The Gift (feat. Marlon)

My mum used to listen to Janis Ian

While one brother listened to Rush

The other brother listened to dub from the Caribbean

Another brother listened to 'Hush'

Dad was Lead Belly, Dylan and Byrd

It was a gift from my family, everything that I heard

Without music I would have been a different man

Now put your hands in the air like it's a stick-up

Bang

My dad used to put on the blues

I could hear his head banging on the wall in the next room

And after he had passed

I realized it was music that he had passed

It's a river that runs inside you

And just like a river it will provide you

In church, they sing to the Lord above

'Cause you sing when you're in love

It's the music

Woo! For the love of sweet music

Ever since I was a cub with sheet music

It's such a deep movement

Like hearing 'Ante Up' in the club and we lose it

What's the first thing we give our kids? We sing to them

And that's 'cause of all the joy it that it brings to them

I haven't gone a day without it

A second of a song can make me nostalgic

Laid the foundation

I felt the vibration

The building blocks of who I'd become

It's the music

Passed from my father

A pile of vinyl covered in dust

Gift of music

Passed from my mother

Drifting down the hallway we love

It's the music

Passed from my father

A pile of vinyl covered in dust

Gift of music

Passed from my mother

Drifting down the hallway we love

We inherit the gift

Bestowed on the road that we tread as a kid

The sound of guitar in the house from my father

No doubt was the start of the lesson I lived

At home it was Eagles, Stones or the Beatles

Zeppelin and Hendrix, no one his equal

That's all I've known, and if we've all

Grown, I'm a patchwork sewn from my people

It felt like that was contagious

Big bro was LA rap and the Raiders

My neighbors, Tupac on their playlist

I was more Biggie, back in the days with

Every song painted my heart

Facets of a window, stained in glass

Now I see the world through the shade they cast

And it shaped what became of us

It laid the foundation

I felt the vibration

The building blocks of who I'd become

It's the music

Passed from my father

A pile of vinyl covered in dust

Gift of music

Passed from my mother

Drifting down the hallway we love

It's the music

Passed from my father

A pile of vinyl covered in dust

Gift of music

Passed from my mother

Drifting down the hallway we love

I felt the sweetness deep in my bones

When I fell asleep on the couch in headphones

Could melt my weakness away on its own

Was a well so deep it felt like a home