J-Live Delivers A Powerful Message Against Police Brutality w/ "I Am A Man"

J-Live just dropped one of his most meaningful and heartfelt joints ever in the form of the soulful new loosie "I Am A Man." NYC's unspoken mic-slaying hero goes to work over some simple and sobering guitar lick and a booming kit, J explains the importance of an honorable police presence and the glaring systemic inequities that exist in our current state. If you're looking for your blood to boil a bit, this one'll do it. It's the first we've heard from him since his clip for "Money Matters" and a sign that your boy is far from done. Put your ears to J-Live's latest cut "I Am A Man" cop his Around The Sun LP via Bandcamp and peep the lyrics to the track down below.

I tell you what I pledge

Allegiance to the people not the flag. The flag’ll never

Represent the people 'til we all considered equal. In the

Eyes of the law, rich or poor, officers kill

Blacks with no remorse. Then ask what we bitchin for.

And wonder why the innocent aint even snitchin' for'em.

You just as dangerous as criminals so pick your poison.

Part of the problem that refuses to relate. Turn the

Hood to a trap very few can escape. Like the

Word that precedes it. Neighbor. But if it aint the

Cops it’s somebody else's neighborhood watch. As the

Money turns your block from hot to the new hot

Spot. Now it’s someone else’s neighborhood. Watch how

Police get along with them. The storm troopers think the

Whole hood is truant unless it’s affluent. But

Even if you’re fluent in the language of law with

Stacks green backs you can’t reply or buy out the

Fact if you black there’s a target on your back, your

Front your side they’ll blow down the front door

Where you reside air out your ride whether

Hooptie or coup your hoodie or your suit, you’re

Ugly or your cute, a dentist or his son with a

Scholarship to hoop, Colin Powell or Snoop.

Hands on the steering wheel thrown for a loop,

Hands up wallet out screaming don’t shoot

Without even so much as an oops. Armed to the

Teeth like troops. Fully automatic.

Patrolling the warzone that we call home.

Unless I’m breaking the law, leave me the fuck alone.

How you gonna serve and protect

A beat on a street that you don’t even respect.

Confounding the cause for the effected.

Children women and men subjected to a

Stop and frisk puts pride and lives at risk. Heart

Beats on pause if not stop. And probable

Cause is probably cause we black and yawl cops.

No apologies. But apologists say

Not all police. Shh... Please! When you’re

Treated less than human by a beast, it doesn’t matter

If it’s the whole beast or nothing but the beast.

If it’s systemic, pandemic and you don’t even

Have the decency to condemn it? God damnit.

Good constable. If I was hiding

Behind the same shield I should feel responsible.

But when a black child of god is dead and your

Dead wrong. Why you only able to respond

Defensive for beating the defenseless senseless?

When we mourn and protest pursuit is relentless.

But what about pursuit of justice? What happened to the

People verses? When it’s police verses people like

Us, victims are discussed with

Disdain and disgust, fear, hate and distrust.

Hard to win hearts and minds when you

Lose’em and you break’em at the same damn time. How

Many hearts and minds and bodies are confined

Just for being indicted of the same exact crime? But

Can’t afford the kind of defense that’s unionized

Weaponized and never repents. The standards are

Doubled like sentences Like what the 4th 8th and

13th amendment is? Did you forget? Cause the

Facts don’t add up to the stats when the

Deck and dice and the dealer is loaded and

Stacked. So when I say I am a black man or

Simply I am a man. You had me at black.

credits