My cousin, who was killed by the police in my hometown Oklahoma City in 2015, had been in and out of jail toward the end of his life and, while this album is largely in dedication to him, this song is specifically about what I imagine his experiences may have been like there.
In this song, our fates have been reversed and he finds out I've been killed while he's still incarcerated. To be the target of the prison-industrial complex is to have a deadly game played with your life. Trying to emerge from that game the victor requires an absolutely maddening degree of real-life chess skill, street knowledge, force, and luck, or perhaps something even more than all of these.
lyrics
"The Missing"
Through bulletproof glass, you say they might set me free... with good behavior.
8 years turns to 3... with good behavior.
You don't believe that you will leave... with good behavior.
So, I am you and you are me... with good behavior.
Don't think about the lesser sentence that I should've got
Don't about the cops
My cousin who they shot
Don't think about his little girls or his one son
Don't think about the fact that he was ever someone
Don't think too hard about regrets that we were not in touch
Don't think that everything you ever did was not enough
Don't be reminded that to murder us, they have to lie
When people believe them, don't think about why
Don't think of the cold race war inside of the prison
Don't start thinking that on the outside it's missing
That's the intention of detention itself
Create a threat that in affected mindsets will permanently mention itself
A virus uploaded to the black male mainframe that tells a brain that what's good for the prison you're in and yourself is the same thing
The thoughts will get you out will keep you free of infractions
Only thing that distracts a man is when his eyes see what happens
And the threat of reality distracting you is the most fierce
Cuz that's the threat the state's control and weaponry won't pierce
Emotions of independence will leave you dead on arrival
The results of every reaction make you rethink survival
So don't think
And when they're searching in your eyes, don't blink
Convince the system they beat you, but don't believe that you're weak
Because a freedom of a mind in the middle of a cell
Is a freedom in a jail within a jail within a jail
A joyful celebration of the sounds of Southern rap from an artist who's never felt more at home and in command of her space and vision. Bandcamp Album of the Day May 25, 2023
Having shacked up with Del and MF Doom, production powerhouse Parallel Thought now collabs with streetwise MC Bentley. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 5, 2016
