The city was cold Replete with these sheets of old ways And stained tenements that were built for bold slaves Days collapse, street's name, perhaps Were traps, you could see it in the concrete cracks The lost hope is smoked The skies would devise for slowpokes Dreamers who seem to touch zenith Their arms couldn't reach without touching the breach A blunder, so the summers woulda summoned police The heat reached through crevices To verify the visage of the nemesis No blemishes to find on this intricate design And odd no-brainer, the container was the mind The poverty stricken victims Produced the paint for the portrait So humble, yet the struggle was sold and went corporate It hit the world stage and got celebrated This odd mix of love and hatred The ghetto matrix It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined The mantra of the mission: Make money off the missing The streets were the rhythm When the six rounds hit 'em The shells danced in the moonlight of sunshine The blues, you could view them on the news at nine The vines grow over headstones and then homes Composed to give prose to the anguish and moans The worries of the world can't stop the cash crop The blood drop signifies a rise in the stock The matrix that enslaves us stops to seemingly balk But can't deny the fact that the act has gone pop Nonstop, the plot thickens with his and her children Echoes of the plight, like to have the youth listen Is it ghetto? Is it urban? Are you certain? Are you a servant here to keep the sales surgin'? All in all, that seems that no one can escape it This odd mix of love and hatred The ghetto matrix It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined It's on you, it's your mind It's a complex plan that keeps us confined