who likes it/We started in the park before we told you to buy it

Hook

We call it hip-hop/But it’s really hip-hopcrisy/It’s got to be more than hot beats and misogyny/We’re mocking God and we’re robbing our progeny (repeat twice)

© 2005