justis

all day i've been searching for the right words. when this would happen at a cypher, you'd smack your teeth and tell me to spit anyway. so here i am. spitting anyway. i owe so much of what i'm grateful for in this life to you. it was the flattop rapping to the weezy beat that caught my ear at the first cypher i ever stumbled upon. you put me on stages; you put me on tv; you helped me navigate chapel hill and confront whiteness; you were the first person to ever pay me for my art; you showed me music could take me wherever i wanted it to. so many of the people that have held space for me and my grief today are people i know through or because of you and the community that you built. a community i've cherished and poured into over the years because i respected what you built and wanted to honor it—and you—appropriately. though i still find myself searching for the right words, you also taught me that sometimes, there's only one that matters. you made a living off of saying it twice, though. cypher cypher. i'll forever scream it loud for you my brother. i love you. until we meet again.

momma told me to speak like you got a college degree ok, inez

i'm the man in the city & they do what they can got some fam & they miss me, i'll come through when i land

if i would've known back then when i was playing cops and robbers that for the rest of my life i would be a target, i never would've started. elementary school out now.

so low that no more high horses, so hard to wear polo. when i do, i cut the pony off. now there’s a hole that once was a logo. how fitting

hoping to get a nibble of american pie equality's an arrogant lie told louder by the people that hold power

used to warm the house with the stove... if he made it out of the city, ain't no telling where my talent can go

there was a time america wouldn't let us ball. those times are now back, his name is @kaepernick7

4 your eyez, do you understand me? 📸: @hannah.griffinn

gotta thank pops too

gotta thank mom dukes