Prisoner has some of the darkest vibes on the album. This is a very descriptive song. I tried to describe what it's like to be a prisoner in an artists mind. Someone who is constantly thinking or critiquing his work and the work around him. Someone who can't stop thinking about the song he's working on while he walks through life on autopilot. Describing his mind as if it were a dungeon that he's stuck in. As someone who has experienced and escaped the binds of depression, it made sense to describe "the prisoner" breaking free of his shackles while he cackles through the hallways of the prison. There is a skit in the song that depicts a prison guard opening the door of a cell to let me know I'm free to go. This skit, the only one on the album, was recorded at Garfield Studios using a broken drum stick, a sheet music stand, two random planks of steel found in a storage closet of the studio, and the house/car keys of everyone that was at the studio that day. I also put on my best prison guard voice and got goofy in the booth.
lyrics
when he's locked up in his mind he'll make a written work
he wont shut his eyes to blink until he's spit a verse
and made you think, go get a nurse
you're gonna need her when it hurts
he'll bring you one inch to your death
she'll bring you back to make it worse…
and when it's worse he'll make it worse
and when it's worse, you'll be a different person
cursing in your songs, worthless to the genre all along
it was his fault I started writing dark songs
started warmhearted, than this art form sharted and it caused scars
you know it caused bars so sick, it could've caused sars
that's just what the facts are
still haven't blinked
and I wont see a shrink, I'll do the opposite and grow
long as the hip hop in me flows
as long I'm putting on a show
as long as my ducks are in a row
with that status quo
with that added, whoa
if I have it lemme know
if I don't? than these demons gotta go!
Sooooo
I could be a freeman
all I need is treatment
to help me with these demons
I'm a prisoner in my own mind
he's insane, chained to the dungeon wall
and the dungeons in his mind, the one that's making all the calls
got a blood tally drawn, he drew it with his fingers
and the blood that he clawed, from his arms as he starved
that's what made him write Like a Molotov
a metaphor for how he'll blow like a bottled bomb
if you don't know him, than you probably never saw him on stage
spitting parts of his life from the page to the mic
here he comes you can hear him down the hall dragging shackles
he must of ripped em off the wall with his ankles
you know he's coming when you hear him cackle
HAHAHAHA
you should run and hide bitch, its probably you he's after
you can hear him breathe, real deep, sinister
try to sleep, bad dreams in a stir
he'll administer the dick, and he'll finish first
"Not fair", I don't really care, lay it on thick
and I've been here a minutes worth
SOOOOOO
I could be a freeman
all I need is treatment
to help me with these demons
I'm a prisoner in my own mind
Whats with all this freedom business
all this world is, is this mass group of misfits
no resistance to the gifted
taken over known every move we make
will bring us closer to boiling over
till we're mindless little drones to a governed world
They sit there in their chairs, not a problem not a care
watching us fuck up is music to their ears
and I'm tired of it
Its time we rise up above it
put the wrench between their gears
if they listening let em hear
tell em rappers have no fear and its clear we're a forced to be reckoned
will we rise? will we fall? is the question.
that's why were crazy all this time we're investing
so settle down, listen to their rhymes for a second
It's a group of mad men and bad vibes with a message
fuck curriculum the best, cause were comprised of the testing
it's like were climbing everest
mines driving endless, but in our minds
we define pretentious
still thinking
I could be a freeman
all I need is treatment
to help me with these demons
I'm a prisoner in my own mind
