Released: June 28, 2010

Featuring: Punch

Songwriter: Ab-Soul Punch

Producer: Tae Beast

[Hook: Ab-Soul]
I've tried to do right
Seems as though the only way is selling my soul
It's getting hard out here
Does anybody feel me?
Cause I'm drowning in shame
Trying to maintain
Wide awake chasing my dreams
Is anybody out there?
Can anybody hear me?

[Verse 1: Ab-Soul]
Sometimes I gotta ask myself what do I do it for
Is it to cover up the fact I'm really insecure?
See music made it possible for me to be somebody
So if you had to say yourself
Is my intention pure?
Am I the next Shakur?
Or an attention whore?
Am I Big in his prime or am I premature
Does anybody feel me or am I too far to reach
Like the edge of the world, from Redondo beach
Some say I manifest destiny when I'm on these beats
Others say I ain't flashy enough to shine
You need a chain at least
And you can be more hood
You got niggas on both sides
You acting like you ain't good
Well you from Carson right
Ras Kass was tight
And you hot
But can you make another Soul on Ice
Everybody trynna tell me what I shouldn't and should
But will they still wanna chop it up when I go 'wood

[Hook: Ab-Soul]
I've tried to do right
Seems as though the only way is selling my soul
It's getting hard out here
Does anybody feel me?
Cause I'm drowning in shame
Trying to maintain
Wide awake chasing my dreams
Is anybody out there?
Can anybody hear me?

[Verse 2: Punch]
While niggas searching for a pot o' gold
I compose the God particle my heart is stone
Pumping cement through my veins
Taking everything for granted
Who can recognize my pain
Y'all niggas never did hear me
So I quit calling out to niggas
Let y'all deal with it, I figured
Why cast my pearls to swine
If you don't know about grapes
I couldn't tell you 'bout wine
I couldn't tell you 'bout these lines
They just hit me like rain
Without a cloud in the sky
On a summer's day
Ay, I guess it's how I was raised
Acquired knowledge, while my peers frolicked and played
My Prodigal Son ways, disrupting my coming of age
Future looking dim and Ab-Soul wear shades
I'd never cover my face
I look death in the eyes, I didn't blink one time
I never felt more alive than that day
But who's to say I'm different
And when I speak niggas scared they ain't listening
And that's beyond me
But I believe it's far more menacing
And the truth was stranger than fiction once reality get to kicking in
It's like the modern day Noah's Ark, they took no note
Their bad heart came back and bit them no their hope floats
That's why I'm fishing through a sea of niggas
They don't hear me and I don't see 'em niggas

[Hook: Ab-Soul]
I've tried to do right
Seems as though the only way is selling my soul
It's getting hard out here
Does anybody feel me?
Cause I'm drowning in shame
Trying to maintain
Wide awake chasing my dreams
Is anybody out there?
Can anybody hear me?

[Verse 3: Ab-Soul]
You see, it's like the Titanic scene
With the rescue boats
It's less dramatic in that
I can save y'all with quotes
I dropped the gym adrenaline accelerated my pulse
And I can say it's dope but what do I really know
Currently the word is that I'm too abstract
I can barely get my engineer to mix my tracks
I'm trynna provide you with facts
Trynna keep it real
But y'all not interested in that
You're more concerned with my appeal
You rather see me on YouTube, unconcealing the steel
Or on WorldStarHipHop, with diamonds in my wristwatch
Or a media take-out
Victim of a media stakeout
Cursing them out so bad
Most of my words were blanked out
I hate it when my name is mentioned with the same niggas
Who other than their DNA are the same niggas
They in the same circle, fuck the same bitches
Shake the same hands, man I'm trynna expand
For me it's gotta be to catch a flight back to Carson
I'mma need a passport for it
If you don't wanna hear me do your boy a favour
And press fast-forward, and listen to the emotion in the chorus
No this ain't a song outfit
But if it was, I wore it
Come from a different cloth, rippin' my bars
Pause
With my bare hands I can move the earth
Just cause I said it in my verse
That's the power of words
You may not ever get what I was trying to accomplish
I might not ever get to do a song with Jay
And hear him brag on Hot97 about how I'm so honest
I'm ready to throw in the towel like laundry day
But I feel as though I've reached the point of no return
Like an expired thirty day warranty
And I deserve to be the best artist you heard like cattle
And I put that on, Herb the 3rd
That's my word

Ab-Soul

Herbert Anthony Stevens IV (born February 23, 1987), better known by his stage name Ab-Soul, is an American hip hop recording artist from Carson, California, signed to Top Dawg Entertainment and Interscope Records. Stevens is best known as a member of hip hop supergroup Black Hippy, along with fellow West Coast rappers and label-mates Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, and ScHoolboy Q. He has so far released three independent studio albums under the label Top Dawg Entertainment, Longterm Mentality, Control System, and These Days, and one album jointly with Interscope, Do What Thou Wilt.