[Featuring Cee-Lo]
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Common:
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After bein' 25, you know, just trying to survive in the world
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Bout to have a little boy or baby girl. Who knows?
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Anyway, just when you start gettin that little age and experience to
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you
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You start thinkin about stuff...tryin to make the right moves
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So bust it out, this is what I was thinkin, check it
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Yo, the education of the Lon-chicka-Lonnie Lynn
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Began, began with time
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Bein my bloodline is one with the divine
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In time brotha, you will discover the light
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Some say that God is Black and the Devil's White
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Well, the Devil is wrong and God is what's right
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I fight, with myself in the ring of doubt and fear
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The rain ain't gone, but I can still see clear
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As a child, given religion with no answer to why
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Just told believe in Jesus cuz for me he did die
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Curiosity killed the catechism
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Understanding and wisdom became the rhythm that I played to
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And became a slave to master self
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A rich man is one with knowledge, happiness and his health
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My mind had dealt with the books of Zen, Tao the lessons
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Koran and the Bible, to me they all vital
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And got truth within 'em, gotta read them boys
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You just can't skim 'em, different branches of belief
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But one root that stem 'em, but people of the venom try to trim 'em
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And use religion as an emblem
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When it should be a natural way of life
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Who am I or they to say to whom you pray ain't right
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That's who got you doin right and got you this far
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Whether you say "in Jesus name" or Hum do Allah
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Long as you know it's a bein' that's supreme to you
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You let that show towards others in the things you do
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Cuz when the trumpets blowin, 24 elders surround the throne
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Only 144,000 gon get home
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Only 144,000 gon get home
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Only 144,000 gon get it baby
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Chorus Cee-Lo:
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I've lived and I've learned
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I have taken and I've earned
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I have laughed, I've cried
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I have failed and I have tried
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Sunshine, pouring rain
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found joy through all my pain
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I just wanna be happy with being me
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Cee-Lo:
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Let me voice my concern
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So many of my fellow brothers have given themselves a title
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That their actions didn't earn
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Our ignorance is in the same breath as our innocence
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Subconciously, seeking to find an impressionable mind to convince
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I've finally come to the realization why Black people in the worse
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place
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Cuz it's hard to correct yourself when you don't know
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Who you are in the first place
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So I try to find the clue in you
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But evidently, White folks know more Black history than we do
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Why're we bein' lied to? I ain't know our history was purposely hidden
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Damn, somethin' in me wanna know who I am
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So I began my search, my journey started in church
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It gave my heartache relief when I started to understand belief
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Hustlin was like a gift spent my share of time in the streets
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Taught me survival from this evil I'm just gonna have to deal with
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And I felt like a fool when I tried to learn it in school
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It almost seemed like a rehearsal when the only
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Science and math are universal
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Takin elder advice, read the Bible, the Koran
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Searched scrolls from the Hebrew Israelites
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Hold on, this ain't right, Jesus wasn't White
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Some leads were granted with insight
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and it's all in the plan, but it took me some time to overstand
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He still created with the imperfection of man
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So, with followin' I disagree
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By no means have I forgotten or forgiven what's been done to me but
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I do know the Devil ain't no White man, the Devil's a spiritual mind
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That's color blind, there's evil White folk and evil niggas
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You gon surely find there's no positivity without negativity
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But one side you gonna have to choose
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Any chance to speak I refuse to misuse
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So how can you call yourself God when you let a worldly possession
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become an obsession and the way you write your rhymes and
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Can't follow your lesson
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If a seed's sown, you make sure it's known, you make sure it's grown
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If you God, then save your own, don't mentally enslave your own
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If you God, then save your own, don't mentally enslave your own
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If you God, |