Elevation (Free My Mind)

[Repeat: x4] I gotta free my mind I gotta free my mind, free my mind Yeah, I gotta free my mind, free my mind I gotta free my mind, free my mind Yeah? I gotta free my mind, free my mind From sand docks to auction blocks to R&B From hip-hop, how many rappers flip-flop to get props? Signed the dotted line but didn't read through the costs (When your album sits on the desk) "That's when ya lost!" Followed your label's notion no promotion now you're audi And that's the type of moves that make an artist act rowdy Emcees fallin victim to financial, seduction Then watchin creative weight extracted, like liposuction Your A and R like see'n'are got many styles to suit ya But if it's false to me I've never been an ass smoocher Since I don't brainwash minds, with talkin nines and How I shoot ya, it seems no multi million dollar contract's In my future, I could swallow the bait and get gassed Like petroleum, but contracts break like Rock Steady On linoleum, no wackin in my format, no Grammy awards Rap over break loops and samples, no R&B chords On a mission from God, to make the conscious souls nod When I'm rhyming, I take tracks of coal and then Compress em to a diamond, I'm in the mind state To escalate, when all rappers participate It's fate for rap to elevate [Repeat: x2] I gotta free my mind (yo as a matter of fact) I gotta free my mind (we're not goin out like that) I gotta free my mind (we got the power to stay) "Other rappers, they went slip slidin away" You're goin, downtown to leave your mark on the biz You reminisce, you and your A&R was first friends You got talent and you ain't afraid to splurge hip-hop Better thrills than Jordan alley-oops the pill but still Got verbals like murder, so call on Perry Mason Twenty-five to life, is what I'm facing, for this fate's in The element of fine print I've read it and overseen By judgmental pompous ass phonetics, the critic I'm still the rapper for the rhymes that he expresses Or manifests, no frontin, I wrote the shit while blunted Take control, don't be a fuckin fish on a pole Label's will leave you murdered in a river with no soul It's true, for what you say is what you do with the flow For labels MC's come and they go, but B.U.M.S. We leave our mark for hip-hop's devastation In our strive to stay alive for my record's elevation I gotta free my mind, free my mind Yeah, I gotta free my mind, free my mind I gotta free my mind, free my mind Yeah? I gotta free my mind, free my mind