L.A. rapper Glasses Malone is prepping the release of his upcoming album Glasshouse 2 and has now shared the project's first cut, "Thuggin'," which features fellow Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar and explores the idea of black men being labeled as "thugs."
The track takes a page from K. Dot's To Pimp A Butterfly book and opens with vocals from Tupac Shakur, taken from a 1994 interview with the rapper, which took place outside a courthouse where he spoke out against being the scapegoat for multiple crimes and explained how the hood is an "every man for himself" type of world.
"I don't know how to be responsible for what every Black male did," Pac says. "I don't know. I guess I can say I'm a thug because I came from the gutter and I'm still here!"
Malone raps over a beat that features a sick Spanish guitar lick: "It's all about the Benjamins / N***a, f**k George Zimmerman / How it's pistol versus hand? / Take your whoopin' like a mothaf**kin' man / Pussy, damn, how hard can a kid hit? / And why them local rappers ain't did sh*t? / Lil Wayne said, 'F**k the Heat' / Same local rapper niggas wanted beef / Fun, brother versus brother / No hesitation when you face the same color / None, I'm sayin' what the f**k you n***as stand for? / Guess it's lost in the South, Jim Crow."
Lamar then takes the reigns for the third verse, in which he calls out the media, corporations and societal systems.
"Sometimes I look in the mirror and ask myself what I'm scared of / How dare the media portray me this way, I can hear the / Crowd screaming, the weirdest of chants, they all in my ear-a / Artist of era, role model I can't / It's like I'm a parrot, apparently I'm marking the dance," Lamar raps. "I seen done with the devil, such a ghetto romance / How many n***as fall victim, looking at you trapped in the system / Mentally they kept you in prison, and you won't get out, no one visit."
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